In-house Counsel

Microsoft’s legal chief trumpets diversity council’s accomplishments

Microsoft Corp.'s president and chief legal officer, Brad Smith, has long been a champion for racial and gender diversity. Indeed, he says that he's believed in the benefits of diversity since he was in grade school.

Feb 1, 2016 2:00 AM CST

Simplicity bias: Lessons for lawyers from industrial design

When I was a young lawyer, I was asked to draft an important brief for a major client. After days of research, I wrote my masterpiece (really a tome) that would anticipate and destroy any possible avenue the plaintiff would have for evading summary judgment. When I hit “print,” I…

Nov 23, 2015 8:30 AM CST

Judge nixes Vanguard tax lawyer’s whistleblower suit, says it violates legal ethics rules

A former in-house lawyer for a mutual fund giant has lost his bid to collect whistleblower fees for his allegations that the company underpaid $1 billion in federal and state income tax over a period of decades. Because attorney David Danon was still working in-house as counsel for Vanguard Group…

Nov 18, 2015 9:40 AM CST

General counsel for Al Jazeera America seems to lack a law license, New York Times says

The general counsel for media company Al Jazeera America has been suspended and a BigLaw firm has been brought in to conduct an investigation of a claim by the New York Times that he is not licensed to practice law. David Harleston, an executive with Al Jazeera who also serves…

Nov 9, 2015 4:15 PM CST

Fired general counsel can target individual directors in whistleblower suit, federal judge rules

A fired general counsel can name directors of the company that formerly employed him as individual defendants in a whistleblower suit, a federal judge has ruled. However, plaintiff Sanford Wadler can actually sue only the chief executive of Bio-Rad Laboratories under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the San Francisco case, ruled…

Oct 26, 2015 10:40 AM CDT

Customer suggestion yields ‘formal and legalistic’ response from IP lawyer

An AT&T lawyer said thanks, but no thanks, when a customer emailed his service suggestions. The response from an intellectual property lawyer brought online criticism and an admission from the company’s chairman that the telecom “blew it,” the Los Angeles Times reports. The customer, Alfred Valrie of El Sereno, told…

Oct 15, 2015 7:49 AM CDT

Volkswagen: Where were the lawyers?

With Volkswagen reeling from one of the worst corporate scandals of our time, let’s consider the same question asked of Enron and other similar debacles: Where were the lawyers? According to the New York Times, Volkswagen said that 11 million of its diesel cars worldwide were equipped with software that…

Oct 13, 2015 9:05 AM CDT

Inspired by teen, lawyer decides to adopt hard-to-place child, finds doing so an uphill battle

Inspired by the story of a Florida teenager who made international headlines by going to church and speaking from the pulpit to ask for a family to adopt him, an in-house attorney for a company outside Minneapolis made an unusual decision. Susan Olson decided that she would open her own…

Sep 14, 2015 11:15 AM CDT

New Microsoft law office management platform offers group access to legal docs on any device

A new law office management platform developed by the in-house legal department of Microsoft for its own use was worth the wait, a law blogger says. With the formal announcement today that the company has begun to roll out its Matter Center for Office 365 for general law firm use,…

Aug 31, 2015 3:55 PM CDT

Former Dole general counsel and CEO found liable for $148M for undervalued buyout

A Delaware judge on Thursday found two Dole officials liable for $148 million for driving down the company’s stock price in a 2013 leveraged buyout. Found liable were chief executive David Murdock, who was able to buy the business at a lower price, and then-general counsel C. Michael Carter, who…

Aug 28, 2015 7:01 AM CDT

Corporate legal departments are more likely than others to click on phishing emails, study finds

Corporate legal departments are more likely to open phishing emails than most other corporate departments, according to a study of data breaches by Verizon. The study (available here) measured responses to more than 150,000 phishing emails sent as security-awareness tests. Among the departments most likely to open the emails were…

Aug 27, 2015 5:45 AM CDT

Clawback suit seeks $420K from US transportation secretary concerning in-house counsel pay

A trustee in a corporate bankruptcy case is seeking $420,000 from U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx. The clawback suit was filed Friday by trustee Elaine Rudisill in federal bankruptcy court in Charlotte, North Carolina. The suit claims that Foxx, while serving as mayor of Charlotte, also held a job…

Aug 13, 2015 12:40 PM CDT

GC’s fix for ‘broken’ law firm profit structure: Cut associate billing rates

Paying top dollar for work done by leading partners at major law firms doesn’t bother Brian Brooks. But paying big bucks for associates and mid-level lawyers does, the Fannie Mae general counsel tells Bloomberg BNA in a lengthy interview. As billing rates for senior partners have escalated, “I’m perfectly willing…

Aug 11, 2015 3:00 PM CDT

Outsourcing company opens Austin office, part of onshoring trend

Legal outsourcing company Integreon has opened an office in Austin, Texas, providing more evidence that law firms and companies are increasingly sending their outsourced work to offices in the United States rather than overseas. The Austin office could employ as many as 300 people in the next few years, Corporate…

Jul 29, 2015 10:47 AM CDT

Dentons hires former general counsel for General Mills who pushed law firms for diversity

Dentons has hired former General Mills general counsel Roderick “Rick” Palmore, a 2009 ABA Journal Legal Rebel who promoted diversity in the legal profession. Palmore will serve as a senior counsel at Dentons, where he will advise corporations on risk management and governance issues, according to a press release. Palmore,…

Jul 22, 2015 11:13 AM CDT