Notes from The New Irish Government: Opportunities for U.S. Companies panel (6/8, 8:30am):

EU’s proposed Common Consolidated Tax Base is a nonstarter AND misunderstood. No danger because companies must opt in.

Roy Shulman, VP and chief legal officer, operations and systems, Prudential Financial, Inc., talks about why his company started Pramerica Systems Ireland, Limited and opened operations in Ireland: To open a Prudential company that would operate in different practice areas than the company would have been able to had it chosen offshore locations like India or Philippines. Prudential wanted all people to be company employees, not vendors. Security concerns allayed. Not worried about auditing outside vendors since these are all Prudential employees. Location important because it meant there were no language issues and the time zone–only five hours later than the East Coast of the U.S.– works well.

Pramerica started as a software business. Now hundreds of tech resources, but also support services like call center and help desk. High-end work. Sometimes manages Indian and Philippine operations. Low turnover. Low cost. Brought lower cost to U.S. business and helped make whole business of company more efficient. Produces $50 million in revenue. Part of vendor governance and vendor management business of the parent company, and also develops software from first steps all the way to fruition.
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Tweets from #GCCNYC
  • Knowing Your Value: In-house teams now keep clients on their toes with scorecards, short-term agreements & bidding out work.
  • Knowing Your Value: “The attitude has changed since the days of old white shoe law firms, where you had clients for 100 years.”
  • Say on Pay: Sheilagh Clarke, Foot Locker assoc GC – They’re non-binding votes, but companies DO pay attention to shareholder opinion.
  • Say on Pay: After 2 down years, executive pay is back up + 43% increase in bonuses.
  • Civil Justice Reform panel: Now we’re seeing almost a strict liability standard on document retention. This is entirely judge-made.
  • Civil Justice Reform panel: Where did this preservation duty come from? Spoliation doctrine was based on willful destruction.
  • Civil Justice Reform: E-discovery has made fact-finding process a game of gotcha – leverage from inadvertant destruction of evidence
  • Employment Practices: Fast-tracking to increase diversity may backfire: future pay or reverse discrim. claims from more qualified.
  • Employment Practices Panel: In discrimination suit, defense is only as strong as the data you keep.
  • ALM is asking attendees to join survey panel. Send your name, company & contact info to [email protected]
  • Reducing Discovery Costs Panelist: It’s no longer about producing boxes of documents. It’s about knowing where all of your data are.
  • Reducing Discovery Costs Panelist: There is no easy button in e-discovery.Mayer Brown partner Evan Tager tells AFA-shy in-house lawyers: Once you actually get in the water, it’s very nice.
  • About half the room raised hands when asked if they are currently using AFAs. (with mixed results)
  • Social media panel Q: How many of you would be comfortable having the rest of the room read your facebook page?
  • From a Social Media panelist: Congressman Weiner’s not with us today.
  • Arbitration panel: Rand study sez large majority of potential users believe pro arbs split awards despite merits, & that’s deterrent
  • Panelist: do new SEC whistleblower rules mean, in FCPA context, companies have a new incentive to self-disclose to beat employees.
  • Uh oh. The next session is internal investigations. Always returns the old fear: Are they on to me at last? Be still my heart.
  • Speaker’s answer on duty to preserve: “This is entirely judge-made.” Result: “You’re managing to the worst-case scenario.”
  • Speaker: Where did the duty to preserve info come from? How can you know someone will sue you? Almost a strict liability standard.
  • Discovery Panel: 16-24% of company profits go to pay litigation costs–and that doesn’t even include settlement payments.
  • Speaker: Companies often throw away salary data because it’s expensive to maintain. But it can be crucial to defending co. in court.
  • Speaker: Not into Twitter? Fine. But if your customers are tweeting complaints, you better know. What you don’t can really hurt.
  • Social media danger post-merger. Employees at acquired company may be angry and, without clear policies at new co., vent online.
  • Speaker: EU’s proposed Common Consolidated Tax Base is a nonstarter AND misunderstood. No danger because companies must opt in.
  • Speaker at conference: Despite fears and rumors, you can bank on it: Ireland’s low 12.5% corporate tax rate won’t change.
  • The lights are on, the coffee is hot. Gearing up for the second day of the Corp Counsel Conference at the Marriott Marquis.
  • fun fact: More than 110 merger control laws worldwide.
  • in M&A if it’s too good to be true, walk away (panel on FCPA).
  • Panel is bemoaning lack of protection in DMCA cases. Well not all on panel.
  • Josh Wattles of deviantART criticizes France’s 3 strikes Internet law.
  • Wattles hated the LimeWire settlement. Not enough of a teachable moment for the law prof.
  • who’s right re: cloud copyright – Apple or Google/Amazon? Discuss.
  • also, did Moses infringe when he wrote down the Ten Commandments? (yes, this is from the lunch panel)
  • @StrategicLegal: “Nothing on line is ever private. If you want privacy, write it on a piece of paper and lock it in a safe.”
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Notes from the Social Networking and Its Impact on Employment Law panel (6/7, 2:30pm):
Should the Internet be treated the same as the water cooler? Traditionally, employers only dealt with employees in an at-work setting. With social networking, the workplace has expanded. Employers must define how far their policies can reach.

Some considerations:
  • Did the employee’s activity take place at work?
  • Are the employee’s remarks disparaging to the employer, clients or coworkers?
  • Does your policy destroy the employee’s expectation of privacy (Quon decision)?
  • Is the policy consistently applied?
If you’re thinking about taking disciplinary action against an employee , consider whether the social networking is protected activity under the law. (Example: employers can’t improperly restrict discussions of wages and other conditions of employment.)
Q: When hiring, should you review a potential hire’s personal social networking pages?
A: Yes. But be consistent. The panelists advise that someone other than the hiring manager review sites like Facebook. Take precautions to not slip up on issues like sexual orientation.
-Shannon Green
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Notes from the Alternative Fee Arrangements: A Win-Win Solution panel (6/7, 11am): Why should law firms embrace AFAs?

  • It simplifies billing: they don’t have to review line items for every bill.
  • With AT&T, before they went to fixed fees, they had to review hundreds of line items. So much simpler now. Much less time to spend with bills.
  • Better for collection. Bills get paid quickly.
  • If it’s a portfolio, you’ll get all the work in that area.
  • The fact that we’re receptive to this, clients will come with us.
  • Predictability of workflow.
Key element of successful AFAs: Trust. Neither firm nor client will take advantage of the other.
-Anthony Paonita