Local Authority Legal Teams Pursue ABS Model Amid Public Sector Cuts

Another year, another budget, and another debate about class. It was ever thus. But aside from ‘them working class lot’ with their bingo and beer, it appears that local authority legal teams are becoming more and more drawn towards privatization, such are the cuts being made to the public sector.

Rating: Medium

Tags: local, budget, abs, councils, operations

Oxford University Building a Business 2013/14: Protecting your ideas - intellectual property

This is a guest podcast from the Oxford University Building a Business Seminar Series. Ian Bingham, Senior Partner, IP Asset LLP, gives a talk for the Building a Business seminar series looking at intellectual property law and how new businesses can protect their ideas

Rating: Medium

Tags: guest, oxford, ip, intellectual property, seminar, business, operations

Data Should Inform, Not Shape, Decisions and Strategy

Sports and data was the theme of our last sports panel and it is also a topic that is gaining more and more coverage in both the business and the sporting world. Whether its the commercial data relating to sports, data relating to sports and gambling, or just data that can be used by sports teams and players to improve performance, it is clear that, as in other industries, data is infiltrating almost every aspect of the sporting world.

Rating: Medium

Tags: sport operations, data, strategy

Rise of the Freelance Lawyer

A report by an Ottawa industry analyst has confirmed a sentiment that has been bubbling across the global legal landscape - that of the emergence of the entrepreneur freelance lawyer. With outsourcing, automation and consultants already prominent in legal practice, a swarm of ‘freelance’ lawyers could potentially change the way in-house lawyers look for external counsel. Rather than going to your previous law firm, or traditional panel processes, GCs may instead be looking in new forms of freelance directories, virtual law firms or perhaps aspiring to the use of a new wave of celebratory entrepreneur lawyers.

Rating: Medium

Tags: recruitment, hr, legal, management, operations, law

Job Requirements: Recruiting In-House Lawyers

Behind each in-house lawyer appointment is someone doing the appointing, and while the company employer - whether that be a CEO, GC or anyone else in the company - has the greatest say over who will get the job, legal recruitment experts and companies have always been influential and useful. Increasingly, legal recruitment firms are looking at in-house as a particular niche they can exploit, as companies without the legal know-how of private practice seek guidance into the legal world. Mike Evers, who we interviewed earlier this year, is one such person, while Dimitri Mastrocola, a partner and leader of a Major, Lindsey & Africa, was interviewed last week by the Financial Times about legal recruitment.

Rating: Medium

Tags: recruitment, hr, legal, management, operations, law

Value through Proactive Prevention

‘Proactive Prevention’. It seems an odd concept the idea that prevention - the negation of something - is supposed to be something proactive. Yet this is the life and work of any decent in-house lawyer because, contrary to many lawyers working in private practice, the job is to prevent litigation and legal difficulties in need of rectification, rather than to live of it. The negation of the life supply of private practice work from your client is the purpose of an in-house lawyer’s responsibility because he or she is hired to reduce legal costs but at the same time protect the company.

Rating: Medium

Tags: management, legal, operations, law, risk, prevention

GCRC Sports Panel - Social Media

In the fifth of the series of articles based on the discussions held at the first GCRC Sports Panel last month, we will be looking into how in-house lawyers manage the use of social media in their organisations. The discussion mostly focussed on whether an organisation’s guidelines or rules focussing on social media should be prescriptive or more like advice. Karena Vleck, Head of Legal and Governance at the RFU, and GCRC Sports Panel Chairperson, noted that the RFU’s social media policy is intended to be more advisory.

Rating: Medium

Tags: social media, legal, in-house, law, lawyers, sport, panel, discussion