Let me first wish the MCC community – readers, contributors, partners and friends – a healthy and happy holiday season. We purchased MCC not much more than a year ago from its founders, Al and Martha Driver, and we have thoroughly enjoyed working with you.
Al, the former General Counsel of JCPenney, launched Metropolitan Corporate Counsel 23 years ago as a second career and a labor of love. His mission was to serve his former in-house colleagues by rallying a network of supporters among elite law firms, academics, consultants and service providers. He succeeded by developing a sophisticated
approach to content marketing that struck a chord with law firms and many others eager to engage with the growing in-house community. His goal was not to make money; his goal was to have an impact.
We have tried hard to build on Al and Martha’s foundation. We completely redesigned the publication to make it easier to read and to offer a better environment for the thought leadership our readers prize. We accelerated our social media marketing, including entering into an alliance with Good2BSocial, a leader in the field. We deepened our content by adding In-House Ops, a section devoted to running a modern law department. And we launched Civil Justice Playbook to carry forward Al’s passion for keeping GCs, board members and corporate executives informed on civil justice reform and the many other issues and policies affecting their companies.
We are especially proud of our December issue as it exemplifies the approach we’ve taken and the progress we’ve made. We expanded Civil Justice Playbook in recognition of the most momentous changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in decades (p.31). The balance of the issue is packed with interviews, articles, surveys and infographics that reflect the variety of interests and concerns that define today’s in-house lawyer. It includes: building a value-based relationship with outside IP litigation counsel (p.29), lessons from the boardroom on cybersecurity (p.8), an interview with the first in-house lawyer to lead DRI (p.15), Jones Day motoring into Detroit (p.6), how courts are lowering the bar for data breach litigation (p.10), the SEC’s renewed focuses on financial accounting fraud (p.18), why the NLRA is not just for union shops (p.28); easing corporate immigration in a hostile climate (p.26), the EPA’s take on solid waste (p.21), special reports on Innovation & Startups (p.39) and Tax Law (p.45), garnering in-house insurance coverage (p.49), the slow road to diversity in Fortune 500 law departments (p.58), adopting a data-centric approach to data security (p.54), a new file format for modern e-discovery (p.52), a legal technologist’s view of proportionality (p.56), corporate counsel’s surging regulatory caseload (p.11), valuing oil & gas assets in the ground (p.12), not-so-automatic stays in bankruptcy (p. 17), how the SEC is easing they way on crowdfunding (p.16), and much more.
We hope you enjoy the issue. Please let us know what you think and what we can do to better serve you in the year ahead.
Have a peaceful and prosperous New Year!
Published December 3, 2015.