Virtual Corporate Counsel Forum: Social Media Policies

The folks at ALM are producing an online version of their Corporate Counsel’s annual General Counsel Conferences. I’m stepping in to fill a lat minute vacancy for one session: Social Media Policies: Crafting a Uniform Policy Across your Organization and Enforcing It. I’ll be joining Valerie L. Boccadoro, Director and Senior Intellectual Property Counsel at Toys R Us. I will be sharing my social media policies database and some thoughts on the regulatory issues that affect web publishing.

Registration is free, but is only open to general counsel/in-house corporate counsel.

Here is the full agenda for the day:

9:15 – 10:15 am

Social Media: Privacy & Security (CLE Eligible)

• Ensuring your organization’s intellectual property is safe and protected
• Protecting your clients and your employees
• Twitter, Linked-in and Facebook: Exposure, liability and consequences
• Watching the web: what do you have out there and how did it get there?

Bill McComas, Esq. Partner Shapiro Sher Guinot & Sandler

Michele Gibbons Partner Mayer Brown

10:15 – 11:15 am

Selecting the Right Fee Arrangement (CLE Eligible)

In view of the high cost of litigation in the face of shrinking corporate budgets, the need to select the right fee arrangement for an organization’s disputes is becoming more and more important. Our speaker, an experienced patent litigator, will review the options available to in-house counsel and outside counsel in setting up the right kind of fee arrangement, including identifying:

• factors involved in determining what kinds fee arrangement makes sense in the context of the particular dispute;
• different kinds of fee arrangements which are potentially available and discussing the best circumstances for considering each kind of arrangement;
• cost saving techniques to reduce unnecessary expenditures; and
• best practices for matching litigation activities to client goals and resources

Charles R. Macedo, Partner, Amster, Rothstein & Ebenstein;
Author, The Corporate Insider’s Guide to US Patent Practice, published by Oxford University Press

11:30 am – 12:30 pm

Effective Information Management Improves Corporate Litigation Readiness (CLE Eligible)

Information Management means different things to different people. For corporate legal departments with increasing eDiscovery demands and decreasing legal budgets, Information Management is a way to meet eDiscovery requirements, lower their legal risk and operate within budget. Many organizations do not have a tested process and therefore expend resources and dollars beyond what is necessary. This presentation will:

• Review current Discovery responsibilities
• Discuss how an organization’s data infrastructure won’t lend itself to effective and efficient eDiscovery
• Review Information Management best practices to better proactively prepare for eDiscovery

William Tolson Director of Product Marketing/Evangelism Iron Mountain

William F. Savarino Partner Cohen Mohr LLP

12:30 – 1:30 pm

The Real Rate Report: Understanding the True Drivers of Legal Costs (CLE Eligible)

CT TyMetrix, in collaboration with The Corporate Executive Board’s Legal and Compliance practice/General Counsel Roundtable, brings you the industry’s first (and only) quantitative analysis of over $4 Billion in legal spend from more than 4,000 law firms and 50,000+ individual billers. The 2010 Real Rate Report will provide corporate legal departments, claims organizations and law firms with the first reliable benchmark data on law firm pricing, staffing practices, and realized rates across geographies, practice areas, matter types and timekeeper types.

The session will discuss how putting data to work can provide perspectives on trends and practices. The session will highlight reliable benchmarks that can be used to evaluate and negotiate rates across geographies, practice areas, professional levels, and other segments, as well as other insights.

Craig Raeburn Vice President of Product Management CT TyMetrix

Keith Brown, Esquire Lead Business Consultant CT TyMetrix

1:45 – 2:45 pm

Management, Measurement and More – Best Practices for Maximizing Your Legal Spend

As many law departments continue to face budget cuts, in-house counsel are challenged to find new ways to maximize their legal spend and control costs. Join LexisNexis® CounselLink™ representatives and in-house counsel from leading law departments as they share their perspectives on:

• The impact of the dynamic economic climate on their law departments and the reporting tools used to optimize and justify spending decisions – comparing the decline in 2009 to the predicted upward trend in 2010
• Alternative fee arrangements and how the right data and reporting can help identify outside counsel that are underperforming
• In-sourcing versus outsourcing legal work, and the considerations and methods to make smarter decisions
• Managing relationships with outside counsel and how using metrics and reporting can help ease difficult dialogues and garner greater productivity

Don’t miss this opportunity to the hear best practices and first-hand experiences of our GC panelists who have found the right balance between their budget and their business needs and improved the management and efficacy of their law departments.

Mary Clark Vice President of Law LexisNexis

Patrick Ryan Director of Administration City of Chicago Department of Law

Robin Sangston Vice President, Legal Affairs and Chief Compliance Officer Cox Communications, Inc.

2:45 pm – 3:45 pm

Social Media Policies: Crafting a Uniform Policy Across your Organization and Enforcing It (CLE Eligible)

• Social Media and the struggle to keep IT, compliance & legal up to date
• Policies and protocols to monitor and manage the burgeoning communications
• Understanding the risks involved with the technology before you dive in
• Creating a policy beyond banning social media all together
• Using the tools to create realistic and enforceable social networking policies

Valerie L. Boccadoro Director and Senior Intellectual Property Counsel Toys R Us

Doug Cornelius Chief Compliance Officer Beacon Capital Partners, LLC.

4:00 pm – 5:00 pm

Driving Risk Out of the eDiscovery Process (CLE Eligible)

From the obligation to identify and preserve, through to the critical processes of analysis and review, the entire eDiscovery process can be complicated and cumbersome.  Developing and executing an eDiscovery preparedness plan that is repeatable, defensible, and cost effective often presents a challenge, considering the legal risks and enormous amount of time and resources it can consume if done without the proper people, processes and tools.

This presentation will help attendees understand how their organizations can:

• Create a foundation for an organized, systematic, and defensible approach to eDiscovery – resulting in predictable legal costs and reduced risk
• Analyze data in the wild, and in real-time – making more informed strategic legal decisions earlier in the eDiscovery process and reducing downstream review fees
• Create a symbiotic relationship between legal and IT – ensuring legally defensible audit trails throughout the eDiscovery process

Keith Zoellner Chief Technology Officer StoredIQ

Ursala Talley Vice President, Marketing StoredIQ

Jake Frazier Managing Director Huron Consulting Group