Welcome back to Inside Track!

Are you a new general counsel or have a new responsibility in the legal department? Well, luckily for you, Thomson Reuters published a white paper this week on how to best change your legal department.

Adopting technology is one of the key pieces of advice in the paper. Lawyers are not often known as the first to adopt technology, however, those in the legal department need to be open to it.

“In many cases, the logical first step is a system that handles both e-billing and matter management because this will help drive other potential initiatives,” the paper says.

Once you adopt technology, you should evaluate “other potential efficiencies” to better service internal clients.

“To perform this evaluation, you'll want to understand your clients' views of the work to be done and how high of a priority it is for them. Interview your team to get their perspective of what internal clients' needs are and how they might improve their service,” the paper says.

It is also important to make sure the reason for change is understood. Change often comes with skepticism and a legal leader in a company needs to make a formal case to everyone else as to why certain change is necessary.

What were some difficulties you had to overcome as the new head of a legal department? Let me know by emailing me at [email protected].

 

What's Happening

 

They're Getting How Much? 

Proxy filing season has begun for some of the biggest companies in Silicon Valley. Law.com reporter Caroline Spiezio looked at some of those reports and discovered that chief legal officers at Twitter and PayPal each made more than $9 million in 2018. Below are some takeaways from her report.

➤ Louise Pentland, the CLO of PayPal, earned a total of $9.5 million in 2018. However, $8.4 million of her compensation is in stock options. Her salary in 2018 was $713,942. John Gilmore, the co-founder of Barker Gilmore, said the tech industry is widely known for offering more equity to executives than other industries. “Many executives are willing to trade off a lower salary for equity given the riches that others have attained in the sector,” Gilmore said.

➤ Vijaya Gadde, the CLO of Twitter, was given $11.7 million in compensation in 2018. However, like the CLO of PayPal, much of that came in the form of stock options. Her total pay for 2018 included a salary of $498,077. Twitter said in its proxy filing that executive salaries are below market levels.

 

Former In-House Lawyers Sue Companies

 

In the past two weeks, two former in-house lawyers filed suit against the companies they had worked for.

Nancy Saltzman, the former general counsel of ExlService Holdings Inc., filed suit against her former employer on Monday claiming she was fired for complaining to her bosses about gender discrimination. Law.com reporter Sue Reisinger spoke to Saltzman's lawyer, Russell Kornblith, a managing partner at Sanford Heisler Sharp in New York, who said Saltzman was the only female executive of the company. Saltzman claims she was left out of meetings because she is a woman. She also claims she was barred from visiting legal staff in other countries.

Andowah Newton, formerly the vice president of legal affairs and litigation at LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton Inc. filed suit against her former employer claiming that an unnamed senior employee “pressed his body against hers and tried to kiss her.” She claims others in the legal department were angry with her when she tried to lodge a formal complaint.

 

Asking To Boost Legal Aid Funding

General counsel from Nike, McDonald's, Twitter, Amazon, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and several other companies wrote an open letter to Congress earlier this week asking that more funding be allocated to Legal Services Corp. This comes at the same time President Donald Trump seeks to cut funding to the organization.

Don Saunders, the vice president of civil legal services at National Legal Aid & Defender Association, said he's seen more general counsel promoting civil legal aid over the past couple of years.

“On both sides of the aisle, the business community is hugely respected, and when they speak with such a clear voice it gets the attention of a lot of [Congress] members,” Saunders said.

 

What I've Been Reading

What's the best way to avoid data leaks? According to Forbes, don't own consumer data. Forbes reported companies are working on creating physical devices that allow consumers to physically own their data. If these kinds of devices become popular, companies will not have to worry about fines from regulators or costly lawsuits from consumers.

Having an attorney at a relationship firm for “esoteric” areas of the law may not always be the best option for in-house counsel, according to a Bloomberg report. In-house lawyers should consider using one of many services to hire contract attorneys for those specific areas of the law. This way, the client will avoid unnecessary markup from law firms, the report says.

Tracy Richardson, the deputy general counsel and head of litigation of Buc-ee's, told Houston Business Journal he learns something new every day working in-house at the Texas-based convenience store chain. Richardson said since he started he's had everything from slip-and-fall suits to intellectual property and 18-wheeler issues come across his desk. He told the publication he went to Buc-ee's because he wanted to be a part of building a company's identity and it allowed him to still practice as a trial lawyer. Buc-ee's and Richardson were named winners of the 2019 Houston Corporate Counsel Business Litigation of the Year Award.

 

Don't Miss

Tuesday, May 14 – Global Leaders in Law will be hosting a “What Keeps You Up At Night?” event in Dallas at Rosewood Mansion. On Tuesday, May 21, the group will be hosting an event on “The Global Trade Wars” in New York at Bar Boulud. 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].

Tuesday, May 21- Wednesday, May 22 – Corporate Counsel will be hosting the 19th Annual SuperConference at the Swissotel Chicago. The event will be attended by hundreds of in-house counsel and legal operations professionals. Speakers at the event will include John Albright, chief legal officer of HUB International; Heather Bardeleben, director of legal operations at Adtalem Global Education; and Kim Brown, global chief legal officer at Sedgwick.

Wednesday, May 29 – Washington Initiative For Diversity will be hosting the 2019 Legal Executives Diversity Summit at Davis Wright Tremaine in Seattle from 1-6 p.m. This year's summit will focus on best practices and the challenges in recruiting, retaining and promoting diverse candidates.

 

On The Move

 

✦ Walmart Inc. ✦ Kerri Ruttenberg, a high-profile trial lawyer at Jones Day, has been hired as the big-box retailer's senior vice president of litigation. She will begin her new role on July 1. She succeeds Mike Bennett who retired last year.

✦Butterball ✦ Suzanne Griffin, the company's general counsel, has also taken on the role of the turkey company's chief risk officer. In her new role, she will oversee environmental and workplace safety management issues. Griffin has been with Butterball since 2012 as the company's general counsel.

✦ HealthPartners ✦ Nancy Evert was named the general counsel of the second largest health care provider in Minnesota. Evert will begin her role in July when Barb Tretheway retires. She started working at HealthPartners in 2005 as the company's deputy general counsel.