EDITOR’S DESK

EDITOR’S DESK

Democracy may be threatened everywhere else, but it’s still doing well at annual meetings and other venues where corporate shareholders make their policy preferences heard. In the U.S, activists have been filing so-called “green-washing” suits — ESG-based shareholder derivative actions taken when a corporation’s actions don’t match up with its words with respect to carbon footprint and other climate-related risks. In this issue of Today’s General Counsel, Ken Crutchfield is interviewed about the role corporate counsel play in their company’s ESG policies, and the use of data to assess the risk of litigation that green-washing poses.

How best to automate contract management is the subject of Diane Homolak’s article. Her advice: Put the “process” first. Think about the end state you want, then reverse engineer a solution. In an interview, Praful Saklani talks about managing the strategic information that contracts continue to yield after they’re signed. Columnist Andrea Bricca writes about the importance of communication skills in making general counsel effective leaders, and Dean Rocco discusses the conflict between mandating drug-free workplace policies and many states’ legalization of adult marijuana use.

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