Our March issue shows just why MCC readers have been so loyal for so long. Where else can you find interviews and articles as relentlessly relevant to today’s corporate law department? Nowhere.
A good example is this month’s cover interview featuring Orrick partner Wendy Butler Curtis and iDiscovery Solutions director Jennifer A. Brennan discussing how the newly amended federal rules are playing out where it matters – in the litigation trenches (p. 21). We also showcase a terrific piece by Tom Antisdel and Tarek Ghalayini of AlixPartners on playing the long game with e-discovery in Asia (p. 27), which anchors our special section on China, featuring insights from regular contributors Akin Gump, Acritas and Clifford Chance.
In this issue, we debut a new column: Lloyd M. Johnson Jr. of Chief Legal Executive writes about the evolution of the GC role – from map follower to mapmaker (p. 35). This joins the latest installments of three other columns: Fragomen’s “Immigration Compass” (p. 9), “Information Governance Insights” from AlixPartners (p. 13) and our own “Civil Justice Playbook,” which provides an in-depth examination – compiled with a massive assist from the Washington Legal Foundation – of the impact Antonin Scalia’s death will have, and indeed is already having, on business issues and cases before the high court (p. 40).
Our sector focus this issue is on commercial banking, which includes two fascinating interviews: Joy Barrist, a real estate finance specialist, talks about her work and her leadership of Bensch’s Women’s Initiative (p. 23), and McCarter & English’s Veronica H. Montagna explains why the more lending changes, the more it stays the same (p. 24).
As usual, we touch on many areas of constant concern to in-house counsel. These include Baker Tilly’s take on how regulators are turning up the heat on chief compliance officers (p. 7); Jones Day on the Department of Labor’s broadening view of labor relations (p. 8); Fish & Richardson on thwarting copycats to safeguard brand equity (p. 10); McNees on using IP to light the path to market for medical device makers (p. 12); Marks Paneth on why foreign real estate investors must focus on FIRPTA (p. 14); and two great interviews on different aspects of discovery, the first with Margaret Shaw Lilani of UBIC on why consistent innovation will separate the leaders from the also-rans in e-discovery
(p. 16), and the second featuring the well-oiled machine assembled by Oklahoma’s Hilgers Graben, which in partnership with Inventus seems to have discovered the secret formula behind effective and efficient e-discovery (p. 19).
Our popular In-House Ops section features Greg McPolin of Thomson Reuters Legal Managed Services exploring what lawyers want from the next generation of e-discovery technology (p. 36); the latest from Rees Morrison of Altman Weil, who offers up tools to help fend off objections to the use of data analytics (p. 37); Jake Frazier of FTI Consulting on how to score quick wins with hands-on information governance (p.38); and finally, a look at Richard Susskind’s new book, “The Future of the Professions,” in which he and his son and co-author, Daniel, explain why they think Atticus Finch is toast (p. 40).
Finally, in our efforts to continue to serve you and your legal department, we are pleased to announce our new in-house jobs board at www.metrocorpcounsel.com. Please email [email protected] to have your open positions listed on our site at no charge.
Please keep your comments and suggestions coming in. We appreciate your input and support.
Published March 7, 2016.