The New GC Toolkit: Hired help – bringing new skills to legal teams

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The New GC Toolkit: Hired help – bringing new skills to legal teams

‘A good general counsel (GC) should do three things,’ says National Grid’s Alison Kay: ‘Manage the legal requirements of the business, manage their people and manage their budget.’ But as managing the legal requirements of a large business becomes more time consuming, GCs are increasingly finding it difficult to pay adequate attention to costs and …

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The New GC Toolkit: The innovation illusion

Posted on | In-House Insight Insight & Roundtables |
The New GC Toolkit: The innovation illusion

‘There’s a palpable sense of innovation in the legal industry,’ says Casey Flaherty, founder of legal technology consultancy Procertas. ‘But then,’ he adds, ‘there always has been.’ While heads of innovation are now an established part of the law firm landscape – among the better-known names in this rapidly expanding sub-profession of business development are …

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The New GC Toolkit: The discerning customer – smarter procurement

Posted on | In-House Insight Insight & Roundtables |
The New GC Toolkit: The discerning customer – smarter procurement

  In-house teams are using new techniques and recruiting specialists to take a more sophisticated approach to procuring legal services In April last year, US-based tech services provider DXC Technology was formed following the merger of The Hewlett-Packard Company’s enterprise division with Computer Sciences Corporation. It was the ideal opportunity for general counsel (GC) Bill …

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The New GC Toolkit: Journey into the unknown – upgrading operations and tech

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The New GC Toolkit: Journey into the unknown – upgrading operations and tech

For general counsel (GCs) struggling to manage the administrative and regulatory burdens of the role, a head of operations has become the must-have accessory. In the US, the growth of legal ops is demonstrated by statistics. A recent Association of Corporate Counsel survey suggests that nearly half of all GCs in the US have appointed …

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Disruptive tech: Riding Schumpeter’s gale

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Disruptive tech: Riding Schumpeter’s gale

Storyteller. Ninja. Scrum Master. Brand Champion. Evangelist. The modern commercial world has created many new genres of work, but sometimes it is hard to know what they mean. As the London School of Economics’ headline-grabbing anthropologist David Graeber once wrote: ‘It’s as if someone were out there making up pointless jobs just for the sake …

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International Arbitration Insight: Bigger, longer, more complicated

Posted on | Analysis Disputes Yearbook 2018 Insight Insight & Roundtables |
International Arbitration Insight: Bigger, longer, more complicated

‘Arbitration has gone from being the exotic bird of dispute resolution to become almost the norm,’ argues Constantine Partasides of Three Crowns (3C). The appearance of boutiques such as 3C and Hanotiau & van den Berg is itself a sign of arbitration’s entry into the mainstream. It is tempting to consider parallels with the US-based …

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Forming, storming, norming and performing

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Forming, storming, norming and performing

What makes a great corporate legal team? It is a question general counsel (GCs) surprisingly often struggle to answer. This lack of familiarity with the stock definitions of management theory should not be interpreted as a sign of operational incompetence, though. ‘The most common attribute any company looks for when hiring a GC is the …

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Evolutionary forces – US body for legal ops hits Europe as new breed of client emerges

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Evolutionary forces – US body for legal ops hits Europe as new breed of client emerges

Disruption looms as James Wood reports on first European conference for CLOC Richard Susskind must have lost count of the number of times he has spoken about the future of law, but in his introductory remarks to the 2018 CLOC EMEA Institute gathering in London he seemed cheerfully off balance. Many of the concepts Susskind …

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Client Intelligence Report: Data view – Who provides better service among the world’s elite – US or UK law firms?

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Client Intelligence Report: Data view – Who provides better service among the world’s elite – US or UK law firms?

The chart below illustrates the overall key performance indicator (KPI) scores as defined by the Client Intelligence Report (www.clientintelligencereport.com), for 30 of the largest law firms in the world by size. The overall KPI ratings show US firms are significantly outperforming their UK counterparts when it comes to client reviews. Of the 15 firms listed here, all but four …

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Education, education, education – the struggle to find quality GC training

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Education, education, education – the struggle to find quality GC training

Speaking at the Westminster Legal Policy Forum recently, renowned industry futurologist Richard Susskind accused the UK’s law schools of being stuck in the 1970s, preparing graduates to undertake work that will become increasingly uncommon while failing to train aspiring solicitors in the new technologies that will replace much of the work lawyers now do. He …

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