Today's General Counsel, December 2022

Law can be a messy business, but corporate law departments need to run like a well-oiled machine. That was true long before legal technology was developed. However, anyone who’s participated in civil litigation will attest that the contrast is starker now. Attorneys obfus cate, stall and circumlocute in the zealous representation of their client. Nevertheless, their arguments have to be grounded in fact, and judges tend to accept documentation by technologies such as e-discovery, document review and contract management software as factual. A department that lacks these tools is at a disadvantage in litigation, as well as the tasks of in-house legal management.

In this issue of Today’s General Counsel we’re publishing articles that highlight ways to streamline your depart ment’s operations using technology. Don McLaughlin makes a case for evaluating service providers’ use of document review tools as a benchmark for employing them. John Stambelos and Erik Rasmussen highlight the General Counsel’s duty to guide IT security. Other articles discuss how to present the argument for contract management software, and how to assess the department’s technological requirements. Additionally, placement specialist Thanh Nguyen devotes her column to why successful General Counsel should address the problem of succession, and Christopher Casey and his colleagues caution corporate departments regarding the DOJ’s threat to bring criminal charges for violations of Section 2 of the Sherman Act.

Bob Nienhouse, Editor-In-Chief, bnienhouse@TodaysGC.com