Wolters Kluwer effacts Top 10 Posts of 2017 for in-house legal teams & General Counsel

Bolagsjuristbloggen really likes these cool posts from the Wolters Kluwer effacts blog looking back on top posts for in-house legal teams and GCs 2017. Enjoy!

# 10 – An introduction to GDPR for General Counsel
It’s no surprise that our GDPR blog post kicks off the list of top 10 blog posts of 2017 for in-house legal teams and GCs. As an in-house lawyer, it’s important that you’re aware of the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) replacing the data protection directive of 1995 (Directive 95/46/EC) on May 25th, 2018.

Familiarize yourself with the new regulation and how it will impact your business with this short GDPR introduction for General Counsel here.

#9 – How technology can increase legal risk management efficiency
According to the “Looking Glass Report” by Eversheds, increasing efficiency is the top strategic priority for 68 percent of in-house legal departments. When it comes to how technology can enhance their work, in-house counsel respondents said technology would improve information storage and retrieval (87 percent), improve the automation of routine work (61 percent) and create better workflow management (60 percent) – all key activities that are at the core of an effective risk management plan.

As General Counsel, you’re often required to provide credible and dependable assessments of legal risks facing the organization. However, more often than not, it’s difficult to pull together a reliable view of where your company’s legal risks lie. Data is often hidden on various hard drives and emails. Workflows are manual with poor legal controls. And it takes time to get an up-to-date overview of the status of contract agreements, claims.

Inefficiency plagues many businesses, but technology can help. Read more about how technology can increase risk management efficiency and help you implement a structured way of collecting the legal data to identify, track and report on risk, here.

#8 – How reporting on contract management can help you become a more strategic GC
Keeping track of the potential risks and opportunities in the company’s contract portfolio is part of your job, but if you have a large contract portfolio, tracking the contract lifecycle from initiation though award, compliance and renewal can become a burden without the proper reports. In this post from March, we highlight a few key contract management reports you should be able to generate quickly, to help you mitigate risk and assume a more strategic role.

#7 – 7 tips for getting your legal tech budget approved
Right in time for 2018! Did you know that 64% of GCs report that getting budget is the biggest hurdle they face when trying to improve their tech use?

Securing a legal tech budget is the greatest challenge GCs face when trying to harness technology to raise efficiency. In this post, we provide practical tips for making the case for legal technology investment and for overcoming common challenges of securing budget approval.

#6 – 5 keys to choosing software to manage your legal information
With so many legal tech solutions out there to choose from, it can be difficult to pinpoint the best software to manage your legal matters. Many of solutions focus on automating processes or tasks – which is great – however many small legal departments need to start out with a simple solution to store, share, analyze and report on legal data. In this post, we outline the 5 things to consider when deciding on a software to manage your legal information.

#5 – Report: Are GCs equipped to adapt to their changing role?
In organizations big and small, in-house lawyers are increasingly being asked to play a more strategic role. In addition to being legal experts, General Counsels (GCs) are taking on added responsibilities as senior managers and business leaders. The C-Suite looks to the GC to provide up-to-date, accurate information on a wide variety of legal matters, combined with strategic legal advice to base important business decisions. But are GCs equipped to adapt to that change when it comes? Read the results from “The General Counsel Barometer 2017” study from Wolters Kluwer and Raconteur here.

#4 – 5 tips for improving collaboration between legal and other departments
As General Counsel, it’s your aim to improve compliance and reduce legal risks across the entire organization. However, when colleagues avoid consulting in-house counsel because Legal is seen as a bottleneck, your role as protector of the organization is undermined. To address this challenge, it’s up to in-house counsel to equip the organization with the right tools to make working together in a proactive way easier. This blog posts lays out 5 tips for improving collaboration with the help of technology.

#3 – 6 productivity metrics to improve legal department performance
With the added pressure on in-house legal teams to define and track efficiency opportunities, and communicate the value the legal department, it’s no wonder that this post takes third position. Metrics can help legal departments quantify, analyze and report on performance and demonstrate business value, while tracking legal staff workload and productivity of is an important part of demonstrating efficiency and value. In this post, we offer a few “must-track” metrics for measuring legal staff productivity in your legal department.

#2 – Insider Lists: What the EU Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) provision means for General Counsel
On July 3rd 2016 the new EU Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) came into force, effectively replacing the former EU Market Abuse Directive to provide more clarity and guidance around many of the procedural requirements of the regulation. One of the important procedural changes outlined in MAR is for organizations to identify, record and retain insider lists, that they need to produce upon request. In our 2nd most popular post of 2017, we took a closer look at what the MAR insider lists provision entails and what it means for General Counsel.

#1 – The 5 most common legal risks that can impact your business
And finally, our most read post of 2017 explores the various types of legal risks that can impact your business.

The role of General Counsel and legal departments is changing. Not only do legal departments need to understand the law, draft legal documents and conduct litigation, but General Counsel is increasingly required take on the strategic management of legal risks to protect the value and assets of a company.

Read more about the typical legal risks that fall under the responsibility of the legal department.