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Force Majeure Inside 3Q2020 2......How.In-house.Leaders.Can.Use.Technology.to.Better. Prepare.for.the.Next.Crisis 3......ACC.News 4......Force Majeure:.How.COVID-19.is.Impacting.Contract. Considerations.in.Maryland 7......COBRA.Notice.Litigation:.Heightened.Scrutiny.Likely. in.Troubling.Times 8......Protecting.Your.Trade.Secrets.in.the.COVID-19.Era 9......Board.Leadership FOCUS President’s Message Larry Venturelli Greetings and We hope you were able to take advantage If.you.ever.want.to.share.any. welcome to the of the three series webinar last month- ideas.or.comments.with.the. Q3 2020 newslet- Leveraging LinkedIn to Advance Your board,.here.is.the.current.list. ter! It is hard to Career: A Three-Part Career Development of.officers.and.directors: believe that by Series. The series featured Chris Batz, a the time all of Legal Recruiter of the Lion Group, who Larry.Venturelli—President you are reading provided insightful principles on how Board Members: this newsletter to best showcase your experience on summer will be coming to a close and LinkedIn, how to make the LinkedIn Dan.Smith. President.elect.and.Treasurer the fall season will be upon us. If you are Algorithm work for you and four steps to like me, you continue to work from home LinkedIn Visibility. Many thanks to Chris Kimberly.Neal—Secretary with little travel to the office, along with Batz for providing such great content and Cory.Blumberg gearing up for a virtual start to my kids’ to past Board Member, Ed Paulis, for put- Taren.Butcher. school year. ting us in contact with Chris. Dee.Drummond. As you know, after much deliberation, As we continue to navigate during this Joseph.Howard.. including a survey to our members, the pandemic, I hope that everyone has been ACC Baltimore Board made the difficult able to step away for a bit to relax and Raissa.Kirk decision to postpone our annual Golf/Spa recharge, even with the limited options Danielle.Noe event until next year. This is truly a special for travel and adventure. This year has Shane.Riley event that is enjoyed by all who attend, thrown some new challenges at us and it and I look forward to planning the event is easy to find ourselves overwhelmed or Kristin.Stortini for 2021. We will keep you posted on tim- becoming physically, mentally or emo- Michael.Wentworth ing for next year’s event as we continue tionally drained. I urge you all, if you Matthew.Wingerter. to monitor the progress of COVID-19 have not already, to take some time off Prabir.Chakrabarty.. advances through the end of the year. and disconnect from the technology that Immediate.Past.President is at our fingertips every day. In addition, the Board has also decided Lynne.Durbin. that luncheon programming and any Lastly, I hope everyone took advantage Chapter.Administrator social events shall be held virtually of the new low rate for the Virtual ACC through at least the end of October. Annual Meeting. It certainly will be The Board continues to meet regularly different not being able to see all of you Upcoming Events to discuss the most recent COVID-19 there, but I know ACC will have some guidelines and whether we will continue great content like they always do. October.7,.noon.to.1:30.pm to operate remotely through the end of Womble Bond Dickinson.presents. Stay Safe! the year. We will continue to provide you “You’re.Not.Google,.Facebook,. legal presentations virtually as we work Yours truly, Amazon.or.Apple:.Why.You.Should. with our Sponsors. Larry Venturelli Care.About.Congressional.Antitrust. Investigations.into.the.Tech.Sector”. How In-house Leaders Can Use Technology to Better Prepare for the Next Crisis By Olga V. Mack For example, Contract Management Software (CMS) automates the creation of contracts based on the information it receives from requesters. But you create the language options the software pulls from during automation. You develop the decision-trees the software uses to suggest alternative language. The result is the uniform inclusion of pre-approved language and clauses in contracts. [Related: 5 Surprising Ways CMS Can Advance Your Legal Career] In-house leaders also expand their influence by developing training programs and instruction manuals that Members of my team recently asked me distracted, and unable to focus even if the help others apply technology in dealing a question that many in-house lawyers switch to remote work is not new. with everyday business problems. These have likely been hearing in one form or efforts help ensure seamless and long- [Related: In-house at Home: Finding another: “The COVID-19 crisis is hurting lasting consistency — especially during Normalcy in Uncertain Times] the small business community. What are the flux of a crisis. we, as a company, going to do about it?” At a time when employees crave order and consistency, technology Eliminate chaos with a uniform During a crisis, corporate counsel deal provides dependable direction. Project source of truth with many unknowns that make answering management tools support remote Recently, GCs have needed to collaborate a question like this a tricky business. We coordination of tasks and responsibilities. with outside counsel and internal often need to make decisions long before Remote workers stay more engaged executives to handle employment issues all the facts are revealed. There are no with a system that tracks and records and determine what new legislation, such rulebooks; no straight lines that lead to all milestone events. Automatic notifications as the US Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and the right answers. inspire fast action and move projects Economic Security (CARES) Act, means We can, however, take advantage of along reliably. Everyone stays in the loop for their business systems. technology to ensure we are better through informative dashboards. It is much easier to assess the effects informed during a crisis and better able In many ways, the push to rely more on of recent events and legislation when to assist employees and clients. The use technology now is helping teams build documents are centralized and searchable of technology tools can help you take trust in digital frameworks that provide a within a single cloud-based platform. decisive action now while also building strong sense of structure, inclusion, and Everyone accesses the same information, continuity and stability into your business consistency — the very bedrock of the which is stored in one location within systems. This way, you are prepared to longed-for stability employees need in the tools such as client, employee, or contract deftly manage any future crisis too. virtual workplace. management platforms. Data is more Use technology to provide the readily accessible, accurate, and up-to- Spread your influence with stability employees crave date than that obtained from manually automation maintained spreadsheets and long and Saying the coronavirus pandemic In-house leaders can use technology twisted email chains. accelerated remote work arrangements is platforms as a vehicle to spread their an understatement. Rather, it forced the [Related: Remote Collaboration: 3 Ways GCs influence throughout an organization. change like a mother bird pushing a baby Can Improve Their Communication Skills] Through enterprise-wide automation, you out of the nest. During the pandemic, dictate which actions are the inevitable The resulting uniformity reduces chaos many employees feel overwhelmed, result of a confluence of factors. in a crisis. Technology platforms offer continued on page 3 2 Baltimore Chapter FOCUS 3Q20 continued from page 2 a single source of truth that helps and work directly with others online. Author: companies clarify priorities in navigating Simultaneously collaborating on the same Olga.V..Mack is the the ever-changing business and legal document and communicating in real- CEO and general landscapes. time enhances mutual understanding and counsel of Parley Pro, promotes the free flow of information a next-generation Understand business and ideas. contract management relationships company that has Technology as a guiding tool pioneered online If you want to craft offers of assistance that negotiation technology. are truly useful and meaningful to your Technology’s usefulness has never Mack shares her views business, you must understand the full been more apparent. The COVID-19 in her columns on nature of your contracts. Contract analytics pandemic pushed companies to rely on ACC Docket, Newsweek, VentureBeat, Above help legal leaders navigate business technology as a source of stability in the the Law, Bloomberg Law, and High Performance relationships while centralizing the data virtual workplace. Lawyers are finding Counsel. Mack is also an award-winning and details lawyers need to empower they can trust automation to facilitate (such as the prestigious ACC 2018 Top 10 business leaders to help themselves. predictability, ensure reliability, and 30-Somethings) general counsel, operations enforce uniformity in decision-making. professional, startup advisor, public speaker, [Related: How Technology Shrinks Our adjunct professor, and entrepreneur. She Fictional Divide and Fosters Positive Change] Ultimately, using technology now results co-founded SunLaw, an organization dedicated in faster, easier access to more data- to preparing women in-house attorneys to Your team can quickly answer questions driven insights later, which helps us deal become general counsels and legal leaders, like, “Can we create an offer that aids with uncertainty and chaos during a and WISE to help female law firm partners clients whose contracts renew in the crisis and guides us in making decisions become rainmakers. Mack authored numerous next 30-90 days?” Or “Are there enough books, including Get on Board: Earning that are beneficial for our companies, renewals to make it a worthwhile effort?” Your Ticket to a Corporate Board Seat and our employees, and our clients for years In other words, you can empower your Fundamentals of Smart Contract Security.
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