Conference

Legal Malpractice & Risk Management Conference

Date: February 16-18, 2011
Location: Chicago, IL

We are pleased to announce the Tenth Anniversary of the Premier Legal Malpractice & Risk Management Conference that will take place in Chicago, Illinois, from February 16-18, 2011.

Since 2001, the Legal Malpractice & Risk Management Conference has been focused on current and important developments in the law and litigation of malpractice claims, legal malpractice insurance and risk management strategies.

Risk Sessions of Note

The Growing Threats to Client (and Firm) Data – Managing Technology to Meet the Challenges

Law firms have become targets for hackers and data thieves– all data is at risk. Drawing on resources from the "white hat" (anti-hacker) world, this panel will explore why and how law firm data is vulnerable, and what firms can do to protect data – or to insure against the costs that may result from a breach of data security.

High Tech Tools – and Traps – for
Mergers and Lateral Hiring

This panel will explore how firms can use technology to investigate and evaluate potential mergers and lateral candidates, and how, if at all, technology issues can be managed to ease such moves. Document integration is crucial in mergers and lateral hires and this panel will explore methods to resolve potential issues. The panelists also will examine problems firms encounter when technology is not used appropriately – or is just ignored – during the evaluation and integration of mergers and lateral hires. In addition, the panel will address the technology issues that arise for the departed firm (or alternatively, the firm lawyers left out of any merger).

Conference

2nd Annual Law FIrm General Counsel and Risk Management Forum

Date: May 23-24, 2011
Location: London, UKL

uilding on the highly successful initial offering of this program last year, the Second Annual Law Firm General Counsel and Risk Management Forum will focus on how risk management activities can and must be integrated across the law firm. Risk management can no longer be limited to traditional concerns like avoiding conflicts of interest or protecting client confidences. Instead, it must be considered in the broader context of enterprise-wide risk management systems. This event will draw on experts in the field to discuss the most pressing risk management issues currently facing law firms in the UK.

From Alternative Business Structures to evolving compliance issues to enhanced data security requirements, risk management poses more challenges for law firms and their general counsels today than ever before. To address these issues effectively, law firms must take an holistic and integrated approach. With this goal in mind, the 2011 conference will cover risk management from a number of different perspectives:

Changing regulatory environment
Enterprise-level risk management
Changing service delivery models
Compliance
Information Security

Risk Sessions of Note

Addressing the Risks in Information Security

With the growth of sophisticated hacking techniques and the proliferation of hackers (both private and sometimes state-sponsored) willing to launch attacks on corporate and governmental data bases, law firm clients are more sensitive than ever before to issues of information security. The sad fact however is that, for most large corporate clients, the weakest link in their chain of information security is often their outside law firms. In this program segment, we will consider the minimum levels of information security that all law firms should employ, as well as higher levels of security that are increasingly expected by clients (and often being incorporated in engagement agreements), particularly for sensitive financial or other highly proprietary information.

Conference

Managing Partner Magazine: Compliance for law firms

Date: June 14-15, 2011
Location: London, UK

A two-day intensive conference:

• Hear the Chief Executive of The Law Society and the Head of Standards from the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) give their views on outcomes focused regulation (OFR)
• Understand how the COLP and COFA roles will work in practice and who you should appoint to them
• Gain an in-depth understanding of the practical applications of the new SRA Handbook (finalised in April/May 2011) on conflicts, quality and monitoring
• Benefit from an extended 70-minute worked examples session to determine when you will need to report a problem to the SRA and when you won't
• Join a panel debate to discuss what personal financial information you can legitimately ask your partners to disclose
• Explore in-depth some desensitised examples of file reviews conducted across a range of law firms
• Discuss the interpretation and implementation of the Bribery Act and its implications for anti-money laundering and corruption
• Keep up with an ever-changing political situation in North Africa and the Middle East to ensure an up-to-date international sanctions policy
• Create effective training programmes on updates such as OFR, the Bribery Act and social media governance using new delivery methods
• Debate whether or not risk and compliance teams should advise clients and whether or not they should be integrated with fee earning teams