About the Awards is a new series of Q&As with our editors across ALM Media's publications that aims to give readers and potential nominees insight into our judging process for awards related to ALM Recognition Events. We hope this will guide you as you draft your submissions, and we welcome any additional questions you may have.

For the next column in our series, we'll be discussing our the Best Legal Departments awards with Corporate Counsel Editor-in-Chief Heather Nevitt, who will be leading the judging across all categories.

For more information about the Best Legal Departments 2022 contest, please visit the awards site and the official Call for Nominations. The deadline for submissions is April 8. You can also view other upcoming ALM contest submission deadlines and sign up for marketing notifications here.

Heather, can you tell us more about yourself and your legal and journalism background? I am the editor-in-chief of Corporate Counsel, Corporate Counsel Advance and Global Leaders in Law, a private network for general counsel. I oversee the news coverage and thought leadership that focuses exclusively on the in-house legal community and the evolving role and global nature of the GC for ALM. You will also find me at many of our ALM events where I lead discussions around trending topics for the in-house audience. I am also a licensed attorney and practiced law for several years before joining ALM in 2005. I currently live in Dallas, Texas with my husband and teenage son. My happy place is being with my family in the outdoors surrounded by nature!

How does Corporate Counsel Best Legal Departments differ from the other contests that offer categories for in-house? Our awards really focus on the growth and changing role of the legal department within the organization. In-house counsel are doing so much and often don't get the recognition they deserve for the innovation they are bringing to the profession. So we want to change that. In addition, we are not pay-to-play, the submissions are vetted through an editorial lens which gives real credibility and a genuine spotlight the honorees deserve for the work they are doing in their space.

Do the nominees have to be headquartered in the United States or have a U.S. presence? For global companies, their headquarters may not be US-based, but they should have a US-based headquarters with a legal team.

Can firms submit in-house nominees? Yes! We encourage firms to submit their clients!

Do you accept nominations for associate or deputy general counsel? Yes, we welcome those submissions. In fact, we have a specific category just for associate and deputy GCs.

Who should be interested in submitting nominations for this contest? Corporate legal departments, law firms and outside providers who are proud of the work their department or client are doing. If as an outside provider, you see work from a client that is different from what the rest of the industry that deserves recognition and believe it can serve as a model for the industry to help push the law forward, we want to know about it! There is no weight given a submission based on who submits it. So feel free to submit on behalf of yourself, your team or your client!

Who is judging this contest? All entries will be judged by ALM's editorial staff, including myself and others associated with Law.com, Corporate Counsel, The American Lawyer, and others where relevant within ALM.

What are the judges looking for? Above all else, we are looking for uniqueness and innovation: What's new and exciting about the work that you're doing? What makes what you accomplished last year stand out amongst your peers? Was last year extraordinarily challenging? If so, how did you get through it? We know legal departments have a lot going on and spinning many plates in the air, so we want to know how you or your legal department met those challenges and overcame them!

What do you want to see in submissions? A short story on how you managed through a crisis or how you stood out in the legal world or to your business. What did you do differently to get to a better outcome? What did you and/or your team implement this past year that made a difference or moved the needle? Be sure to tell us how you did it.