Welcome back to Inside Track. I'm Law.com in-house editor Rebekah Mintzer.

I have some breaking news for you all: This will be my last edition of the briefing. I'm not leaving my day job, but starting next week, I'll be passing Inside Track over to Law.com in-house reporter Dan Clark. I'm sad to sign off, but I know Dan will do a great job of bringing you relevant and engaging news from the in-house world.

Now let's get moving, as we've got lots to cover. This week, we look at changing dynamics between financial industry GCs and their outside counsel. We also take a trip to Australia to see what the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium is up to Down Under.

And as always, if you have thoughts or questions about Inside Track, contact me at [email protected] or @rmintzer.

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What's Happening-

It's Tough Out There on Wall Street

Without a financial crisis for banks and investment firms to navigate, law firms on Wall Street are having to work harder and get creative to drum up new business, according to a feature story in The American Lawyer by Gina Passarella and Christine Simmons. I was curious about the client perspective on this post-crisis environment, so I asked Gina and Christine to tell me what they had learned about this through their reporting.

AFA Bonanza. It seems bank legal departments have become smarter since 2008about negotiating fees and saving money both internally and externally.

“Banks' in-house legal departments have gotten savvier at controlling the price of pieces of litigation by demanding certain alternative and discounted rates and by directly negotiating with discovery vendors a set pricing and ordering their outside counsel law firms to work with those pre-arranged vendors,” Christine told me.

But not everyone is happy. In the story, one law firm leader describes banks' post-crisis cost-cutting as “draconian,” and seemed disappointed that companies have continued with lower pricing schemes.

Expanding Horizons. Gina told me that banks are looking beyond Wall Street firms, to shops in Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C. And the traditional Wall Street players have had to evolve to keep up.

“I would say that Wall Street firms are looking to assist traditional banking clients in new emerging areas, such as fintech, regtech, cryptocurrency, cybersecurity and other issues impacting how they are doing business. The question is whether that work is as consistent and lucrative as the work that it is replacing,” Gina said.

Ops in Oz

The Corporate Legal Operations Consortium will be headed Down Under in the coming weeks, a strong signal that legal ops in Australia is gaining steam. In-house reporter Caroline Spiezio talked to CLOC leadership about why the group chose Sydney for its first Asia-Pacific regional conference.

Early Adopters. The institute on September 3 and 4, will offer in-house counsel and ops professionals the opportunity to learn and network. The fact that CLOC chose Australia shouldn't come as a surprise, according to Connie Brenton of NetApp, CLOC's CEO and chief of staff. Brenton told Caroline that Australia has been an early adopter of ops and that there's already been a regional CLOC group on the ground there for nearly two years.

Key Contrasts. Many of the concerns for ops pros in the U.S. and Australia are similar, Caroline learned, but there are a few differences. Brenton noted a heightened focus on technology for ops in Australia and the APAC region. Jeff Franke of Yahoo, another member of CLOC's leadership team, said that Aussie ops functionstend to deal with less litigation than U.S. counterparts. Legal departments there also tend to be smaller, meaning Australian GCs may pull double duty as ops leaders.

Talking Trade Wars

The trade war between the U.S. and China continues to rage. So how's it affecting general counsel? In-house reporter Phillip Bantz reported recently that uncertainty seems to the be a common theme.

Who Wins? It's probably not legal departments. “A lot of people who are objecting say, no one wins a China trade war. But what they should really say is: 'No one wins a trade war except the trade lawyers,'” Adams Lee, an international trade lawyer at Harris Bricken told Phillip.

Nervousness. Another lawyer, Jonathan Epstein of Holland & Knight said he has been kept busy managing client anxiety. “Part of it is parsing out the specific legal implications of the new sanctions … that are coming out, where we think they're going,” he said. “Another part of it is talking about the broader risk environmentand how they can adjust to it.”

GC Stands Up for Tariffs. Speaking of trade, Phillip also interviewed a GC this week who has courted controversy by vocally supporting Donald Trump's tariffs on aluminum and steel imports. Check out Phillip's Q&A with Jesse Gary of Century Steel here.

Don't Miss-

Tuesday, September 4-Friday, September 7. It's back to school time. Global Leaders in Law will hold its Mini MBA for GCs at the Harvard Faculty Club. GLL is an invitation-only membership group offering general counsel a global platform for in-person collaboration to exchange ideas and receive advice and guidance from peers. For more information, contact Meena Heath at [email protected]. Thursday, September 13-Friday, September 14. Prominent in-house lawyers will meet to discuss disruption and the changing role of GCs at Corporate Counsel Forum Europe 2018. The conference, which is co-chaired by two prominent general counsel, Sabine Chalmers of BT and Phillip Bramwell of BAE, will take place in the U.K. at Pennyhill Park, Surrey. Wednesday, September 26- Thursday, September 27. GCs from all over the country and beyond will gather in New York at the General Counsel Conference.Expect to hear about risk and regulation, executive leadership strategies, cybersecurity and technology and much, much more. Speakers include top-level in-house lawyers from AIG, AT&T and News Corp. Wednesday, September 26-Thursday, September 27. Or if you'd prefer to network and learn from GCs in the hedge fund space, you might want to attend the Hedge Fund General Counsel and Compliance Officer Summit in New York. Panels include a discussion on AI and machine learning for hedge funds as well as on discussions about corporate governance and regulatory examinations. Thursday, October 4-Friday, October 5. Where can you find a group of high-powered female in-house legal leaders getting honest about the challenges that women face in the profession? Check out Women, Influence & Power in Law, a summit in Washington, D.C. this fall. There are sure to be plenty of educational and networking opportunities, and speakers include big time in-house leaders from Pfizer, MetLife, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise and more.

On the Move-

Now Playing. Former Meetup GC, David Pashman, has taken a job leading the law department at JW Player, a company that provides internet video services to massive companies like Fox and Univision. Pashman, who replaces Mark Obald, left Meetup after helping to lead the company's acquisition by WeWork, a deal reportedly worth $200 million.

New Adviser. Asset management firm Waddell & Reed recently announced a new legal boss, Mark Buyle. The new CLO has had a presence at the firm for quite some time already–he joined back in 1995 as a senior attorney and has experience providing guidance to the company on a wide variety of legal issues. He replaces Wendy Hills, who left the company in April.

Lawyer.one. Another high-powered attorney has decamped to go in-house in the blockchain world. This time it's Alex Erasmus of Clifford Chance who is stepping out of the Magic Circle and into the CLO seat at Hong Kong-based blockchain developer Block.one. When the move was announced the blockchain company's president noted the company's need to remain “at the forefront” of new regulatory developments.

Name in Lights. A growing company that develops cancer therapies, Neon Therapeutics, has named Jolie Siegel as its newest legal boss, not long after completing an IPO. Siegel, who comes to the company from leading the law department at fintech provider Intralinks, will run the legal, IP, compliance and corporate governance functions at Neon. She was formerly a partner at Choate Hall & Stewart.