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| Renew Your Membership Today! |
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Don't Let This Be Your Last Issue - Renew Today at www.acc.com/renew If you haven't renewed your membership yet, please do so today at www.acc.com/membership/renew.php. Not sure if you need to renew? You can visit “My ACC” or contact membership@acc.com or +1.202.293.4103 ext. 360 for questions. |
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| ACC's Monthly Member Update Reader Survey |
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What Type of Update Do You Want? Please take a moment to give us your thoughts on ACC’s Monthly Member Update. Click here. |
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| Question of the Month |
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Question of the Month: Opening a New Office in a Foreign Country As general counsel of a small, but growing company, I need to advise my business team on what they should consider when determining whether to open an office in a new country where they want to do business. Does ACC have any resources to assist me with this issue? Answer: There are many factors to consider when making the decision whether to open a new office in a foreign country. To determine processes, procedures and how to structure your overseas department, you can consult the following ACC resources:
• How to Set Up a Legal Department in a New Market from the Ground Up Additional country specific and practice area¬ specific resources are available at www.acc.com/legalresources. |
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| Membership |
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ACC Adds New Features to In-house Jobline Career FAQ: From how to best craft a winning résumé, to interview tips, to hiring trends, the "Career FAQ" offers a wide array of useful information on in-house career opportunities. Updated regularly, the Q&A content brings valuable insights to job seekers wanting to move up or move on. Ask the Career Experts: Do you have career-related questions? Now through the "Ask the Career Experts" feature, ACC members can get in contact directly with staffing professionals at Robert Half Legal and receive valuable career guidance. Visit In-house Jobline to take advantage of these new features. To provide feedback and suggestions, please click here. |
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Canadian Briefings Is Looking for Authors As a published author, you can contribute to the wider profession, expand the thinking and encourage dialogue. Canadian Briefings is a quarterly newsletter supplement to the ACC Docket that focuses on timely, relevant issues affecting in-house counsel working on Canadian business legal issues. The next issue will be published in May 2010, with drafts due February 11, 2010. If you are interested in writing for an upcoming issue of Canadian Briefings, please contact Tiffani Alexander, at alexander@acc.com or 202.293.4103 x359. |
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| Education |
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Save on Annual Meeting Registration Before December 31! Is use-or-lose budget money for calendar year 2009 burning a hole in your pocket? Put it to good use with education and training from ACC. Now through December 31, 2009, register for ACC’s 2010 Annual Meeting in San Antonio at the lowest rate available and stretch your dollar even further. Join us for another exciting event full of over 100 CLE/CPD programs, networking events, and information sharing. To learn more and register, visit am.acc.com. |
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Sign Up to Sharpen Your Skills at ACC’s Corporate Counsel University® Registration for ACC’s Corporate Counsel University® (CCU) is now open at www.acc.com/ccu. Register now through February 17, 2010 and save $50! |
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The 18th Annual MCLE Fair on Jan 15-16 in London For lawyers requiring U.S. Continuing Legal Education credits and practicing in the UK or Europe, CLE Europe will be hosting their annual educational conference from January 15-16 in London. Co-sponsored by the ACC, this year’s conference will offer a wide range of programs to meet your CLE requirements, including: legal ethics, international insolvency, outsourcing and IP. For more information and to register, go to http://www.cleeurope.com/januaryfair.html. |
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| Advocacy |
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What’s The Buzz About? The ACC Value Index! And We Need Your Contribution The ACC Value Index has generated a lot of media attention because ACC members are scoring their outside counsel on efficiency, expertise, budget management and results. Members are participating because they can see that it’s a great tool for finding out what other in-house counsel think about a law firm’s value when they are seeking to retain outside counsel. The more evaluations we receive, the more robust this database will be. Each evaluation only takes a minute or two. Log-in to score your firms at http://acc.com/valueindex. |
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ACC Value Challenge® – Tips and Actions NEW Resources and Tools: Find new online resources featuring value practices that firms and law departments are implementing and practical ‘how-to’ ideas at ACC Value Challenge Resources. Recent additions include Cisco’s Approach to Strategic Management of Technology and Resources to Increase Attorney Productivity and How To Utilize Metrics. Action Idea: Open Meetings with the ‘ACC Value Minute’: A reminder to consider opening meetings with your staff, clients and
outside counsel by taking a moment to focus on a concrete practice
you’ve implemented (or that others have implemented) that focuses on
value in the legal service relationship. If you need ideas for the ACC
Value Minute, you can check out the ACC Value Challenge® Weekly Tip
or ACC’s Value Practice resources posted on the ACC Value Challenge®
Resource page. |
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ACC Advocacy – We’ve Got You Covered The constitutionality of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (Sarbox) which authorizes it are being examined by the U.S. Supreme Court. In oral arguments presented on December 7, 2009, a petitioner claimed that the PCAOB’s creation violates the Separation of Powers clause. The fix could be relatively easy if the Court agrees, but the problem is that Sarbox does not contain a severability clause, and so any finding of constitutional problems and suggested fixes would require Congress to reauthorize the act. Therefore, the concern is that a bill to reauthorize Sarbox will likely lead many on Capitol Hill to seek to amend or attach additional provisions. ACC is closely monitoring the case, and we will provide updates on the case and what it may mean for in-house law departments as it becomes available. |
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| Resources |
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ACC/American Lawyer Survey of Corporate General Counsel Reveals Small But Growing Shift to Alternative Billing Conducted in October 2009, the ACC/The American Lawyer study surveyed heads of corporate law departments and the Am Law 200 law firms, the 200 top-grossing firms in the United States. Thirty-nine percent of in-house counsel reported that their use of alternative billing arrangements with outside firms increased this year. The survey also found that changes to non-hourly billing arrangements were almost always initiated by law departments rather than their firms. Almost 50 percent of GCs said that they had used flat-fee billing this year for an entire legal matter; the percentage was even higher (60%) for GCs at companies with more than $1 billion in revenues. Survey results are available in The American Lawyer’s “The Change Agenda.” Portions of the report are also available online at www.americanlawyer.com. Complete survey results are also available to ACC members by contacting ACC Membership: membership@acc.com. For detailed information on inside/outside counsel relationships, visit 2009 ACC/Serengeti Managing Outside Counsel Survey. |
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“GHG” and Climate Change The Climate Change Conference that began on December 7 in Copenhagen kicked off with a short video entitled “Please Help the World.” Greenhouse gas (“GHG”) regulation is a major topic to be addressed – and a topic that concerns virtually every operating business. To learn more about “green” issues, and how you as ACC members can do your part, visit www.acc.com/gogreen. |
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Top Ten Proven Tactics to Generate Cost Savings Who isn’t looking for ways to save money, especially in today’s economy? Most law departments are now being asked to reduce costs quickly, and to make those cost-savings sustainable. Create ongoing savings by moving certain assignments to other resources or departments in order to allow the law department to perform more legal work internally. Streamline processes and strategies to become more efficient. For examples and suggestions, read this month’s Top Ten from Huron Consulting. |
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QuickCounsel Short on time and need some quick insights on a legal topic? Check out our QuickCounsel bank for top level information, supplemented with additional research links. This month’s additions include “Staying out of the Regulators Spotlight: Complying with The Fair Labor Standards Act and State Wage and Hour Laws” and “Franchising Legislation In Canada.” To access QuickCounsel, visit www.acc.com/quickcounsel. |
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The ACC Alliance – Premier Service Providers with Exclusive Savings There is no need to look any further; we’ve done the work for you. Here are this month’s two featured partners: • Bridgeway helps clients build high-performance legal departments through technology-based best-practice solutions, collaboration and outstanding support. With a new purchase of eCounsel, Bridgeway’s in-house, best-practices legal case/matter management system, ACC members can select either Secretariat Desktop (single user license) or eCounsel’s eMail/eInvoicing module. Get more information about Bridgway’s eCounsel. For more on these and the other ACC Alliance partners, visit www.acc.com/alliance. |
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| ACC News & Announcements |
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ACC in the News Learn more about media coverage of ACC when you visit ACC in the News. Click to read the latest news articles in their entirety:
• A New Survey That Shows Billing Rates Inching Up Slowly At U.S. Firms (Legal Week) For a complete listing of ACC’s media coverage, visit ACC in the News. If you have any questions, or wish to receive additional information about items included in this month's newsletter, please contact Marthea Davis at +1 202.293.4103, ext. 363 or via e-mail at davis@acc.com.
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