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More and more companies are hiring chief compliance officers and chief privacy officers, according to Michael Sachs, a partner in the in-house group at Major, Lindsey & Africa.

2010 is when Sachs said companies began to hire compliance professionals and chief compliance officers. This is in large part because of more stringent regulations in certain industries.

Over the past couple of years, Sachs said, there has been a greater focus on hiring chief privacy officers or senior privacy attorneys for much of the same reason: increased regulation in the data privacy space.

"It's one of the hottest fields you can find out there," he said.

Sachs said he expects to see compliance officers take on the role of privacy officer as more states pass data privacy legislation. However, not all companies will give the job an office in the C-suite.

"In a lot of companies it is not called the CPO because that denotes a certain level of status and the company may not consider that position as critical as the chief marketing officer," Sachs said.

He added in many cases companies are hiring a senior attorney who reports to the general counsel, but that person is often in charge of privacy and cybersecurity initiatives.

"I don't see anything stopping this trend right now," Sachs said.

Has your legal department considered hiring a privacy or compliance guru in light of upcoming data privacy laws? Let me know by emailing me at [email protected].

What's Happening

Tipping Point

Jonathan Brayne, the head of Allen & Overy's legal tech arm Fuse, said in-house departments need to shift toward becoming tech-led providers of legal and risk. He said this approach will help them become an integral part of their organizations and not get left behind.

Brayne told Corporate Counsel that in-house counsel are "facing a decade of transformational change." Because of this, he authored a paper recently hoping that in-house counsel will use it to find ways to cope with the changes.

The challenges Brayne foresees include keeping up with regulatory and market changes; anticipating risk from compliance breaches, misconduct, litigation and arbitration; and moving from "a world of text to a world of data."

"For in-house counsel the keyword for 2020 is change―both technology change and regulatory change," Jean-Marc Chanoine, in-house counsel and global head of strategic accounts at Templafy, said.

Chanoine said change can be difficult for lawyers.

"For a lot of lawyers, me included, it's brutally hard to change. But next year they need to be open and responsive to a dynamic and increasingly complex environment."

'Tectonic Shifts' Make Cannabis M&A Difficult

In the past year, several mergers and acquisitions in the cannabis space have either been abandoned entirely or reshaped before the final agreement is signed. This is largely because the industry is shifting quickly and the deals take a long time to get approval.

Jeff Schultz, general counsel at the cannabis investment firm Navy Capital, said in addition to the long time frame, many of the deals are done for stock options because there is not a lot of investment capital.

"Most deals in Canada and many deals in the U.S. are stock for stock deals because many companies today are short on cash," Schultz said. "Even if they do have cash, until the recent dramatic drawdown in stock prices, they've preferred to use their high-multiple stock as acquisition currency."

Another issue that makes these deals more difficult is the continued federal prohibition over cannabis, John Moynan, general counsel of SLANG Worldwide, said.

"What you have is these wholly distinct entities, agreements and ownership structures. If you look at that in an M&A context, it's not as simple as wrapping up the parent entity," Moynan said. "That is further complicated by each state having its own regulatory framework."

What I've Been Reading

The former general counsel of AOL, Randall Boe, who served as the commissioner of Arena Football League, made an effort to save the struggling league from bankruptcy, according to a report in Bloomberg. After the most recent season, Boe was forced to suspend operations when the National Union Fire Insurance Co. filed a suit seeking $2.4 million in workers' compensation premiums for the league. Boe is staying with the league to oversee its bankruptcy process, but when that process is complete, he will be looking for another "commissioner-type role" rather than going back to working in-house.

Ron Peppe, vice president of legal and human resources at Canam Steel Corporation, said in an interview with Modern Counsel, that he went in-house early on in his career. He has been in-house at Canam for approximately 25 years and said he is the company's only lawyer in the U.S. Because of the small legal team, he said he's been an early adopter of new legal technology including data mapping and analysis tools.

The number of general counsel holding board positions in Canada has doubled since 2018, according to a report in The Canadian Lawyer. Female general counsel and CLOs are outnumbering their male counterparts on Canadian public boards 3:2, the report says. GCs are now, oftentimes, seen as a member of the executive team rather than just someone who gives the OK for ideas, Stacy McLean, a partner at Blake, Cassels & Graydon, told the publication.

Don't Miss

Tuesday, Dec. 10 to Wednesday, Dec. 11 – CBI will be hosting the 2019 Clinical Trial Legal and Contracting Forum at The Inn at Penn in Philadelphia. Speakers will include Stephen J. Smith, assistant general counsel at Sanofi; Jason H. Staples, senior counsel of legal commercial operations at Abbott Laboratories; and Justin Gorman, counsel at UCB Inc.

Monday, Jan. 13, 2020 to Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020 – The National Retail Federation will be hosting its General Counsel Forum Winter Meeting at the headquarters of Tapestry Inc. in New York.

Monday, Jan. 27, 2020 to Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2020 – American Conference will be hosting a two-day forum on False Claims and Qui Tam Enforcement at the Park Lane Hotel in New York. Speakers will include Savaria B. Harris, senior counsel at Johnson & Johnson; Patrick McCarthy, managing general counsel at Fluor Government Group; and Maryana Zubok, senior corporate counsel at Pfizer Inc.

On The Move

✦ Musical Theatre International ✦ Deborah Hartnett has been promoted from director of business and legal affairs to general counsel and senior vice president. She joined the company in 2010 and previously worked as entertainment counsel at a large New York City law firm.

✦ Mitsubishi Motors North America ✦ Katherine Knight was named the general counsel of the regional arm of the automotive company. She previously worked as general counsel of USA Truck and as senior counsel at Nissan North America.

✦ MiMedx ✦ William "Butch" Hulse was named general counsel of the biopharmaceutical company on the same day it settled with the Securities and Exchange Commission for $1.5 million over alleged accounting fraud. Hulse was most recently a member of the litigation department at Dykema.