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As consumers and institutional investors pay more and more attention to corporate activities with respect to ESG, the heads of legal departments and their teams are finding that the development of ESG policies and execution of the same is becoming their responsibility. During this discussion, we will focus on recent developments with the ESG as well as what the legal departments need to ultimately propel their organizations forward on this item.

As the pressure to become a more diverse and culturally sensitive work environment grows, businesses are beginning to ask themselves who within their organizations should be responsible for implementing the changes and what changes exactly? Is it expected of corporations to take a stand on various societal issues and should legal departments, as ethical centers in their organizations, be responsible for deciding which issues to focus on and what message to send?

While crisis response and resultant business continuity plans are a part of regular corporate governance, the pandemic has forced all businesses, regardless of their size, to take these efforts to the next level. Given the many-faceted crisis-related efforts and permanent, pandemic-related changes, what will it take to lead a successful legal department going forward?

Given the prevalence of data breaches in recent months, it is not too far-fetched to assume that any business is/will be a target. When the breach occurs, we will look at what businesses should do to respond in the most efficient manner possible and mitigate the consequences.

During this session, we will discuss the status of investigations, enforcement, and litigation and whether or not legal departments have been seeing an uptick. Additionally, some of the discussion will focus on permanent changes to the investigations, enforcement, and litigation processes as a result of the pandemic.

The session participants will explain how legal ops can be used to better understand a legal department’s process challenges, help evaluate and diagnose system challenges, and help with technology needs in order to be as efficient and as effective as possible.

As so many aspects of our lives have changed forever, the permanent mark has been placed on the way employers acquire and maintain their employees. How have employers been finding their new employees and based on those experiences, what suggestions can be offered to their peers? In addition, our panelists will explore how corporate culture is/will be viewed going forward as well as strategies for training and promoting talent.

The pandemic has forced legal departments to digitize and implement technology solutions faster than they normally would have. We will examine the impact that adoption has had as well as what is needed to continue to integrate technological advances into day-to-day operations in order to create efficiencies and free up time to perform more of the high-value work.

One of the lasting effects of the pandemic will, of course, be the change in the way we work. As employers continue to bring employees back to the office, this panel discussion will look to provide some items to bear in mind, including what these permanent changes to the work environments have looked like, what has worked, and what to expect going forward.