Features

The innovation audit can be applied to law departments to identify organizational roadblocks and challenges. A 45-question survey can reveal predictors and indicators for law department innovation.

You get what you measure. A key performance indicator (KPI) for “Strategic Impact” challenges the law department to choose its priorities, show more leadership, offer more resources to corporate business priorities, and re-think its critical competencies for senior counsel.

This article sets out a Critical Success Factor and three indicators for planning. Five causes of the failure to implement plans are listed. Bossidy and Charan’s seven insights into the execution of plans and work are practical. A case study details one way to organize and execute a multi-faceted business plan for a law department.

Leveraging technology to create greater value, however, requires a shift in thinking about regulatory oversight. Gone are the days of enough resources and time to monitor every aspect of compliance. The reality of any quality control program is that regulation and policy rarely move at the pace of crisis. To keep up with what feels like regularly recurring climate disasters, innovative regulatory tools are needed along with the following paradigm shifts.

Workplace harassment continues to pose immense risks to Canadian workers thus placing a responsibility on employers to effectively handle complaints and investigations. How do you develop a well-researched investigation policy and process for your organization?

Difficult conversations are an unavoidable fact of life. If you have ever been in a relationship (personal or professional), then you’ve had a difficult conversation. It wouldn’t be surprising if you’ve taken actions to avoid these conversations or found them stressful. Often, the experience of a conversation – for both you and the person you’re speaking with – comes down to how the conversation is approached.

50 years ago today I arrived in Canada as a refugee from Uganda. We were accepted quickly and generously by a country where ethnic diversity and pluralism were encouraged. We counted ourselves as lucky.

Three-quarters of lawyers frequently feel over capacity and more than half don’t conduct any kind of tracking to better understand their resourcing constraints – at least that’s the case according to respondents surveyed at this year’s CCCA National Conference.

The ability to effectively communicate is of the utmost importance, especially for in-house counsel as they face the challenge of relaying complex legal advice to colleagues coming from various scholarships. In-house counsel must be reflexive and ask not only, “Is my message getting across?”, but also, “Is my communication creating a positive impact?”

With the news cycle being faster than ever before, and serious new issues seeming to arise every few weeks, it can be hard to stay up to date, let alone digest the implications they may have on future operations and decision making. How can in-house counsel keep on top of it all?