Category: News Feeds

Whether you are a legal operations professional or a chief legal officer at your company, contracts undoubtedly play a role in your corporate counsel responsibilities.

Maybe you’ve been tasked with figuring out how to reduce the time it takes for your department to turn redlines on sales contracts that come in from the field. Or maybe you’ve been asked to conduct a risk and legal liability audit of contractual relationships across the enterprise.

Whatever your role, it’s likely to become more complex in recent years. The regulatory landscape in which contracts are at play is constantly changing; a globalized marketplace connected by digital communication has accelerated the pace of business; supply chains have become more globalized and sales contracts more intricate.

To address these challenges, corporate legal departments are taking a lead in adopting a new approach that helps them manage contracts holistically. That approach is enterprise contract management.

Enterprise contract management transforms both how a legal department operates internally and with outside stakeholders. And, ultimately, it changes how an entire enterprise looks at its contractual foundation.

As an introduction, here are five views of enterprise contract management from a corporate counsel point of-view.

1. Enterprise Contract Management as Provider of Risk Management and Strategic Data

We’ve all heard the wisecrack: Legal is “the department of no” (or, at best, the “department of slow”). Sales and procurement look at the legal team as a hurdle to their success, rather than a guardian of the business.

Traditionally, this reputation for legal has grown out of a difference in posture toward risk. Sales might be more comfortable with a high-risk, high-reward deal, while legal defaults to a protective stance. The problem in this common scenario was that neither side was operating with much data.

Contracts can serve as a barometer of corporate risk, telling company leaders where it is doing business, with whom and on what terms. Yet gaining a holistic view of these contractual terms is impossible without a centralized digital contract platform.

With an enterprise contract management platform, legal can pull data on how different indemnity clauses have performed to choose the best language, identify suppliers or customers with reputational issues using data from third parties, and assign precise risk ratings to contracts or classes of contracts as a whole.

In this way, the enterprise contract management platform can allow legal teams to bring actionable data to the table when advising on risk and strategy.

2. Enterprise Contract Management as an Operations Streamliner

According to the International Association of Contract and Commercial Managers (IACCM), poor contracting processes can cost companies 9.2% of their revenue.

When you consider how many business users handle contracts, this isn’t surprising. When emails are sent back and forth between stakeholders with contracts and redlines attached, there is no sure way to know which represents the master and no way to measure where contracts are getting hung up in the process. Even those firms that have migrated to a content management system that addresses version control still have no insights into contract turn-around time, where delays are occurring, which redlines violate regulatory and commercial rules, and so on.

Conversely, with an enterprise contract management platform, all contracts are managed centrally. Legal departments can cut down on the number of templates used, reducing risk and speeding up approvals. And the platform can deliver key performance metrics on how many contracts a company is handling and how long they are taking at each stage of the approval process. With this data, legal departments can identify and address bottlenecks, streamlining the process.

3. Enterprise Contract Management as a Negotiation Playbook

Contract negotiations offer legal counsel an opportunity to showcase their deep experience and knowledge to create better outcomes for the organization. Many lawyers still lug around three-ring binders filled with accumulated templates and clauses to respond to negotiation scenarios, while others have evolved to using a folder on their PC desktop.

By contrast, an enterprise contract management platform captures every redline and contextual conversation around those changes (such as messages between the contract parties) for full visibility into the negotiation process. The platform then tracks contract performance by pulling data from other systems like ERP and CRM. When it comes time to negotiate a renewal, counsel has a 360 view of past negotiation tactics and performance to better plan out how to handle the negotiations. With the help of artificial intelligence, companies can take these capabilities even further, analyzing contract language and outcomes at scale to drive better decision making when parties come to the table.

4. Enterprise Contract Management as a Business Unifier

For a long time, legal departments stayed in their lane until the business came to them with contracting needs.

That is changing, though, as legal heads use their position as advisors and protectors of the business to drive strategic change across the company. One way they are doing this is by using contract management software to unify the entire enterprise’s operations.

Consider the journey of Colin Flannery, worldwide General Counsel at Vertiv. Following its divestiture from Emerson Electric, the then-new CEO of Vertiv announced an objective to unify the company’s culture: “One Vertiv.” Accordingly, each department leader was charged with manifesting this mission in a demonstrable way.

The Vertiv legal department recognized that contracts were the glue that held together the global and matrixed enterprise.  Accordingly, they responded by spearheading an enterprise contract management initiative to unify disparate legal teams scattered across the globe and even more disparate contracting processes supporting the Vertiv business.

Using enterprise contract management, the legal department was able to re-engineer their contracting process with the aim of creating a single source of truth for their worldwide agreements.

5. Enterprise Contract Management as an Institutional Knowledge Repository

Lastly, an enterprise contract management platform can act as a valuable repository for institutional knowledge captured across an organization.

Take for example a major airline that is an Icertis customer. This company relies heavily on agreements with partner airlines to drive revenue. Its executive team realized that much of its partner operations relied on the memory of individual members of its legal team—a situation that leadership knew was not sustainable.

To build an organization that could stand the test of time, the company sought a software solution it could “build memory” into. Since contracts form the foundation of these partner agreements, an enterprise contract management platform was the obvious fit.

With an enterprise-wide contract management system, the airline has a single source of truth for all of its partner operations and does not have to rely on the memory of people who show up for work each day. In this way the system is creating a more sustainable, future-proof system and will allow the company to optimize these crucial operations, regardless of the team members leading the charge.

Learn More

So, what is enterprise contract management? For corporate counsel, it eludes a narrow definition.  The outcome, though, is a contracting process that turns static documents into strategic corporate assets that can accelerate, protect and optimize business.

The above examples only scratch the surface of how this new approach to contracts is helping business. If you’d like to learn more, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us.

Bowl of Dicks guy is the hero the legal profession deserves, not the hero we need right now. With disease running rampant, the stock markets in freefall, law schools shuttering for who knows how long, courthouses closing, prisons at risk, and law firms… allowing everyday casual, we probably need someone to reclaim the profession’s mantle as the quiet defender of calm and order. But instead, whether it’s justified or not, it’s a profession defined by rage.

The 2019 Lawyer of the Year contest is over and the champion was Christopher Hook, the man who felt his clients suffering at the hands of an insurance company and promptly let the company know by telling its lawyers to feel free to “eat a bowl of dicks” among a LOT of other colorful suggestions. Was Allstate mistreating Hook’s clients? Maybe. Maybe not. Insurance companies screw over people with such frequency it’s hard to tell in any given situation.

In a sense, this year’s contest as a whole was about the perception of the lawyer in society. Giuliani? Dershowitz? Avenatti? Did their contributions this year not just highlight how performative rage has taken over the public image of a lawyer? They defined us all this year through a noxious alchemy of bombast and intimidation. Even in the case of Professor Pam Karlan, the only nominee who conducted herself with professional aplomb, her defining moment was sitting on the receiving end of sanctimonious jackasses — many of them lawyers though that’s probably redundant — who pretended she committed some grave personal attack on Trump’s kid by explaining basic constitutional principles. This was truly the year that lawyers were defined by insults and misdirected rage.

And while the other nominees generated more national headlines, Bowl of Dicks guy is our champion likely because in the pages of Above the Law he became a synecdoche for where we are today.

Because he’s not our hero. He’s a silent guardian. A watchful protector. A guy willing “to let the long dick of the law fuck Allstate.”

Earlier: Small-Firm Lawyer Tells Biglaw Team To ‘Eat Bowl Of Dicks’ During Settlement Negotiations
Michael Avenatti’s Lawyer Sought Delay Because He’s Scared To Visit Jail Over Coronavirus
T14 Law School Cancels Classes Due To Coronavirus Outbreak

---

Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

Last week, while the world at large was growing rightfully concerned about the burgeoning threat of the coronavirus, one judge found himself even more concerned about the state of the nation’s highest court.

Meet James Dannenberg. He’s a retired Hawaii judge who served for 27 years on the state’s 1st Circuit District Court. Prior to sitting on the bench, Dannenberg worked as the state’s deputy attorney general, teaching federal jurisdiction as an adjunct professor at the University of Hawaii Richardson School of Law, for more than a decade. The retired judge had also been a member of the prestigious Supreme Court Bar for almost 50 years — until he quit.

On Wednesday, he submitted a resignation letter to Chief Justice John Roberts, going so far as to refer to the Roberts Court as the Trump administration’s “errand boy.” Here’s an excerpt from Dannenberg’s letter, which is printed in full on the next page:

The Court, under your leadership and with your votes, has wantonly flouted established precedent. Your “conservative” majority has cynically undermined basic freedoms by hypocritically weaponizing others. The ideas of free speech and religious liberty have been transmogrified to allow officially sanctioned bigotry and discrimination, as well as to elevate the grossest forms of political bribery beyond the ability of the federal government or states to rationally regulate it. More than a score of decisions during your tenure have overturned established precedents—some more than forty years old– and you voted with the majority in most. There is nothing “conservative” about this trend. This is radical “legal activism” at its worst.

Without trying to write a law review article, I believe that the Court majority, under your leadership, has become little more than a result-oriented extension of the right wing of the Republican Party, as vetted by the Federalist Society.

Oh snap. We wonder how many of Chief Justice Roberts’s colleagues would concur with Dannenberg’s assessment of the politicized nature of the Supreme Court.

The only constitutional freedoms ultimately recognized may soon be limited to those useful to wealthy, Republican, White, straight, Christian, and armed males— and the corporations they control. This is wrong. Period. This is not America.

I predict that your legacy will ultimately be as diminished as that of Chief Justice Melville Fuller, who presided over both Plessy and Lochner. It still could become that of his revered fellow Justice John Harlan the elder, an honest conservative, but I doubt that it will. Feel free to prove me wrong.

Would this be considered a benchslap? With jaw-dropping insults like these, it may as well be. This is the judicial equivalent of saying “fight me, bro,” except here, it’s more like a respectful “cite me, bro.”

Dannenberg may have lost his faith in the Supreme Court, but he certainly hasn’t lost his will to fight for what’s right.

(Flip to the next page to see James Dannenberg’s letter in full.)

Former Judge Resigns From the Supreme Court Bar [Slate]

---

Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

As a law firm associate, you have to do your job.

Or get fired.

If a partner asks you to draft a brief, you generally must draft a brief. You can’t punt.

If, say, a sixth-year associate asked to draft a brief turns to, say, a second-year associate to do the work, the partner probably won’t approve. The second-year associate has to be assigned to the case team, and many cases don’t merit thick staffing. Even if there’s a junior person available, the partner knows that he asked you to write the brief. The partner reviews the bills that show that you didn’t do this. The brief was written by two people instead of one. The partner is not happy.

In-house is a little different.

What’s the status of your case?
“I’ll set up a call with outside counsel.”

What damages are the plaintiffs seeking in that class action?
“I’ll set up a call with outside counsel.”

What’s our strategy for defending this thing?
“I’ll set up a call with outside counsel.”

Can you send me a summary of the case and the important issues?
“I’ll ask outside counsel to prepare something.”

This a type of freeloading that’s easier to do, and conceal, in-house than at a firm.

The in-house freeloader may have authority to approve bills, without review, up to a certain level. Suppose the freeloader asks outside counsel to do $20,000 worth of the freeloader’s work, and the freeloader is authorized to approve bills of less than $25,000. The freeloader’s unrestrained approval of the bill conceals the evidence of freeloading. It’s the perfect sloth!

Or you may have an alternative fee deal, where the law firm does all work on cases for a specified annual fee. It’s thus costless to the corporation for the freeloader to avoid doing his work. (The only cost to the corporation is the freeloader’s salary.  But that’s sort of my point.)

Within the corporation, of course, it’s obvious to everyone who works with the freeloader that the freeloader is not a real lawyer.  A real lawyer knows a little bit about his cases; a freeloader does not. A lawyer knows who the witnesses are; the freeloader does not. A lawyer can write up a short summary of one of his matters in a half hour; a freeloader requires a day or more for the task, as the freeloader assigns the task to outside counsel and then awaits a response.

Eventually, corporate freeloaders are likely to be exposed. But that may take far longer at a corporation than it does at a law firm.

---

Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and is now deputy general counsel at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.

We’ve written a lot of hedge fund obituaries in our time, both for the industry (premature) and for individual funds (usually not). There are, of course, all sorts of ways for a hedge fund to die: quantitative easing, manager boredom, confused political and economic outlooks, low volatility, frustration, Brian Hunter. But now we have a novel cause of death, specifically the 2019 Novel Coronavirus, which has claimed more than 5,000 human lives and, now, one limited partnership.

Hedge-fund manager Solus Alternative Asset Management LP, known for its investment in retail chain Toys “R” Us, told investors this week that it is shutting its flagship fund and will restrict redemptions as it works to sell off holdings… The firm in the letter told investors it has received unexpected withdrawal requests this year and that the turbulence caused by the coronavirus has made it difficult to raise cash as it normally would to fulfill those requests by selling holdings.

* Creditors of Toys ‘R Us claim that employees bilked the company of assets during the bankruptcy process. That must’ve been where all the video games went… [Law 360]

* A lawyer involved in the Trump impeachment process has tested positive for coronavirus. [CNN]

* The prosecution of Jussie Smollett has become an important issue in the upcoming Cook County State’s Attorney election. [Chicago Tribune]

* Perhaps one of the first coronavirus lawsuits filed over an event that was cancelled due to the pandemic has been settled. [Salt Lake Tribune]

* A New York woman has filed a lawsuit claiming that she was shackled to a hospital gurney by the NYPD while giving birth to her child. [Guardian]

* Former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore filed a brief before the Supreme Court of the United States seeking to overturn marriage equality. Maybe he’ll ride his horse to oral arguments… [Newsweek]

---

Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.

Kelvin Charamba with his daughters inside the tent the family has lived in for the past year [Tendai Marima/Al Jazeera]

Airliners are being grounded and large gatherings cancelled to reduce the chances of infection. People are urged to wash their hands frequently, not to shake hands and, indeed, keep a metre distance from others – difficult if crowded into a bus or train.

These precautions are being taken in countries with sophisticated health services. What will happen when the coronavirus hits Zimbabwe fills us with trepidation, given the state of its health service and the weakened immune system of so many malnourished people.

Whether this troubles the Zanu PF elite is open to doubt. After all, President Mnangagwa, instead of investing in hospitals, has wasted money on hiring three expensive public relations companies to campaign for the removal of US sanctions. The Americans have now extended them, including Owen Ncube, the security minister accused of ordering security services to abduct and mistreat members of the opposition.

The US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, urged the Zimbabwe government to ‘immediately end state-sponsored violence including against peaceful protesters, civil society, labour leaders and members of the opposition in Zimbabwe, and to investigate and hold accountable those responsible for human rights violations and abuse.’ (See: https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-zimbabwe-sanctions/u-s-blacklists-zimbabwe-officials-over-human-rights-abuse-idUKKBN20Y2D7).

To mark the 5^th anniversary of the abduction of the human rights campaigner Itai Dzamara, the European Union has demanded action by the Zimbabwe government. The response was a bizarre statement by the police that investigations into the matter were continuing and that law enforcement agents had submitted ‘over 113 fortnightly updates to the High Court’! (See: https://www.herald.co.zw/police-submit-over-100-reports-on-dzamara/.)

An equally bizarre comment came from Zimbabwe’s Defence Minister Oppah Muchinguri who said coronavirus was the work of God punishing countries which imposed sanctions. She added: ‘They are now staying indoors. Their economies are screaming just like they did to our economy’. (see: https://www.enca.com/news/coronavirus-work-god-punishing-west-zimbabwe-minister.)

Other points

• During the week a number of Vigil activists attended a meeting of the Mike Campbell Foundation at the Royal Geographical Society. Under the title ‘Living on the Edge’ there was a discussion on the rule of law in Zimbabwe. Chief Felix Ndiweni gave a moving account of his legal persecution. The late Mike Campbell was one of the farmers beaten up when his land was seized. We doubt that he would be convinced by the government’s announcement offering land to dispossessed farmers (see: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-13/zimbabwe-offers-land-to-recompense-dispossessed-white-farmers). Those who attended from the Vigil and MDC were: Cephas Maswoswa, Charles Mararirikwenda, David Kadzutu, Delice Gavazah, Dennis Benton, Esther Munyira, Handsen Chikowore, Martin Chinyanga, Mary Muteyerwa, Mercy Mukaririrwa, Patricia Masamba, Rose, Benton, Rosemary Maponga and Tapiwa Muskwe. Special thanks to Rose Maponga for bringing a drum.
• Thanks to those who arrived early to help set up the Vigil today: Miriam Gasho, Rosemary Maponga, Philip Maponga, Patricia Masamba, Tapiwa Muskwe, Farai Mutumburi, Sithobekile Sikhosana and Kevin Wheeldon. Thanks to Rosemary and Miriam for looking after the front table, to Farai, Kevin, Netsayi Makarichi and Sithobekile for handing out flyers, to Patricia for taking photos, to Miriam for prayers and to Rosemary for providing hot drinks.
• For latest Vigil pictures check: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zimb88abwevigil/. Please note: Vigil photos can only be downloaded from our Flickr website.

FOR THE RECORD: 10 signed the register.

EVENTS AND NOTICES:

• ROHR general members’ meeting. Saturday 12^th April from 11.30 am. Venue: Royal Festival Hall, South Bank Centre, Belvedere Road SE1 8XX. Contact: Ephraim Tapa 07940793090, Patricia Masamba 07708116625, Esther Munyira 07492058107.
• The Restoration of Human Rights in Zimbabwe (ROHR) is the Vigil’s partner organization based in Zimbabwe. ROHR grew out of the need for the Vigil to have an organization on the ground in Zimbabwe which reflected the Vigil’s mission statement in a practical way. ROHR in the UK actively fundraises through membership subscriptions, events, sales etc to support the activities of ROHR in Zimbabwe. Please note that the official website of ROHR Zimbabwe is http://www.rohrzimbabwe.org/. Any other website claiming to be the official website of ROHR in no way represents us.
• The Vigil’s book ‘Zimbabwe Emergency’ is based on our weekly diaries. It records how events in Zimbabwe have unfolded as seen by the diaspora in the UK. It chronicles the economic disintegration, violence, growing oppression and political manoeuvring – and the tragic human cost involved. It is available at the Vigil. All proceeds go to the Vigil and our sister organisation the Restoration of Human Rights in Zimbabwe’s work in Zimbabwe. The book is also available from Amazon.

• Facebook pages:

  Vigil: https://www.facebook.com/zimbabwevigil
  ROHR: https://www.facebook.com/Restoration-of-Human-Rights-ROHR-Zimbabwe-International-370825706588551/
  ZAF: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Zimbabwe-Action-Forum-ZAF/490257051027515

Post published in: Featured

Africa’s former colonial powers have recently come under pressure to send looted artefacts back to their home countries.

They figure on Zimbabwe‘s national flag, banknotes and official documents: stone statues representing birds taken away by the European colonialists more than a century ago.

The eight original sculptures hold great spiritual value for people of the southern African nation, and have been made into national emblems.

Six of the large carvings were stolen from the ruins of Great Zimbabwe, an imposing stone complex built between the 11th and 13th centuries and attributed to pre-colonial King Munhumutapa.

The palatial enclosures are now a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site situated in the southeast of Zimbabwe, 25 kilometres (16 miles) from the present-day city of Masvingo.

‘Connect present with past’

Almost all of the prized green-grey soapstone birds that were looted have now been returned to the country.

Only one remains in South Africa, where it is kept in the house of 19th-century British mining magnate and imperialist, Cecil Rhodes.

In a rare move last month, four of the statues were temporarily set on the original plinths from where they were stolen at the Great Zimbabwe monument.

The heavy figurines, some standing at about 1.5 metres (4.9 feet), were moved from an on-site museum and placed outdoors on pedestals for a photoshoot.

Their pictures were taken for a book on ancient African art – Zimbabwe: Art, Symbols and Meaning – to be published in September. The country marks the 40th anniversary of independence from Britain next month.

The book will be co-authored by a Zimbabwe-born duo and mother and son – Gillian Atherstone and Duncan Wylie – who now respectively live in Britain and France.

“The birds are among the most symbolic cultural objects of our time,” the head of Zimbabwe’s national museums, Godfrey Mahachi, told AFP news agency.

“They connect the present with our past.”

‘Troubled existence’

Great Zimbabwe ruins curator Munyaradzi Sagiya said the statues are kept inside the museum for security reasons.

“Not everyone who visits a museum is there to admire the displays,” he said.

Africa’s former colonial powers have recently come under pressure to send looted artefacts back to their home countries.

Germany returned the chopped-off pedestal of one of the birds in 2003.

Zimbabwe’s late ex-president Robert Mugabe said at the time that the piece had “a very eventful if not troubled existence during its almost 100 years in exile”.

South Africa returned five other birds in 1981, one year after Zimbabwe’s independence.

Retrieving that statue could be complicated as Rhodes left his estate to the South African government after his death, Sagiya said.

Post published in: Featured