The Corporate Counsel Committee of the American Bar Association’s Business Law Section is presenting a CLE program at the Business Law Section’s Annual Meeting. The program is co-sponsored by 26 additional Committees of the Business Law Section. The program is entitled “How to Maximize the Value and Reduce the Cost of Corporate Legal Services” and it is scheduled for Friday, September 13, 2019 from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Washington, D.C.
At the program, ten General Counsel of major corporations, the CEO of the Association of Corporate Counsel, and the President of a legal placement firm will provide practical advice and strategies. This program is designed to help business lawyers do their jobs better and faster. The program will focus on improving the quality and maximizing the value of legal services for corporate clients. The panelists will engage in a candid discussion about how in-house counsel and law firms can build strong client relationships while enhancing their corporate clients’ bottom line. The program will identify significant challenges which delivery of corporate legal services presents and will show business lawyers how to select and implement value maximizing strategies which address those challenges as effectively as possible. The format for the program will be two 60 minute interactive panel discussions in which the panelists will respond to questions from the moderator. This format is intended to encourage a lively give and take among the panelists, the moderator, and the audience.
The Chair of this program is Robert L. Haig of Kelley Drye & Warren LLP in New York. The panelists include the following General Counsel of major corporations:
- Robert E. Bostrom, Executive Vice President, Chief Legal and Compliance Officer and Corporate Secretary, Pier 1 Imports, Inc.;
- Matthew W. Cooper, General Counsel, Capital One Financial Corporation;
- Gregory S. Gallopoulos, Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, General Dynamics Corporation;
- Phyllis Harris, General Counsel, American Red Cross;
- Jerald S. Howe, Jr., Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Leidos Holdings, Inc.;
- Kathryn Kyle, Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings;
- Curtis P. Lu, General Counsel, FTI Consulting, Inc.;
- Eric M. Margolin, Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, CarMax, Inc.;
- Veta T. Richardson, President and CEO, Association of Corporate Counsel;
- Shana C. Smith, Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, NII Holdings, Inc.;
- Stergios Theologides, Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary, Federal National Mortgage Association; and
- Mary B. Winter, President and General Counsel, Firm Advice, Inc.
The first session of this program is “Managing and Controlling Cost.” This session will focus on how in-house and outside counsel can assist their corporate client in staffing and managing legal matters cost-effectively. Topics will include pricing trends within the legal profession that have been adopted by in-house and outside counsel, such as alternative fee arrangements, preferred firm/value-based billing arrangements, and realistic budgeting. Other topics will include planning, staffing, bundling and unbundling of professional services and expenses, use of technology, quality management, and benchmarking and evaluation of law firm performance.
The second session of this program is “Minimizing Risk, Liability, and Harm.” This session will focus on how in-house and outside counsel can assist their corporate client in minimizing regulatory risk, financial liability, and reputational harm arising from legal matters. Topics will include compliance issues, dealing with regulatory and law enforcement entities, litigation prevention and avoidance, improving litigation results, minimizing damages and exposure to other remedies, ADR and settlement strategies, controlling litigation’s disruption of a corporation’s regular business activities, crisis management, and media relations.