Canadian Lawyer InHouse

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018 28 INHOUSE Canadian entity that allows a cyber-event." Cullen says he pays very close attention to law firms — they are vendors that "contain a lot of highly confidential information that's very valuable to a bunch of rich clients and can be leveraged in extortions," and even high-quality protection systems are not infallible. "Maybe you can be soft on other aspects of the contract, but this is something we have to be tough on." In the "other" section of the question, the issue of privacy was mentioned. Wendy Lawrence, program chairwoman at the Association of Corporate Counsel and director of compliance and privacy at The Hospital for Sick Children, says privacy is a "key consideration" for organizations today, both in terms of compliance with evolved privacy laws such as PIPEDA and PHIPA and data security. "In my role, I am constantly monitoring privacy incidents in our industry and re-assessing our privacy compliance framework to ensure it continues to be effective at preventing privacy incidents from occurring and keeping the hospital prepared should an incident occur," Lawrence says. Today, almost all organizations need to deal with some level of personal information in their operations, she notes, which means privacy protection is essential to doing business. Cullen says his company works hard to make sure it has proper breach response processes. "At the end of the day, no organization is immune from these things, but what makes the difference, as with most things at life, is how you respond to it." Holding steady from past years, litigation tops the list of work most commonly sent outside. At 78.4 per cent this year, it's up from last year's 72.2 per cent, followed by employment/labour (54.3 per cent), mergers and acquisitions (28.1 per cent), intellectual property (27.1 per cent) and tax and regulatory matters (both at 26.6 per cent). Denis says litigation is typically happening after the fact. "You're being sued, you react and defend yourself. If all goes well, you win — nice — but isn't there anything else the firm What are the key issues in your legal department? (Weighted average) Is the volume of legal work carried out by your department and external counsel combined likely to grow for your company in 2018 from 2017? Managing growth of company/organization Compliance/Regulatory matters Risk management Legal department management & structure/moving to legal operations Cost containment Cybersecurity 3.4 % 2.7 % 2.6 % 3.5 % 3.4 % 4.1 % 2.4 % 45.2 % 35.1 % 17.3 % ? Don't know Y 53.7 % 22.6 % If the volume of work is projected to grow, to what do you attribute the growth? 72.7 % Company is in growth mode 19.4 % One-time project 15.2 % Company made acquisition 0 1 to 4 5 to 10 More than 10 How many law firms are you using? Are you using Alternative Service Providers? What type of billing arrangement do you have with your primary law firm/external service provider? Billable hours Flat fees Combination of billable hours and alternative fee arrangements (AFAs) AFAs 50.5 % 44.7 % 1.6 % 3.2 % Onshore Offshore Both Not using 8% 3% 5.1% 84% N 23.7 %

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