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AT THE TABLE
In This Issue
VOLUME 30, NUMBER 3
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CORPORATE COUNSEL BUSINESS
JOURNAL (ISSN: 1073-3000), 2022 Summer Edition, volume 30, number 3. Published quarterly by Law Business Media, 104 Old Kings Hwy N, Darien, CT 06820. Subscription price: $110 a year. Periodical postage paid at Darien, CT, and additional mailing offices. The material in this publication contains general information, is not intended to provide legal advice and should not be relied on to govern action in particular circumstances. The sources of material contained in this publication are responsible for such material, and any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the source. AT THE TABLE 2
Make Your Time Count
Kristin Calve
FRONT 7
PULSE 13
13 Mastering Interpersonal Communication
Is One of the Keys to Success
Neil Belloff 17 Four Ways to Respond to Today’s
Supply Chain Disruptions
Tiffany Presley 20 Reading and Writing
the Neurodiversity Playbook
Anthony Pacilio
IDEAS 25
25 The Path to Success is Not
Always a Straight Line
Elizabeth Columbo 30 Microsoft 365 as a Knowledge
Management System for
Legal Executives
Keith Vallely 32 Data Science Center Tames
Big Data Projects
Greg Negus
Contract Lifecycle Management 37
37 An Independence Day Celebration
of Contract Lifecycle Management
Dave Parks 39 Top Tips for a Successful Contract
Lifecycle Management Roll Out
Dave Parks 41 Leading Law Departments:
Contracts, Contracts, Contracts
Joe Calve 42 Contract Management 3.0
Mark Nastasi
Make Your Time Count
David Moreno discusses his experiences thus far with Blank Rome, including what led him to join the firm, as well as how cultivating relationships will bear “abundant fruit”.
CCBJ: David, talk to us about what led you to join Blank Rome.
David Moreno: I’ve been aware of Blank Rome’s industry reputation for years, and I’ve had the good fortune over my legal career to work with various Blank Rome partners in different capacities, either as co-counsel or on the other side of transactions. And it was always the sentiment of those with whom I’ve interacted that the firm is incredibly team-oriented and collegial, and that they have enjoyed their firm’s strong platform. So that was really attractive to me. In changing from Brown Rudnick to Blank Rome, I was really trying to find my long-term BigLaw home. One of the things I was looking for was a commitment to DE&I. Being a partner of color, it’s obviously something I have to think about because organizations that are committed to that will not only make the environment better for me—helping me to really “lift while I climb”—but will also help usher in future generations of diverse attorneys.
I also saw Blank Rome as a great national platform to serve my current clients. Having offices in key markets across the country is particularly beneficial. The firm also offers a wide range of service offerings and established practices that will help me expand upon relationships that that have been warm for years, but that I haven’t yet converted into business relationships as I haven’t historically worked in some of those practice areas. I’m a firm believer in crossselling and getting to know your partners, and one of the biggest attractions for me—and to BigLaw generally, even before I got to Blank Rome—is: Can I provide more value to the folks in my circle and their circle? Obviously the bigger the firm is—the more offerings and practice areas it has at a high level—the easier it makes my job in terms of just trying to add value. How would you describe your leadership style and what brought you to that?
My leadership style is really, really focused on personal relationships. For me to lead effectively, establishing strong personal relationships is critical. We all have heard Maya Angelou’s quote a billion times: ‘"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”.’ That’s something that’s been particularly important to me as a leader. If you take time to get to know people on a personal level, they truly appreciate that, and it inspires them to really go to bat for you, to be engaged, to want to work with you. The other
reason I like to get to know folks is it gives me information that can be useful when assigning work or building a team. It helps me put folks in spaces where they, (a) have a competency, but also (b) have an interest. And the stats and studies have shown us that we are more successful when working in fields and on tasks that we personally enjoy and are enthused by.
While a number of people have contributed to helping me craft my leadership style—having competed in sports at a high level in college under the leadership of strong coaches as well as serving as a prosecutor early in my career where great mentors were incredibly useful during high-stakes litigations—when it really comes down to it, it was my grandma who inspired me the most. My grandmother was the foundational piece for my life-long focus on getting to know people, being of service, being kind, treating people the way that one wants to be treated, and establishing meaningful relationships. She was someone who, after she passed, I realized how many different folks, from the janitor at her church to a doctor at the hospital she worked at, were impacted by her love and kindness.
That to me just was a great sort of full-circle testament to how she lived her life and who I strive to be. And I think it’s been helpful to my practice as well. I’ve been able to establish a role as a trusted advisor to so many organizations and individuals. And I feel a lot of that has stemmed from building these meaningful relationships and knowing what inspires people, what drives them, and what’s important to them. That’s been critical to my career.
Speaking of relationships, what qualities do you look for when you’re hiring new people into your team, or working in relationship development? First and foremost, you need someone who is competent in the role that you’re hiring them for. But people can differentiate themselves by having great skills in terms of (a) being a part of a team and (b) being able to work towards the big picture, even if their involvement is limited to a singular task. Also important is a low ego. I’ve seen, both in my career and in my personal life, that people who have a low ego (but high confidence) are able to put their own needs aside to help advance the needs of an organization. So competency, low ego/high confidence, an ability to work well with others, and I’ll add one more: a defined value system that they live their life by. It could be two or three core tenets that dictate how they act in certain situations. It’s important for me to dig into what folks’ values are because when confronted with difficult decisions, if their values are in line with my organization or my personal values, if they have a strong moral compass, they’re going to make the right decision when left to their own devices. So those are the things that I would look for when hiring for my team.
I know that you’re fairly new to Blank Rome, but what was the draw and how would you describe the culture?
My understanding of the firm’s positive culture, from the outside, was certainly a draw. And now that I’m here as a partner, my initial impression is even more favorable. It took me almost two days to respond to all of the messages saying not just “welcome to the firm” but “welcome to the firm; my name is X. I do Y. And if you need any help navigating the firm, or just want to chat, I’d love to get to know you.” I’m talking over 200 messages from partners, associates, and staff alike, welcoming me to the firm. Astonishing, really, given the culture of the legal industry and how busy we all are, how folks were sending these messages from airplanes or as they’re walking into court. It was just so meaningful, so touching. It makes you feel so welcome, so important, so valued. That’s a killer first impression.
What career advice would you offer others in the profession, whether they’re attorneys or business professionals?
What I would tell you and everyone, no matter the role— lawyer, doctor, engineer, janitor, etc.—is to be a student of your calendar. We all focus on doing a good job by spending more time, but we don’t spend enough time analyzing how to be efficient with our time. Being a student of your calendar means looking at it daily with an eye towards productivity and accessibility, because the former is often at the expense of the latter, and when you’re not accessible, you’re not top of mind when new opportunities arise because you’re off in a corner or a silo somewhere working on your craft—which is important, but so is accessibility. So look at your calendar daily and critically, and focus on the white spaces and what you can be doing daily to get where you want to go. The other thing I would say—and this is advice that was given to me early in my career and is especially apropos to lawyers—is to be flexible. Don’t pigeonhole yourself. You can handle a range of different things. Also, and this next piece of advice is probably going to sound counterintuitive because of what I just said, but it’s important to establish one’s credibility and competency in one space and be an expert in your field. That said, as my bio shows, I’ve done a wide range of things as a lawyer in different practice areas and with different sorts of clients in a number of different roles, investigations, trials, serving as a trusted advisor, managing transactions, et cetera. But the reason I was able to do all that is because initially, right after leaving the DA’s office, I set about making a name for myself as an expert trial lawyer in criminal court.
That’s what led to athletes and sports agencies hiring me to handle their litigations. And once that circle saw me as an industry expert in their space, the inquiries became, “Hey, I’ve got this arbitration against my league. Can you help me with that?" And then I was able to establish competency there. I looked at every single situation, one by one by one, as an opportunity to establish my credibility and my competency. Now, even though I do all these different things, if you ask 20 different people, you will get 20 different responses: David’s an expert in trials. David’s an expert in white collar. David’s an expert in criminal affairs. David’s an expert in guiding an athlete through an endorsement deal. Because I took the time to strategically establish my credibility in each one of these spaces.
When I talk to my in-house executives, they want somebody who really knows their regulatory landscape or operational challenges. It’s not enough that you know employment law, you have to know employment law the way it cuts for sports organizations with unions.
What changes would you like to see within the legal industry?
We touched on it a little bit before but I’m going to come back to diversity and equity in this space, especially when we look critically at leadership at the highest levels. As a profession, we still have a ways to go to be more inclusive. I’ve tried to be an ally and to help as much as possible with regards to attracting and, more importantly, retaining diverse talent. We’ve already seen such a shift, particularly in tech and in other spaces where diversity is really valued. And many clients are choosing law firms that better align with their values. What they’re looking at is a departure from the traditional BigLaw landscape, which historically has been dominated by white males. We now need to make the legal profession one where women and people of color and marginalized communities are elevated to roles of senior responsibility and where their visibility can be inspiring to younger generations. The power of seeing folks in those roles is just so inspiring.
So that’s one change I’d love to see, and it’s something I’m committed to. And if I can help anybody with that— including anybody who’s reading this—I’m happy to talk to them and give them some tools and guidance that I’ve used to navigate a number of different spaces and personal experiences. For example, early on in my career when I was prosecutor, I was routinely mistaken for the defendant or wasn’t let into the building because security didn’t believe this Black man was an actual prosecutor. I developed tough skin and a calloused mind to successfully navigate these situations. And I can use these experiences to hopefully make it better for the next person.
Another change I’d like to see in the profession generally goes to the fact that too many people have to make the tough choice between having a successful personal life and a successful professional life. I’d love to see a shift in time equity—for young lawyers, especially—where their focus on being successful in their career doesn’t come at the expense of building a successful personal life. And I think that reevaluation is already underway as companies look ahead to life after the pandemic, time spent commuting, and those sorts of things.
So those are the two things I think our industry can really benefit from, and they’re issues that a number of different industries are grappling with.
NETWORK
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EXHIBIT A
EXPERTISE Matters.
Front
“So, here is the catch,” says Alistair Griffin, KPMG’s head of tech in Australia. “Everyone is telling inhouse legal teams to change (usually via the use of new technology), yet to do that effectively they need to collect data first on how they work, but they don’t have the systems in place to do that, hence it’s a Catch-22 challenge.” Unlike most Catch 22 situations, however, this one has a solution – a highly structured assessment process that allows the Big Four firm to help inhouse legal teams get the “lay of the land” before attempting to fix anything by throwing a CLM, or other tech solution, at the problems (which are not fully understood . . . as there is insufficient information to describe them).”
According to KPMG, they have been working hard with clients to break the cycle. They just may have done it. It’s called the “Legal Function Assessment Suite” (LFAS), which is designed to deliver enough data to help legal teams with user-friendly transformation. “Our hybrid approach combines automated intelligence with human specialists to deliver results smarter, easier, and faster than traditional consulting alone," Griffin explains.
This approach grew out of KPMG’S Legal Operations and Transformation Services (LOTS) group, and it’s interesting that they aren’t keeping their approach just in Australia. So just what does KPMG have up its sleeve? Basically, the LFAS consists of a set of tools that includes:
• Target Operating Model (TOM) Diagnostic – gathering perceptions from across legal and the organization against the pillars of the TOM including people, functional process, service delivery mode, performance data and insights, technology and governance.
• Legal Activity Estimator – to understand how legal spend their day (without relying on timesheets), including where demand is coming from and the most common activities.
• Maturity and Benchmarking Analysis – assess your performance against best practice and uncover findings hidden across the legal team
• Roadmap of Recommendations – insights-backed decisions on what to focus on, how to prioritize initiatives, and the data to build the case for change.
Commenting on the offering, Jason McQuillen, the Head of LOTS, says: “We’re seeing inhouse legal teams really embrace the challenge of changing their ways of working to meet increasing demand. But for many, they are unable to make the business case for the tools they really need or are otherwise going in blind. That’s because they don’t have objective data on the cost and value of their activities.”
A NEWSLETTER FOR EVERY PROFESSIONAL!
PinHawk
Tuesday, April 19, 2022 | Volume 21, Issue 334 PinHawk
Tuesday, May 24, 2022 | Volume 10 Issue 358
LAW TECHNOLOGY DIGEST
DAILY
Top News | Legal Administrator Daily | Law Firm News & Press | Employment Publications | News | Technology | Blogs | Employment
Law Technology Digest Law Firm Ops (FKA Legal Administrator Daily)
One jurisdiction to rule them all?
Bob Ambrogi is working even when he's on vacation. According to Bob,
"The Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers is urging the ABA to adopt a new version of Model Rule 5.5 that would eliminate the traditional state-based limitation on law practice, by which lawyers can practice only in the states in which they are admitted. " This is a very interesting proposal! The potential cascades to the elimination of state jurisdictional boundaries are significant. I have to say that my eye was drawn to the page title in Microsoft Edge, "APRL FOL proposal for revised Model Rule 5 point 5" but it's too late to be a joke (a good one anyway). My initial reaction is it will be dead on arrival. What do you think? Read more at LawSites: Breaking: National Group of Professional Responsibility Lawyers Calls on ABA to Eliminate Geographic Restrictions on Law Practice
PinHawk Monday, June 20, 2022 | Volume 21 No. 379
Not to code or not to code? That is the question?
Top News | Publications | US Firm News | International Firm News | Vendor News There are some people who are huge fans of the low-code, no-code approach to things. In theory it democratizes the power of apps. But governance, trust, security, visibility and knowledge and awareness are all reasons to be very concerned. To understand how they can potentially be addressed, be sure to read more at DARKReading: Why So Many Security Experts Are Concerned About Low-Code/No-Code Apps Law Firm News and Press
UPCOMING EVENTS
PinHawk
The CLIO List of the Best Conferences for Lawyers
The CLOC Calendar of Events
The Lawyerist List of the best legal conferences of 2022
ABA Annual and Midyear Meetings Calendar Chicago
LSSO Global Sales Summit June 8-9, 2022 in Boston
Calendar Listings are FREE Send your link for event posting HERE!
MUST READ
Thursday, June 2, 2022 | Volume 3 No. 70• HR: Sick Days and Work From Home Does working from home eliminate sick days? I suggest the answer is .. 'it depends'. This article discusses the question...
• BOL: Self Service Robo-Lawyer This promotional article - thanks to Neota - discusses the question of self service applications for clients. Do you offer 24-7 service where appropriate (transactional Q&A for example) or do you always insist that lawyer advice comes from a human? Read about it here.
• TechLAW: Technology in Legal - a Retrospective Will we ever become a technology-driven industry of legal professionals? Read about it here.
Joe Calve, Editor
Connect with me on LinkedIn Follow me on Twitter Follow PinHawk on Twitter Leading Law Departments Visit PinHawk.com
COMING SOON: Crypto, ESG, HR & Immigration Tuesday Fun Facts NOT A SUBSCRIBER? SUBSCRIBE TODAY! If you’re interested in sponsoring newsletters, banners or special sections, please email jconiglio@ccbjournal.com
It would seem that 80.34% of us are happy with Windows 10. According to the numbers from Lansweeper, just 1.44% of PCs are running Windows 11. That's lower than Windows XP (which launched in 2001 and had its support ended in 2014) at 1.71%, Windows 7 at 4.7% and Windows 8 at 1.99%! Author, Tom Jowitt, finds some humor in all this noting, "At least it is beating Vista!" To learn why the adoption of Windows 11 so slow, read more at Silicon uk: Windows XP Still More Widely Used Than Windows 11, Says Lansweeper
Jeffrey Brandt, Editor
Connect with me on LinkedIn Jeffrey Brandt Follow me on Twitter @jeffrey_ brandt Follow PinHawk on Twitter @PinHawkHappens Website: PinHawk.com
TOP NEWS
Law Firm Mergers and New Offices
1. Holland & Knight gets new LA office by absorbing real estate law firm -
Reuters.com (Thompson & Knight), June 17, 2022 2. Winston & Strawn begins new office build-out in popular Miami market -
Reuters (McDermott Will), June 17, 2022
Big Deals
1. EnCap Investments, L.P. and Double Eagle Energy Announce Formation of
Double Eagle Energy Holdings IV with Over $1.7 Billion of Equity Committed - Business Wire (Akin Gump; Vinson & Elkins), June 19, 2022 2. KAR Global Completes Sale of ADESA US Physical Auction Business to
Carvana - GuruFocus.com (Skadden Arps), June 19, 2022 3. Eve Holding, Inc. Announces Completion of Business Combination
Between Zanite Acquisition Corp. and EVE UAM, LLC - GuruFocus.com
Affiliations: (Skadden Arps), June 18, 2022
ILTA Strate4. Permiragic Partner LiaCompletes isons - NetDocAcquisition umentsof Mimecast - GuruFocus.com (Goodwin
Judge, Litera ChangingProcter; Fried Frank), Lawyer Awards 20June 18, 2022 21 5. Meta Materials (MMAT) Acquires Assets of Optodot for $48.5M -
StreetInsider.com (Wilson Sonsini; Mintz Levin), June 18, 2022 6. JATT Acquisition Corp. and Zura Bio Limited Announce Definitive
STAY UP TO DATE Business Combination Agreement to Create NYSE Listed Biotechnology
Company - BioSpace (McDermott Will; Paul Hastings), June 17, 2022 PinHawk offers a variety of Newsletters
Attorney Moves which cover many different topics in 1. Reed Smith adds seasoned finance u002 fields of interest. Visit our website to 6 tax partner Todd Anderson in
New York Reed Smith, June 17, 2022 explore all that PinHawk has to offer! 2. Donna Gordon & Tobar Joins Gordon Rees, June 17, 2022 & Rees as Part LEARN MORE ner in Orange County Office 3. Paul Hastings poaches London PE partner from rival US law firm Morgan
Lewis - Private Equity News (Paul Hastings), June 17, 2022 4. McDermott Picks Up Pair of Healthcare Lawyers in Burke, Perling -
Bloomberg Law (Dentons), June 17, 2022 5. Cleary Gottlieb hires HSF's former German managing partner - The Global
Legal Post (Cleary Gottlieb), June 17, 2022
Affiliations:
ILTA Strategic Partner Liaisons - NetDocuments
Judge, Litera Changing Lawyer Awards 2021
Rise in Complexity Gives Corporate Counsel the Willies
In this piece in ELM Solutions, Cristina Faherty, anSTAY U AP ccount ExecTO DATE utive at CT
Corporation, discusses five tactics in-house counsel canPinHawk offersuse toa varieaddress theirty of Newsletters most pressing concerns, which include: regulatory uncertainty and the which cover many different topics in emergence of complex global challenges; budgetary constraints, which are a fields of interest. Visit our website to perennial concern, by optimizing outside spendexplor and overall departme all that PinHawk hasentotoffer! efficiency, without sacrificing the quality of work produced; and handling the increasing complexity of many issues, which can overwhelLEARN MORE m some departments.
Here are five tactics that corporate legal counsel teams can use to address these concerns: 1. Leverage technology to improve law department efficiency 2. Control costs via strategic outsourcing 3. Focus on legal operations 4. Mitigate cybersecurity and data privacy risks PUBLICATIONS 5. Seek out trainiTOP NEWS ng and updates on regulatory change 1. Will Remote Work Kill the Sick Day? EntertainHR, May 24, 2022 "Law departments can2. Mini-Robolawyers? striveThe Ritose improveof Sellinggovernance, risk, andSelf-Service Solutions coto mplianceLaw Firm (GRC) capabilities by followinClients Artificial Lawyer, Mayg best24, 20pract22 ices outlined in the Open
Compliance and Ethics Group (OCEG) GRC Capability Model, "3. FromCounsel + Clarilis ’ s Legal Content / Doc Auto PartnershiF paherty Grows writes. "The GRC Capability Model is the first open-source standard that integrates the various sub-disciplines of governance, risk, audit, compliance, ethics/culture, and IT into a unified approach. It can be used to address a range of situations from small projects to organization-wide rollouts, as well Artificial Lawyer, May 24, 2022 4. Monday, May 23,2022 - Things Picked Up Quite A Bit Law and More, May 23, 2022 5. The Minnesota Method Explained Lucidea, May 23, 2022 as a variety of subject areas from anti-corruption, business continuity, and third-party management." MORE
Read more below at ELM Solutions Expert Insights.
The GC as Disruption Risk Guide
In today’s tumultuous times, marked by a global pandemic, economic volatility, social unrest, climate change and more, corporate law departments face relentless disruption requiring incredible organizational resilience. “But organizational resilience,” writes Stephanie Quaranta, VP of Legal & Compliance Research for Gartner, “isn’t just the ability to adapt to change. [I]t’s the ability to resist, absorb, recover and adapt – over and over again.” According to Gartner’s research, such organizations evince three characteristics:
• Responsive risk management • Dynamic cultures • Flexible structures
What does that mean for GCs already crushed by day-to-day legal work and business responsibilities? Gartner’s report, “The Future of Legal: Six Shifts GC Must Make by 2025,” does a good job of laying out both the challenges and the opportunities. “Many GC have already evolved from chief lawyer to strategic business partner – and must now evolve again to act as the organization’s disruption risk guide,” which requires six shifts, illustrated below, in their legal operating model.
Why it matters
What work you do
Enabling capabilities
Briefly
AAA® Announces Chief Justice Bridget M. McCormack as New President and CEO Daniel L. Stein joins Weil as Co-Head of White Collar Practice in New York Ron Markezich Appointed Chief Executive Officer of
Lighthouse
US Tax partner Kevin Colan joins Americas practice at
Clifford Chance
Leading Leveraged Finance and Private Equity Partner Andrew Sagor joins Akin Gump in New York Michael Nutter & Merritt Westcott Bolster Life Sciences Patent Litigation Team at McGuireWoods DISCO Welcomes New Chief Marketing Officer and Vice President of Product Strategy Tom Furr and Katie
DeBord
Mitratech Acquires Talent Management Platform TalentReef Clifford Chance appoints new Chief Operating Officer
Gavin Goodwin
Epiq Announces Leadership Promotions in its Class Action, Mass Tort, and Remediation Services Division Former White House Senior Advisor Trey Baker Joins
Barnes & Thornburg
McGuireWoods Wins Patent Infringement Trial for Belvac Production Machinery Clifford Chance advises Galileo Technologies Corporation on multijurisdiction senior secured credit facility
