Compliance, cybersecurity, and social media policies are on the minds of general counsel, according to a panel of GCs who discussed the issues at last week’s ABA Section of Litigation’s 2013 Annual Conference.

The GC panelists—Randy Hayman, from District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority; Barbara Daniele, from GE Capital Americas; Cornell Boggs, from Dow Chemical Corporation; Jeannie Frey, from Presence Health; and Dennis F. Kerrigan Jr., from Zurich North America—took questions from moderator Patricia Lee Refo, a partner at Snell & Wilmer. ABA Now has posted a summary of the event with archived videos.

Boggs called compliance a “top of mind” issue for him at Dow, and Hayman noted that, “The world of regulations, especially at the federal level, as we all know, has been growing.” Hayman said that the D.C. Water and Sewer legal department keeps tabs on the evolving regulatory regime through the advice of outside counsel and industry lobbyists, along with other experts.

Daniele described her system for staying up to date, which also leaves a record of GE Capital’s compliance efforts:

. . . she employs outside counsel to help her department prepare what it calls an early warning system to alert the company to trending issues. Law firms with expertise in areas such as the U.C.C., banking law, securities law and antitrust prepare monthly newsletters on specific topics. The newsletters are funneled through subject-matter experts at the company who route the information, if relevant, to appropriate departments. Sign-offs are required, and everything is archived, Daniele noted, so the system can help document the company’s due diligence for regulators if necessary.

Other panelists agreed that topical newsletters were helpful, and had more suggestions in response to Refo’s question, “How does a law firm get on your radar screen in the noise of your day?” Among the answers were for GCs to carve out time to hear pitches from outside counsel and for “law firms make their internal CLE programs available for current or potential in-house clients, both to educate general counsel on cutting-edge issues and to demonstrate the services the firm can provide.”

The panel also discussed cybersecurity issues:


 
And smart corporate approaches to social media:



Kerrigan brought two of the panel’s key topics together in his discussion of social media policy at Zurich North America. He noted that since even stray social media comments could draw the attention of agencies that regulate insurer advertising, it is incumbent on his team to keep on top of regulatory issues and provide the company with social media “rules of the road,” adding, “We have to focus on, if we as a company are institutionally engaging in social media . . . What are we saying? How are we saying it? What’s the governance around that?”