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A major trend in the legal industry has been the growth of alternative legal service providers and, in particular, legal process outsourcing companies. A 2019 report by Thomson Reuters documented the accelerated growth of ALSPs in recent years, noting that two years ago, the sector was still nascent and poorly defined, but that now ALSPs make up a market that is “better defined, quickly growing, and broadly adopted.”

News today from Microsoft Corporation and the legal process outsourcing company Integreon underscores the extent to which major corporations are working with LPOs.

The two companies have revealed that, over the course of a 10-year partnership, Integreon has grown its Microsoft operation from a single U.S.-based specialist team in 2009 to now providing managed legal services across five delivery centers on three continents and in 14 languages worldwide.

Microsoft first contracted with Integreon in 2009 to support its Global Contracting Office (GCO) with a team based in Fargo, N.D., providing contract lifecycle management (CLM) services. There, Integreon implemented a team for drafting, negotiating, and managing certain categories of Microsoft’s high-volume, low-risk procurement contracts. That relationship has continued ever since, with Integreon operating as an extension of Microsoft’s GCO, while expanding both the in-scope categories of contracts and range of services provided.

A year later, in 2010, Integreon took over Microsoft’s internal help-desk services, while gradually expanding both its geographic coverage and languages supported. During 2013 and 2014, Microsoft worked with Integreon to select and install a new CLM system, after which Integreon took on the role of providing ongoing administration and intake support for the new platform. Microsoft also engaged Integreon to provide contract review, data abstraction and migration of about 22,000 agreements to the new system.

In 2014, Integreon opened offices in Mumbai to support Microsoft contract administration services, and then in 2017, opened offices in Manila to support Microsoft in the APAC region.

In 2018, Integreon scaled up to take on an increased volume of Microsoft’s contract reviews to ensure compliance with the GDPR data protection regulation.  Most recently, Integreon has worked to support and maximize Microsoft’s own tools, such as its automated contract helpdesk LexiBot, and to leverage new technologies such as, robotic process automation and artificial intelligence tools such as Kira.

As of today, according to the two companies, Integreon:

• Employs nearly 80 dedicated Microsoft associates who review up to 24,000 contracts annually.
• Manages up to 90,000 contract entities in Microsoft’s CLM platform annually and completes up to 14,000 contract help desk resolutions per year.
• Operates five delivery centers for Microsoft in Fargo, N.D., Charlotte, N.C., Bristol in the U.K., Mumbai, and Manila.
• Provides support in 14 languages including English, Chinese, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Turkish.

In announcing this news today, Bob Rowe, CEO of Integreon, said that he is proud of the decade of results Integreon has achieved on behalf of Microsoft.

“Microsoft and Integreon have built a strong partnership based on trust, quality and performance, and we are committed to securing that relationship and evolving it in a positive direction,” he said.

Jason Barnwell, Microsoft’s assistant general counsel-legal business, operations, and strategy, talked about his company’s work with Integreon on a recent episode of his Business of Law podcast.

“Our global contracting office supports the procurement and contracting legal team within our corporate legal group,” he said. “This service allows our legal department to serve Microsoft’s need for procurement contracting velocity, volume, and compliance. Integreon is a critical partner for this work.”

Not content with passing medieval laws regulating women’s bodies, the Alabama legislature has just voted to mandate indefinite chemical castration for men convicted of sex offenses against a child under 13 as a condition of release from prison. And they’ll have to pay for it themselves. This is really not the equality we were hoping for.

We don’t know who needs to hear this, but of course we’re not diminishing the seriousness of pedophilia. At the same time, we can’t allow bill’s sponsor, State Rep. Steve Hurst, to use inflammatory rhetoric to obscure the glaring problems with this statute. Hurst told Birmingham CBS affiliate WIAT-TV:

I had people call me in the past when I introduced it and said don’t you think this is inhumane? I asked them what’s more inhumane than when you take a little infant child, and you sexually molest that infant child when the child cannot defend themselves or get away, and they have to go through all the things they have to go through. If you want to talk about inhumane–that’s inhumane.

He also told the station that he hopes fear of possible castration will make potential sex offenders think twice before committing crimes, which is not entirely consistent with the stated goal of protecting minors from dangerous predators with an incurable psychological compulsion who have paid their debt to society but literally cannot help themselves.

In fact, the statute is a hot mess of bad drafting, which is why its sponsors are leaning hard on the horrifying images of infant sexual abuse to distract from the fact that it treats a flasher the same as a serial rapist — both are subject to mandatory, indefinite chemical castration, with no regard for their likelihood of recidivism. (See Alabama Code Section 15-20A-5 for the list of offenses which can trigger Hurst’s mandatory castration law.)

Secondly, the law requires all sex offenders to undergo medroxyprogesterone acetate treatment, AKA Depo Provera injections. For men, this results in impotence and lack of sexual desire. For women, it does … nothing, except possibly make them chubby and infertile. Nevertheless, the law requires a woman (or a quadriplegic, or a 95-year-old on hospice care) to begin treatment at least a month before scheduled release and continue until a judge gives her the okay to stop. If a parolee of either gender terminates treatment without permission of the court, then he or she must immediately submit for re-incarceration, or be guilty of a Class C felony. 

What grounds might a judge consider for allowing an offender to discontinue chemical injections? The law is silent on that, saying only that the offender “shall continue receiving treatment until the court determines the treatment is no longer necessary.” So, in the sole discretion of a judge who has to get elected in Alabama, a smoker with a history of blood clots — both of which make chemical castration more dangerous — can be required to continue hormone treatment indefinitely.

But don’t worry, because a medical professional the court will inform the offender of the risks and get a receipt for his or her informed consent. And that is not even a joke.

The ACLU maintains that chemical castration violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, although several states do have laws requiring it for certain classes of repeat sex offenders. These laws are rarely applied, though, with only a handful of parolees each year undergoing chemical castration.

Judges and probation officers generally ignore these mandatory castration laws because they are STUPID. Just like mandatory minimums, and three-strikes laws, and every other statute that exists solely as a vehicle for lawmakers to tell their constituents how very much they hate bad guys.

Right Rep. Hurst?

I’d prefer it be surgical, because the way I look at it, if they’re going to mark these children for life, they need to be marked for life. My preference would be, if someone does a small infant child like that, they need to die. God’s going to deal with them one day.

Very cogent commentary by the good representative to the local Fox affiliate — the man does get around. Were you wondering if Hurst supported Roy Moore’s senate campaign last year? Of course he did!

The bill goes to Governor Kay Ivey’s desk now, where she can either sign it or get slammed for siding with child rapists. Sweet home Alabama!

AL HB379 [ALISON]
Alabama considers chemical castration for child molesters [CBS42]
Chemical castration bill awaiting Ala. governor’s signature [WAFB]

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Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

Some legal advice will withstand the test of time.

Don’t steal, don’t murder, don’t accept a foreign nation’s help when running for President of the United States, to name just a few.

Those bits of legal advice were just as true a hundred years ago as they are today, and as they will be in another hundred years. Like a good Twinkie, that advice will never expire.

But outside of the blatantly obvious examples from criminal law, sometimes legal advice can have a shelf life. In the world of contract law, your advice may last as long as some unopened pasta sauce, which according to the jar in my pantry is about three years.

Other advice related to an active negotiation may only have the lifespan of package of unopened bologna, which the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says I can keep in my refrigerator for a couple of weeks. Why the CDC declined the opportunity to advise you to never eat bologna is a debate for another time.

And the last category might have a shelf life of mere hours, say legal advice given in a rapidly changing environment or in the midst of an unforeseen crisis. Like your lunch from Taco Bell, that advice may get the job done, but you will probably pay dearly for it later, and in no circumstances should you reheat it in the morning.

Regardless of the shelf life of your advice, it is always a good idea to take a regular inventory of whatever advice you have lingering our there to ensure it is still good for your client and won’t cause them any harm, like that weird thing in the back of your refrigerator’s fruit door that has begun to grow hair.

Recently I had the chance to visit one of our hospitals as a patient rather than in my role as in-house counsel. As I sat at the registration desk, I scanned the numerous signs and placards adorning the desk until I set my gaze on a rather familiar one, as it was one I drafted… over four years ago.

Four years ago our hospital was implementing a new payment system which changed the forms of payments we would accept. Although it was a routine change, since it discussed payment with patients in a hospital, legal was asked to draft the language so as not to fall into any EMTALA pitfalls.

The creation of the sign was a worthwhile effort and the involvement of legal was necessary at the time. But its shelf life had long since expired.

Now all the remained was yet another sign cluttering the registration desk which could add to patient confusion and result in questions a registration team member likely forgot the answers to about three years ago.

Needless to say, after I returned to my role as in-house counsel, I promptly made some calls to ensure the signs were removed and I set about taking an inventory of any other expired advice that may be lingering.

Although we may be remiss to admit it, our legal advice rarely ages like fine wine. Save your client from sniffing that carton of milk that’s well past its prime and remember to regularly review your advice’s expiration date.

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Stephen R. Williams is in-house counsel with a multi-facility hospital network in the Midwest. His column focuses on a little talked about area of the in-house life, management. You can reach Stephen at stephenwilliamsjd@gmail.com.

* A rundown of the legal problems with Florida’s decision to criminally charge the school cop at Parkland for not being a better guy with a gun. [CBS News]

* White House aims to take legal services and exercise away from migrant children for cruelty’s sake. [NY Times]

* Opioid manufacturer settles case for pocket change. [Courthouse News Service]

* While its former athletic director is reportedly under investigation, USC got a bit of happy news when one of its former basketball coaches avoided prison time. Fight on. [Law360]

* Cellino and Barnes battle royale gets a bit more juicy. [Buffalo News]

* Tom Brady is trying to trademark another Hall of Famer’s nickname. [BU Today]

* A day in the life of a human rights attorney. [Lifehacker]

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