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2022 State of corporate law departments
Global research from the Thomson Reuters Institute provides legal spend benchmarks, evidence-led advice to optimise legal processes, and peer insights. The key priorities of corporate law departments are similar year-on-year, despite the extreme turbulence experienced across most economies and industries.
A time for leadership—legal department effectiveness considering COVID-19
This year was already shaping up to be a challenging one for in-house legal teams across Europe as the UK’s departure from the EU brought with it new challenges and a plethora of new regulations to accompany existing corporate activity. And then COVID-19 hit. Teams had to adapt to new ways of working as well as oversee compliance with a whole set of new policies to keep staff and customers safe, and the business on track. As General Counsels (GCs) […]
Beyond COVID-19: challenges to corporate culture
COVID-19 and its consequences has pre-occupied business leaders throughout most of 2020. In addition, in-house legal teams across Europe are preparing for the end of the Brexit transition period. However, alongside these issues, three social forces have gathered momentum in a way that may bring positive change for businesses. There is an opportunity—and a need—for in-house legal teams to take a lead on these topics to help position their businesses for a sustainable future and protect their reputation.
Legal, strategic and right: How the evolution of the role of GCs brings added value to an organisation
Over the course of 2020 much of what businesses regarded as normal changed, almost overnight. As a result, every business has had to review its strategy. For legal departments, this has meant adopting simultaneous responsive and proactive stances as they help their organisations negotiate change brought on not only by COVID-19 and the resulting business disruption, but also by events that have forced serious conversations about racial injustice.
How to improve gender diversity at senior levels within law firms
A new report, Transforming Women’s Leadership in the Law Global Report 2020, shows the extent of the gender diversity problem at senior levels in law firms, providing a baseline from which future progress may be measured. The study also investigated barriers to women’s progression into senior leadership roles and sought to evaluate the ‘effectiveness’ of each approach to overcome those barriers that was identified, both as perceived by law firms and through numerical analysis.
Linda Chadderton’s ‘Legally Bound’ wins the Teaching Law with Technology Prize 2020
By Kirsten Maslen On Thursday 8 October 2020, we had the privilege of hosting the Teaching Law with Technology Prize final in partnership with the Association of Law Teachers (ALT). Three worthy finalists presented some inspiring and exciting ideas to engage students and develop practical and technological skills that they can take into their future careers.
Technology trends lawyers should follow considering COVID-19—Part one
By Nayeem Syed As Covid-19 fundamentally challenged the global economy, organisations scrambled to keep the lights on, and collectively, they conducted a giant remote working experiment. Despite some early underestimations, governments injected unprecedented fiscal stimulus, providing vitally necessary confidence ensuring capital flowed and trade occurred. Putting aside the health tragedy, knowledge workers managed well. Their resilience was actionable in part because supply chains were flexible enough to adapt and coordinate the methods of production and distribution.
Black Lives Matter: A call to action to dismantle institutional racism in the UK
By Desmond Brady The impact of eight minutes and 46 seconds in the murder of George Floyd watched by millions around the world sparked a new reckoning in the chapter of institutional racism—for not only in law enforcement but in society at large. Thousands of people marched in the streets around the globe and many public statements supporting ‘Black Lives Matter’ poured out from numerous multinational public and corporate institutions. Now, a few months later, the calls for change from […]
Technology trends lawyers should follow considering COVID-19—Part two
By Nayeem Syed In the previous article, we discussed how Covid-19 will accelerate existing technology trends and innovation. Here we will continue to discuss some of the implications which lawyers will need to consider and help manage their clients. As new technology is deployed at pace, technology-related risk-spotting becomes more important Many industries may see a shift in the demand for their products and services. The resulting process will be ongoing: last year’s blockbuster features may now or soon be […]
A new Acritas report shows how COVID-19 has changed the future of legal work
By Acritas Due to COVID-19, the ensuing lockdowns and economic crisis have given many people a chance to reflect on their lives. Further, the dramatic switch to remote working for many professionals, including lawyers, has given additional pause, and many lawyers are now showing desire to keep the most positive aspects of the new remote working regime once the pandemic passes. Indeed, a new report from Thomson Reuters Acritas, Stellar Performance: The Impact of the Lock-down and Desires for Future Working […]
BAME lawyers in public sector on systemic racism and re-defining what a UK citizen looks like
Rachel McKoy, Head of Commercial and Contracts at the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, participated in a webinar hosted by Lawyers in Local Government (LLG) and Thomson Reuters on the racial injustice in how public sector lawyers could increase their advocacy for removing bias and injustice within institutions that interface with local communities.
The cardiovascular system of the legal platform — APIs
Previously, I wrote about how platforms create an ecosystem or environment that allow people and businesses to interact and accomplish tasks and ultimately create a network that can connect and benefit the entire community.