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Strategies Needed To Support Compliance Policy Initiatives
Proactive Compliance. Risk Management. Loss Prevention. Regardless of what you call it, all firms have the need to assure that client information is handled properly at all stages, to mitigate litigation and penalty risks, and to protect client and firm reputation.
Simply put, compliance is the process of insuring that there are no gaps between firm policy and practice. This includes external mandates (eg, Sarbanes Oxley, EU Privacy laws), industry practices (eg, ABA guidelines), ethical considerations (eg, conflict of interest, ethical walls, etc.), as well as internal policies and procedures. Proactively addressing compliance issues involves firm-wide awareness, attention and communication. It involves people, processes and technology working together across all departments ' from an evaluation of internal business processes, to an understanding of the global regulatory environment and industry best practices, to the development of firm-specific policies and procedures and the leveraging of technologies to enable adherence. Sorting through risk issues and prioritizing initiatives is no easy task. Interestingly, when compared with the daunting challenges of sorting through risk issues, setting policy and changing behavior with the firm, the technology side of the equation is manageable.
In some firms, compliance initiatives drive IT requirements, whereas in other firms IT initiatives force firms to confront risk issues. For example, it is estimated that the average attorney deals with 800 to 1,000 e-mails per week. This is not only an information storage issue, but a proper data classification, access and retrieval issue as well. Regardless, the role of the law firm IT professional is experiencing a paradigm shift. Operational efficiencies and stability are no longer enough. Today, IT must be included (or self-inserted) in the risk management planning process. Why? To be successful, technology to support compliance initiatives must be as invisible and mirrored to current end-user behaviors.
Major Differences In UK, U.S. Copyright Laws
This article highlights how copyright law in the United Kingdom differs from U.S. copyright law, and points out differences that may be crucial to entertainment and media businesses familiar with U.S law that are interested in operating in the United Kingdom or under UK law. The article also briefly addresses contrasts in UK and U.S. trademark law.
The Article 8 Opt In
The Article 8 opt-in election adds an additional layer of complexity to the already labyrinthine rules governing perfection of security interests under the UCC. A lender that is unaware of the nuances created by the opt in (may find its security interest vulnerable to being primed by another party that has taken steps to perfect in a superior manner under the circumstances.
Strategy vs. Tactics: Two Sides of a Difficult Coin
With each successive large-scale cyber attack, it is slowly becoming clear that ransomware attacks are targeting the critical infrastructure of the most powerful country on the planet. Understanding the strategy, and tactics of our opponents, as well as the strategy and the tactics we implement as a response are vital to victory.
Legal Possession: What Does It Mean?
Possession of real property is a matter of physical fact. Having the right or legal entitlement to possession is not "possession," possession is "the fact of having or holding property in one's power." That power means having physical dominion and control over the property.
Removing Restrictive Covenants In New York
In Rockwell v. Despart, the New York Supreme Court, Third Department, recently revisited a recurring question: When may a landowner seek judicial removal of a covenant restricting use of her land?