Kavitha Gupta's blog

  How to Say “No” to the CEO or Other Business Executives and Provide a Range of Alternatives to Achieve the Business Goals Senior Advisors  Helen Pudlin ,  Maureen Brundage , and  Noah Hanft  share their experience and advice on how to reframe a “no” message into options and recommendations to mitigate legal risk while adding value as a problem solver and trusted counselor. Below are highlights from the webinar. To learn more, the video recording, slide presentation, and podcast are available on this page. Be attuned to communicating in troubled times. “As you are all very much aware, we're in a period of unprecedented upheaval and we're dealing with the constraints and uncertainties of social distancing and remote learning and working. These times make communication with CEOs and other business leaders all the more challenging. Today it's more important than ever to be an effective communicator, risk manager, and business partner.” — Helen Pudlin Learn to navi...

In a  recent report  by BarkerGilmore and Chief Executive Group, 70% of CEOs described their ideal GC as one who acts as a strategic business partner and is a valued member of the leadership team. However, although the GC role is viewed in most cases as an integral member of the executive leadership team, a majority of CEOs surveyed feel their GCs are falling short when it comes to their actually being a contributing strategic business partner. The report’s findings indicate that CEOs want their GCs to step up, raise their game, and add greater value to the senior management team dynamic. So how can acting GCs utilize these findings to their advantage? We asked  A.B. Cruz III , Senior Advisor with BarkerGilmore, who has served as Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel within numerous, highly-regulated industries, including biotech, pharma, telecommunications, media/entertainment, financial services, oil & gas, and education. How has the role of the GC evolved ove...

A guardian and a guide Chief legal officers have more power than ever before Apr 7th 2012  ONCE upon a time, in-house corporate lawyers were dismissed as plodders. Partners at law firms make far more money. Only someone who couldn't hack it as a legal brain-for-hire would seek the dull security of a salaried job, people assumed. But the power of in-house lawyers has grown hugely in the past ten years. The chief legal officer (CLO) is now one of the mightiest figures in the C-suite. The main reason is that the legal thicket has grown thicker. In America, the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley act inserted federal law deep into corporate governance. The Dodd-Frank act of 2010 made running a financial business much more complicated. The penalties for rulebreaking have grown harsher, too. Companies can be turned inside out if a junior employee bribes someone on the other side of the world. Bosses can go to jail for infractions hardly anyone understands. America's mighty prosecutors c...

Strategies for the Effective, Satisfied In-house Lawyer By Olga Mack  |  2015-Sep-22     Unlike a tangible good, like a cup of coffee or dress, advice — which is a product of many legal interactions — evaporates as soon as it uttered. Sometime during my legal career I noticed that my satisfaction with a relatively high-stress career is correlated with how seriously my advice is considered before it evaporates and disappears into a big, black hole of the universe. As a very happy lawyer, one who, if given the choice, would still go back to law school and do it all over again, below are some principles and strategies I have developed that make my legal practice rewarding, satisfying, and sustainable. Be a partner, not a cop. Many lawyers view themselves in a "policing role." While there may be a time and place for a police role, such as when lawyers are in a compliance role or they have Sarbanes-Oxley responsibilities, most lawyers' role should be...

Can technology bring lawyers into the 21st Century? By Jonathan Keane Business reporter 16 February 2016 From the section Business Image copyright Thinkstock Image caption The legal profession is not known for embracing technological innovation                  The legal profession is perhaps more associated with bulging files of papers, odd clothing and arcane procedures than with technological innovation. But several start-ups are trying to give this most conservative - and sometimes vexing - of professions a digital makeover. Basha Rubin, for example, co-founded New York's Priori Legal, an online marketplace that connects lawyers with businesses, after she perceived that there were too many obstacles in the way of businesses trying to find legal services. Lawyers listed on Priori Legal are vetted by the company and have to have ...

  Contracting for ERP Implementation Success 20 November 2014 Mayer Brown Newsletter Stories of ERP implementation disasters are numerous and stunning in scale and frequency. These failures are so common that reading the literature on the subject leads to the conclusion that successes are in the small minority. In fact, one recent study estimated that only 6.4% of ERP projects are completed on time and within budget. 1 The reported costs of abandoned projects can be enormous—$125 million in the case of Avon. But the costs of an improperly implemented system are equally high. Hershey and Nike each reported $100 million in lost sales and significant drops in stock price due to problems in their new ERP systems. 2 While many of the risks in an ERP implementation project are beyond the control of the lawyers supporting the project, understanding why these projects often fail and what success looks like will help you guide your business clients to a contract structur...