In-house ACCess : In-house ACCess: Association of Corporate Counsel : ACC : The In-house Counsel Bar Association

By Zenneia McLendon

Zenneia McLendon is ACC’s Director of Social Media and is responsible for developing and overseeing the association’s Social Media Strategy across all internal brands, audiences and platforms. Including: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, the In-house ACCess blog, Member-to-Member (eGroups) and YouTube.

The sun was shining at Angel Stadium of Anaheim. The sky was blue, and the thermometer read about 75 degrees. It was a perfect day for a great game of baseball — if only it wasn’t late January and the middle of the offseason. On this day, Angel Stadium and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim played host to a different group of players — in-house counsel.

Last week, the ACC’s Southern California chapter (ACC-SoCal) held their 8^th Annual In-house Counsel Conference. This year marked the first time that the event spanned two days, and as a result, attendance doubled last year’s and reached more than 400 people. Day one was held on Jan. 11, at the Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills, I joined attendees on the conference’s second day at Angel Stadium.   

From a social media perspective, and as ACC’s director of social media, this event provided a great opportunity for ACC to use one of our growing social media channels. Through Twitter we were able to highlight a chapter event, share information with our followers, increase our audience and expand our reach by live-tweeting from the event. Not only did each session provide great sound bites perfect for tweeting out, but the SoCal chapter also did an excellent job of planning and strategizing their Twitter activities ahead of time, in preparation of the event. And, of course, I was happy to join those activities as @ACCinhouse.

The conference began promptly at 8 AM PST with “Welcome Remarks” from our Angel Stadium and conference host, David Cohen, director of legal affairs and risk management for Angels Baseball LP. After the remarks, it was all up-hill. Panel topics ranged from privacy of consumer information to intellectual property to social media in the workplace. Attendees were encouraged to follow along with the conference via the conference hashtag, #IHCC12, by either logging onto Twitter or simply viewing the hashtag’s stream as it scrolled along on a screen at the front of the room. As a result of great planning and execution, with a combination of live tweeting, re-tweeting and interactive messages, the Twitter Reach for #IHCC12 was over 11,000. Participants tweeted from 14 states and four countries. If these numbers haven’t convinced you of what an amazing conference this was, visit the SoCal chapter page on the ACC website to check out all of the presentation slides and program materials. Then, come back to this post, and tell us what you think.

Along with the fact that Angel Stadium is absolutely beautiful both inside and out, as one of very few non-lawyers in attendance at the conference, there were several key takeaways that I will put into practice as I continue to progress in my career. My top three include:

• Beware of digital breadcrumbs!
• If you are responsible for social media for your company, remember that your in-house counsel are your greatest ally. Consult with them regularly.
• Who’s on first? A lawyer’s response would most likely be, “According to section 22A of Who’s contract, he will no longer be … No you cannot tweet this, and yes, we deleted his Facebook page this morning.”

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By June Casalmir 

June Casalmir is Counsel for Consumer & Marketing Practices at Sprint Nextel, where she advises on a wide variety of marketing, advertising, and consumer-related issues. In her role, June supports the company’s social media, business marketing, and sports marketing efforts.   

I am a curious person by nature, and notwithstanding my liberal arts background, I confess to having a secret desire to be an applications coder. When I’m working with my client social media teams, this has the unfortunate result of me probably spending a little too much time reading applications protocol interface (API) requirements. Yet is there actually a job-related reason to cram my brain full of technology tidbits? 

My curiosity got the best of me, and so I turned to some other in-house attorneys who also work with their companies’ social media teams for their assistance. Could they help me justify my curiosity? And what other odd predilections have they developed while supporting their companies’ social media teams?

I had a great time speaking with attorneys from large companies, sports teams and digital agencies, and learned quite a bit about their experiences. I didn’t get any closer to realizing my secret dream of coding the next Facebook, but I learned that we share the following views on how to best support our social media clients:

• We want to understand the unique business needs associated with social media;
• We hope to educate our clients on legal issues
• We are social media participants ourselves.
  

Be on the business side

The phrase “support the business” is one that constantly guides the work of in-house attorneys. We need to insure that the clients do the right thing, but we also need to work with internal clients to find practical, palatable business solutions. When it comes to working with social media teams, the needs can be unique and may differ from even those that apply to traditional communications, marketing or sales efforts. 

Social media teams — and particularly PR social media teams — often need to respond quickly, because bad press spreads rapidly and easily on Twitter, Facebook and online forums. If you access the same technologies as the clients, you get an immediate, front-seat view of what is being said about your company on social media sites. If your company policies allow it, take advantage of this opportunity by downloading an application like TweetDeck, which pushes tweets to your desktop in real time.  

In her role as associate general counsel at Rockfish, Ryane Ward handles many legal facets of the digital agency’s work, but makes sure her social media teams know that she is available to advise when they need to quickly launch services or make program changes. “Being flexible and understanding the tight timelines faced by my internal teams and our clients is just part of my job as a legal advisor,” says Ward.

Integrating the legal function into social media strategy discussions is another way to help support business needs. However, in speaking with my in-house peers, it dawned on me that strategy integration can take different forms. While I am lucky that my Sprint clients invite me to attend their weekly social media leadership team meetings, that isn’t the only way to foster close client alignment. “The technologies and the legal issues are constantly evolving,” says Cameron Westcott, legal counsel at Kia Motors of America. “As a result, I find myself learning about the different social media platforms and legal developments along with my clients.” Scaling the learning curve together with his clients gives Westcott the ability to understand their business challenges first-hand and simultaneously discuss potential legal issues.  

Educate your clients 

I have an arguably selfish motive for training my social media clients in legal issues: Arming them with knowledge of the relevant legal concepts simply makes my job easier. 

For example, if my marketing clients are aware that a method requiring purchase or considerable effort can’t be the only way for a consumer to enter a sweepstakes, they’ll structure their tweet-to-win giveaway appropriately. Who doesn’t need their already-busy worklife to be a little easier? I certainly do, and educating my social media clients has paid huge dividends in that regard.

My clients seemed to enjoy our past training sessions, asking perceptive legal questions about IP, employment and privacy. At this especially busy time of year though, formalized training sessions have fallen to the wayside. As a result, I try to spend a few more minutes   explaining my analysis so that my clients have a practical understanding of the legal parameters for other projects.    

My company’s suburban campus is fairly large, and most of my social clients are a cold, December walk away in different buildings, so I don’t get to visit them as much this time of year. Nevertheless, I should consider visiting my clients more often — not only to foster better relationships with them, but for client education purposes, too.  David Cohen, director of legal affairs for the L.A. Angels of Anaheim, calls this “internal rainmaking.” He says, “It really helps to stop by and see internal clients' offices and take advantage of the casual, spontaneous discussions to provide a more detailed explanation or provide a point-of-view.”    

Walk the walk 

 Every in-house attorney interviewed stressed the need to be a social media user in order to be a good social media lawyer. Using Twitter and Facebook and learning how to “check-in” on Foursquare gives us a realistic picture of the user interfaces and platform norms that consumers encounter. This, in turn, gives us the ability to provide business-centric advice. “Subtle differences matter,” says Michael McSunas, senior counsel – Advertising, Marketing & Promotions at Chrysler. “Linking to a video stream of a concert versus streaming the concert yourself has different legal implications, and the clients like to understand those differences.” In addition to standard marketing and promotional matters, McSunas also counts music licensing and international matters as areas where social media know-how makes a critical difference.

If the thought of signing up for a Twitter account and having nothing to tweet but pictures of your breakfast is a major hurdle to your social media participation, you may want to reconsider. Twitter is characterized on its site as a place where you can “follow your interests,” and its own web copy doesn’t exhort you to tweet anything. For that reason, attorneys are turning to Twitter as a primary way to receive legal updates or network with other legal professionals. If you find the right people or accounts to follow, you can get relevant news quickly. In fact, agencies like the FCC and the FTC use social media to both send out updates from their agencies and receive input from consumers. For example, the FTC will regularly sponsor privacy-related Twitter chats using the #FTCpriv hashtag. Notably, the ACC team is particularly adept at using social media. Along with the @ACCinhouse account, ACC Docket Editor in Chief Kim Howard (@KimHowardDC) tops my “must follow” Twitter list.  

After speaking with some of my colleagues in other companies, I felt better about my secret desire to be an app developer. They may not harbor the same coder envy as me, but we all acknowledge the need to educate ourselves on what our social media clients experience daily. Moreover, we recognize the need to be “in it” ourselves — both as integrated team members and as participants.   

Hey, do you know of any app-development courses I can take? Maybe if I tweet that question, I’ll get some good recommendations …

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My family spent two weeks this summer in Italy without mobile phones. That’s right, people — a whole 14 days not answering text messages, phone calls or looking at our calendars. No Twitter or Facebook either. That almost killed me.

When we were out, there were many times when my instinct was to reach for the phone I did not have. Cool picture? Had to use the old-fashioned digital camera. Thoughts on what I saw? That would have to wait until I could take notes at the end of the day. Pinpoint our exact location in Rome? Um, yeah: Use the map from the hotel and read the street signs. Find out more about the sites we visited? Rely on the tour guide or find a description written in English. Driving between Rome and the Almalfi Coast? Well, we did have a map — of which I was the keeper — but let’s just say that I will never be a co-pilot.

How do in-house counsel, travelling the often-windy road of in-house practice, keep up with the technology and intellectual property issues that affect them? Do you turn to websites, eGroups, or the printed or digital ACC Docket? We hope that you count among your “go to” resources ACC’s annual Technology and IP issue. September’s ACC Docket offers eight feature articles on the topic, from “Back to the Drawing Board: Contract, Copyright and Trademark Law,” to “Implementing an Effective and Defensible Legal Hold Workflow.”

There are also features for the less techy among you. For example, “Due Diligence and Your M&A Success Story,” “IP in Joint Ventures with Universities or Nonprofits,” “Importer Loopholes: Avoiding the Customs Audit,” “Document Productivity and the Second Wave of Legal Cost Containment,” “Overcriminalization: When In-house Counsel Is the Defendant, ” or “Recent Criminal Actions Involving Wastewater Treatment Facilities” might find their way on to your reading list.

Whether you want your information delivered in a print, digital or mobile format, the ACC Docket is an easily accessible resource. Just don’t take us on vacation.

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 by Sabine Brumme

ACC Europe, Vice President

Chair of the Advisory Board to the Annual Conference

The theme for this year's ACC Europe 18^th Annual Conference was How the in-house lawyer can drive the changing legal landscape. Over the past three days, in-house counsel from across Europe came together and participated in sessions and realistic solutions to help navigate the challenges and opportunities faced by corporate legal departments around the world.

During the Opening Plenary, given by Richard Susskind, author of "The End of Lawyers?", participants discussed the fundamental transformation process of the legal services industry.  Together with Dr. Thomas Werlen, general counsel and member of the executive committee for Novartis International AG, and D. Mark Poag, general counsel and senior vice president for Datacert Inc., Susskind presented best practice examples and provided insight on how their legal departments are preparing for the evolution of the legal service industry during his talk entitled, “Are you ready to change? Designing a forward looking legal department."

Every day, in-house counsel face the expanding number of challenges due to limited time and resources. The conference covered ways to deliver key solutions to a myriad of obsticales – global mobility, financial, anti-corruption, data protection and privacy, privilege (to name a few) – that corporations face today. This year’s sessions are informative and thought provoking, and also provided members an opportunity to reconnect with old friends and meet new ones.

Sessions at this year’s ACCE Conference provided corporate counsel with tools to manage their time and legal departments. Attendees took the opportunity to learn more about resources to help ease the daily workload during Using Free Legal Resources - Risks and Benefits. Legal Matter Management and Monitoring Performance delved into organizational aspects and new technologies for in-house counsel to effectively run any size in-house legal department.

Tuesday’s session entitled Social Media - Where is Your Comfort Zone?, worked with in-house counsel to discover their comfort zone and also discuss the legal challenges of Social Media.

This year’s conference will end Tuesday evening with our Closing Plenary where panelists will share their creative approaches and take an innovative look at the future of Legal Services in the 21st Century.

Thanks so much for joining us; I look forward to seeing you in Amsterdam next year, June 3-5, 2012 where we will continue to prepare for these future changes and challenges. Geniesst and Guten Abend!

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(March — 2011)

The Concise Oxford American Dictionary defines management, a noun, as: “The process of dealing with or controlling things or people.” Lawyers are, for better or worse, generally known to not like surprises; they are people who like control but who analyze most everything before making a move. Marrying lawyering with management principles seems like a perfect fit. However, management is often the hardest concept for all professions to do well.

Most of us are not taught precisely how to manage. Even a strong MBA program cannot cover how to handle all management situations. The courses are finite. Your career is not. Sure, we take professional development classes, attend workshops and conferences, and scour purported expert resources. Developing overarching management strategy can be a no-brainer, but the implementation of it and getting results take real skill.

Moving into a management role is a natural progression for those who want to move up the career ladder. So, where do we turn for help? In many cases, we look to each other. We have all worked for bosses we have either loved or hated but we hopefully learned something from each of them. But bosses aren’t the only source for management insights. We also learn from colleagues through ACC’s Education programs, Chapter events, Member Knowledge Network and eGroups. ACC Docket articles like this month’s cover story, “The General Counsel as a Strategic Thinker” also provide food for thought on how in-house counsel can contribute to good management.

Given that our best resources are often each other, social networking becomes a crucial tool to improving both knowledge and management skills for in-house lawyers. Social networking exposes us more frequently to people we know and also to people we don’t know. Each social media user brings something different to the table in terms of the information they share. Who your social network is comprised of depends solely upon whom you want in it. And, what you share with your network through social media is entirely your choice.

I started my Twitter account two years ago at the urging of two former coworkers. I was skeptical at first, but was also curious as to what microblogging on Twitter was all about. At that point, I was having a hard time wrapping my brain around “regular” blogging, and wondered what the heck was “micro” blogging?  With Tweets coming out often from the folks I followed, I was curious as to who really cares what Twitter users are doing every hour of the day? I also struggled at first with the Twitter limit requiring each message or tweet to be captured in 140 characters or less. Wow, talk about improving your editing skills!

When I opened my Twitter account, I also decided to further populate my LinkedIn profile too because I did not have a website to link to in order to offer potential “tweeps” (my Twitter followers) more information about me, an important component so you can know more about whom you are interacting and communicating with through these social media channels. Completing my LinkedIn profile led me to become more interested in what groups existed on LinkedIn and how I should and could be connecting with other professionals. Like you, I also belong to professional associations and often learn a lot about my job and management techniques from my own colleagues and social media connections.

Since we are all in this together, you will benefit from connecting to and leaning from your colleagues to help improve your law department management skills and your social networking techniques. You won’t regret it.

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(ACC Docket — December)

I learn a lot about our members when I attend a gathering. I am writing this blog post on the heels of our 2010 Annual Meeting in San Antonio –– my fifth meeting since I’ve been with ACC. Here’s what the meetings have taught me, both onsite and on the plane ride home.

Many, many lawyers are tech savvy, carrying Smartphones, laptops and iPads. Numerous attendees even showed up for registration carrying nothing more than an iPad and a phone. I can’t do that and I consider myself a semi-early adapter.

In-house counsel act quickly. When many attendees found out that we launched the Mobile Docket for the iPad^® and iPhone^®, they immediately downloaded the app.

In-house counsel use social media. Your companies blog, tweet and often host Facebook and LinkedIn pages. Yes, I also know that it makes some of you nervous, but others of you help us engage members with social media at the meetings. And for those of us who embrace this communication tool, thank you. Many of you have your own accounts. Simply check out the 2010 Annual Meeting hashtag, #accam10 on Twitter to see how many legal professionals are tweeting. It’s really uber cool.

A few lawyers still show up carrying a four-inch binder containing all their session handouts, their schedule etc., perhaps branding themselves as slow to change. Is this the message that you want to send? You obviously care enough about your profession and career to attend the meeting, and you never know where that next job offer might come from. Therefore, your networking image is important, especially at the Annual Meeting –the largest gathering of in-house counsel. I know this can require baby steps, but maybe you can ease yourself into a “less-paper-is-more strategy” by leaving the binder in your hotel room and carrying a nice portfolio, laptop or iPad instead.

On the flip side, there are the in-house counsel who show up in lax dress, jeans or even shorts. Is this really how you want to present yourself to your peers? Wouldn’t you want to always dress the part? We all know that first impressions count for everything so make sure that the one you emit is nothing but positive. Again, you never know who you’re going to meet –– maybe your next boss.

Lawyers are funny. Maybe it’s the stress of the job. Maybe you were the class clown. Maybe you like to leave what you do back at the office. But, you are a funny, fun bunch, despite the serious and deliberate nature of your career choice. Don’t let anyone else tell you differently — I so enjoy talking with you whether it’s onsite, via the telephone, email or social media.

You move with purpose. While at the ACC Annual Meeting, I have a lot of time to observe: you get to your session, find a seat and gear up to take notes. You pay attention to the presenters and ask excellent questions. I learn a lot by sitting at the back of the room and for that, I thank you.

You are always connected to the office. I know it’s the nature of the beast, but the fact that you make yourself so readily available is worth mentioning. You realize that the office does not stop working simply because you are gone. I know this can be difficult to manage while trying to focus onsite. But you do it with flair and courtesy.

When you network with your peers, it’s all work and little play until after hours. The networking lunches on Monday and Tuesday present time for Annual Meeting attendees to talk with others around the table. Unless you know other attendees personally, you generally focus on work, your department, job, corporate issues, etc., when you are there.

You have the best ideas for ACC Docket articles and Annual Meeting session topics. You are the ones in the trenches. You know which challenges you face; what works for your department and what does not. So, as we end 2010, consider making a professional resolution: I will write a feature article for the ACC Docket or submit an idea for the 2011 Annual Meeting You won’t be disappointed with the experience. We promise.

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(ACC Docket — September)

Much to the chagrin of those who know me well, I am a creature of habit. I sit on the same side in church; the same car and even seat on the commuter train. It upsets me if someone sits in “my seat.” Yes, I know it’s not really mine, but I am in my comfort zone. If I take a different commuter train, then I have to adjust to new conductors and new passengers. It’s almost like being in a new city. But, we all know how comforting yet constricting routine can be.

I cut my professional teeth in the print world of communication. Translated, that means I know what a pica pole is. I also know that a wax machine is not only for cleaning up your eyebrows and I am pretty good with X-Acto knives. I worked on my college newspaper before PageMaker or Quark even hit the design scene. Even so, I have embraced the online world and new technologies; however, I am usually not a first adopter unless it is effective. So, imagine how uncomfortable I was when two ACC colleagues introduced me to microblogging via Twitter. I had a LinkedIn profile that I had to complete since it was going to be posted on my Twitter page. I set up my Twitter account, @eicdocket, in February 2009, and have completely embraced the concept of social media. My LinkedIn account is used at least five times a week. But you won’t catch me on other sites — I only have so much time.

Twitter gives me access to topics and people I normally would not know about or communicate with. Since Twitter only allows 140 character, it forces me to write succinctly — a trait all of us should strive for. It serves as a communication tool for my employer when we launch a new magazine issue, blog post or news event. Yes, I even use it for personal observations, comments or thoughts; I use my best judgment to make sure I don’t take it too far. However, this isn’t always the case online, and employers are grappling with how to deal with social media because it’s not going away.

This month’s ACC Docket cover story, “Are You Building a House of Cards? Social Networking in the Office” asks if you have a clear social media policy for your clients because “what happens in Vegas,” doesn’t always stay there. And, if you need more on social media, then read “Identifying the Legal Issues Lurking Behind Walls and Tweets” and “Social Media Game Plan: IP and Marketing Law Playbook.”

If your multinational company is not familiar with US-style discovery, make sure you read “Tips and Traps in Conducting Discovery of Foreign Corporations.” “Building Blocks for Corporate Ethics” is an excellent refresh of your knowledge in this area. Protecting your customers’ privacy should always be a priority, so “A Balancing Act: Protecting Customer Interests and Privacy Online” helps in-house counsel strike a balance between the two. Further, neither in-house nor outside counsel should miss “Evidence Preservation Warfare: Ediscovery Lessons Learned from AMD v. Intel.”  Written by AMD’s legal team, this piece provides excellent points to remember as you preserve data within your company.

Make sure you always read our columnists. We knew their work was award-winning even before publishing peers told us so. Infusing humor, perspective and knowledge in 700 words or less is never easy. Try doing it in 140 character or less. See you on Twitter.

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(ACC Docket — April)

Employees: You never really know what it’s like to have them until you manage them. Oh sure, when you don’t manage any employees, you think you know it all. You find out how much you don’t know when you get promoted.

I worked in my husband’s company — a bootstrapped telecommunication firm — for three years. Our staff’s experiences and perspectives were varied. To say that I finally learned complete ownership — literally and figuratively — of managing employees and money is a gross understatement. When it’s your own checkbook, you look at nothing the same ever again. And when it’s your name and reputation on the line, your focus becomes even more so acute.  

The April ACC Docket is loaded with articles about traditional employment law issues and covers two fairly new employee management issues: social media and workplace bullying. In most companies, employee overhead is generally one of the top three cost centers. And that does include employee litigation, which is something we all want to avoid. ACC’s Employment and Labor Committee is one of the most active we have and they always deliver content, perspective and rock solid experience to lean on to help you manage this area well.  

Products break. Cash ebbs and flows. Vendors come and go. How employees handle it impacts your business. How they treat each other and your customers impacts the bottom line. How employees present themselves on social media platforms impacts your image and your brand. How well prepared your company is impacts you.

According to Mashable, about six million of us have registered Twitter accounts. Fifty million are on LinkedIn and Facebook says it has more than 400 million active account users. LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell’s 2009 global survey show that more than 70 percent of lawyers were members of an online social network — up nearly 25 percent the previous year. That’s a lot of opportunity for your employees to represent your company. This is new territory for most companies. If your company does not already have a social media policy, what are you waiting for?

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