Law.com Briefings: Inside Track

Inside Track: FTC Exasperating Merger Partners With Never-Ending Probes

Thu, 29 Feb 2024 18:24:00 EST

"The regulatory delays can seem completely arbitrary and byzantine at times," Yale School of Management's Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Steven Tian said in a recent commentary.

Inside Track: Is 'Trusted Business Adviser' Trend Petering Out?

Thu, 22 Feb 2024 17:35:39 EST

"If I'm going to be an obstruction, if I'm going to make your life more complicated, you are going to avoid me," Burford Capital General Counsel Mark Klein said.

Inside Track: Does Your Marketing Use the Word 'Free' Too Freely?

Thu, 15 Feb 2024 17:46:40 EST

"Fine print, fleeting superscripts, or other inconspicuous 'disclosures' don't really 'disclose' anything." FTC senior attorney Lesley Fair wrote on the agency's blog.

Inside Track: Judge's Musk Pay Ruling Will Put In-House Legal Teams to Work

Fri, 09 Feb 2024 10:06:50 EST

Boards of directors will need to take a closer look at which directors are truly independent and ensure they negotiate pay packages, not just acquiesce.

Inside Track: Surprise Exxon Mobil Suit Kicks Off Contentious Shareholder-Proposal Season

Thu, 25 Jan 2024 16:32:08 EST

The oil giant accused two activist investors of employing a "Goldilocks Trojan Horse strategy" aimed at undermining its business.

Inside Track: Should We Put the Terms 'ESG' and 'DEI' to Rest, or Is That a Cop-Out?

Thu, 18 Jan 2024 18:05:52 EST

DEI consultant Richard Orbe-Austin said "diversity, equity and inclusion" has started to "wither and lose favor across many industries"—a decline he blames on executives' failure to fully commit to the cause, not the phrase itself.

Ahead of the Curve: Analyzing Cause and Effect of Law School Admissions

Thu, 18 Jan 2024 16:19:48 EST

Recent SCOTUS decisions will undoubtedly affect admissions, but it will be difficult to prove any definitive connections.

Inside Track: Top Global Risk? Dysfunctional US Politics

Fri, 12 Jan 2024 14:32:06 EST

Ian Bremmer, a political scientist who issues a list of top 10 global risks at the start of each year, predicts the divergence between red and blue states is only going to get worse.

Inside Track: Law Schools Neglecting Desperate Need for Tech Training

Thu, 14 Dec 2023 16:04:28 EST

"The American legal profession is at a critical inflection point. Some may argue that lawyers face dramatic threats not only to their business models but their very usefulness in the face of new technologies," Albany Law School professor Raymond Brescia wrote in a recent paper.

Inside Track: Court Upholds Right to Require Uniforms, a Bright Spot in a Bleak Year for Employers

Thu, 30 Nov 2023 18:32:36 EST

"The power of the NLRB is not without bounds," the law firm Shawe Rosenthal wrote after an appellate court ruled against the agency.

Inside Track: Should I Put That in an Email? Probably Not

Thu, 09 Nov 2023 11:13:55 EST

"The 'e' in email also stands for 'evidence' and 'eternal,'" said Amy Manning, a partner at McGuire, Woods, Battle & Boothe.

Inside Track: SEC's SolarWinds Lawsuit Offers Myriad Lessons, Most of Them Unsettling

Thu, 02 Nov 2023 22:21:47 EST

CISOs must "take stock of their security programs and ensure that what's being communicated to the public is rooted in reality rather than spin or wishful thinking," said Jake Williams, a former U.S. National Security Agency hacker.

Inside Track: Brad Smith's Activision Victory Was Two Decades in the Making

Thu, 26 Oct 2023 18:38:41 EST

"I've never encountered a problem that a little humility can't help us solve," said Brad Smith, Microsoft's legal chief.

Inside Track: EEOC Likely to Unleash Litigation Onslaught in 2024

Thu, 12 Oct 2023 19:37:25 EST

"EEOC litigation is back in full throttle, with no signs of slowing down. Employers should take heed," the law firm Duane Morris said in a recent client note.

Inside Track: Sensing a Slowdown, Companies Apply Brakes to In-House Hiring

Thu, 05 Oct 2023 18:54:15 EST

In-house attorneys are embracing "a mindset of staying put and appreciating 'the devil you know' job security," according to legal department recruiter Mike Evers.

Inside Track: Trial Puts Google Legal Chief Kent Walker in Spotlight

Thu, 14 Sep 2023 16:46:22 EST

"This lawsuit simply ignores how intensely competitive and dynamic the technology industry is today," Google chief legal officer Kent Walker said in a blog post.

Inside Track: Biden's Regulatory Agencies Quietly Tilting Workplace Power Toward Employees

Thu, 07 Sep 2023 19:24:59 EST

"If we're doing the right things before a union can infiltrate, we don't have anything to worry about," said Trecia Moore, senior counsel at Husch Blackwell and a former National Labor Relations Board investigator.

Inside Track: Would the Thrill of Lawyering for Elon Musk Outweigh the Baggage It Comes With?

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 17:37:11 EST

"I always describe working at Tesla as being on the all-star team for the major leagues. Everybody next to you was just amazing," attorney Laura Frederick told Law.com last year.

Inside Track: After Attorneys Land Coveted GC Roles, What's Next? How About Special Adviser?

Fri, 25 Aug 2023 17:19:57 EST

"I think the special adviser role is very well-suited for outgoing general counsel. He or she is taking a lot of institutional knowledge with them. It is a way for the new GC and entire C-suite to retain some of that institutional knowledge."

Inside Track: How to Grasp AI's Legal Landscape and Not Have Your Head Explode

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 17:10:50 EST

"Regulating a misleading claim published in a newspaper in 1914 entails the same analysis as regulating a misleading claim about the capabilities of a company's AI," Holland & Knight said in a report on how the Federal Trade Commission will oversee the emerging industry.

Inside Track: Calibrating AI Regulation an Almost Impossible Task

Thu, 27 Jul 2023 14:34:37 EST

"Big Tech is going to have to live with more regulation but regulators have to be wary about killing the goose that laid the golden egg," said University of Michigan law professor Daniel Crane.

Inside Track: How Companies Can Steer Clear of 'Executive Pay Landmines'

Thu, 20 Jul 2023 16:27:51 EST

"While investors have long taken issue with Netflix's executive pay, the compensation structure is more egregious against the backdrop of the strike," Writers Guild of America West President Meredith Stiehm told the company's shareholders.

Inside Track: Cybercriminals Pushing Corporate Risk Toward 'Boiling Point'

Thu, 13 Jul 2023 16:22:52 EST

General counsel are grasping the reality that bad actors have the upper hand—and that the rise of AI will reduce the technical expertise needed to be a bad actor.

Inside Track: Why 'Greenhushing' Is Gaining Ground in Legal Departments

Thu, 06 Jul 2023 16:37:34 EST

"We can see how firms are maybe caught in the trap between appearing not green enough or too green at the same time. It's just a matter of who you want to make angry a little bit," said Mirko Heinle, an associate professor of accounting at the University of Pennsylvania.

Inside Track: Why In-House Lawyering Isn't for the Spineless

Thu, 22 Jun 2023 15:16:16 EST

"In-house counsel needs to have a view. It's unacceptable for lawyers to put a couple of different paths in front of the business decision-makers and say, "Go ahead and pick one," said Tim Parilla, chief legal officer of LinkSquares.

Inside Track: For Companies, Bribery Charges Are About as Bad as It Gets

Thu, 08 Jun 2023 17:26:36 EST

"The most difficult thing a compliance officer will actually do is try and adjust that culture or work with management to form the culture," said Haydee Olinger, a former global chief compliance officer for McDonald's.

Inside Track: Is Providing Personal Security to the CEO Savvy Risk Management or Ego-Stroking?

Thu, 01 Jun 2023 14:20:56 EST

"Is the security being offered designed to protect or being designed to aggrandize? That is an important distinction," corporate governance expert Charles Elson said.

Inside Track: 5 Ways GCs Can Enhance Legal Department Mental Health

Thu, 18 May 2023 16:11:57 EST

"You have to be smart about what goes to outside counsel and how to keep the most interesting and strategic work in-house because that keeps your people around," former HP in-house leader Gabriel Buigas said.

Inside Track: What GCs Can Learn From Goldman Sachs' $215M Gender-Bias Settlement

Thu, 11 May 2023 15:09:35 EST

"It is generally OK to ask about pay expectations, but relying on pay history is a problem," said Larry Robertson, ethics and compliance counsel at HelloFresh.

Inside Track: What We've Learned From Public Companies' Pay Disclosures

Thu, 04 May 2023 15:27:14 EST

Apple says it will slash executive pay "to be responsive to shareholder feedback." Will other companies follow suit?

Inside Track: Making Sense of the New Antitrust Landscape

Thu, 27 Apr 2023 15:12:58 EST

In this climate of heightened scrutiny, employees need to avoid using words like "dominate," "control," "leverage" or even "barriers to entry—all terms that could be used against a business in an enforcement action.

Inside Track: Why Legal Department Generational Shifts Are Tying GCs in Knots

Thu, 13 Apr 2023 16:06:59 EST

"There's so much insecurity rooted in establishing a paradigm where he who works the most is the most valuable," said Foster Sayers, general counsel of Pramata.

Inside Track: Why a Sidley Austin Client Had to Disclose Paying the Firm $29M

Thu, 06 Apr 2023 14:47:41 EST

Corporate governance experts disapprove of public companies' putting a lawyer from an outside law firm on the board. When it happens, SEC transparency rules kick in.

Inside Track: Legal Teams Strain to Adapt to 'Blistering Pace of Regulatory Change'

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 14:46:41 EST

"The rapid and sometimes incongruent shape of today's regulatory environment will continue to disquiet corporate legal departments," according to a new Thomson Reuters report.

Inside Track: Navigating Legal Fallout From Cyberattacks Getting Trickier and Trickier

Thu, 23 Mar 2023 14:30:22 EST

"Being breached, paying the attackers and then not notifying law enforcement is something that happens dozens, or perhaps hundreds, of times a day in the United States," said Alex Stamos, director of the Stanford Internet Observatory.

Inside Track: What SVB's Collapse Should Tell Us About Risk

Thu, 16 Mar 2023 15:56:33 EST

"Behind the fancy facade, depositors never really know how safe their money is, and when fear starts to spread, depositors run to get their money out," London School of Economics' Jon Danielsson, Robert Macrae and Nikola Tchouparov wrote this week.