Educating Employees About Compliance With

Technology-Related Legal Risk Management Procedures

Eric Goldman

Marquette University Law School

eric.goldman@marquette.edu

http://eric_goldman.tripod.com

Introduction

w Stereotype #1: lawyer as naysayer or bottleneck

w Stereotype #2: client as rogue actor

n “It’s better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission”

w How can we avoid the negative consequences of these stereotypes?

n Client education and outreach

n Gatekeeping

n Cost accounting

Outreach—Training Sessions

w Pros

n Allows clients to proactively issue-spot

n Highlights your expertise

w Although you may need outside counsel to make presentation for maximum credibility

w Cons

n Hard to communicate nuances

n Attendance can be spotty

n Usually needs to be repeated frequently

Outreach—Intranet

w Pros

n 24x7 availability

n Clients can self-educate

w Cons

n Hard to get clients to use Intranet

n Requires on-going maintenance

n Clients often misdiagnose their problems

Outreach—Cube-Dwelling

w Pros

n Makes it easy for clients to get your input

n Demystifies lawyers/builds relationships

n You can eavesdrop

w Cons

n No privacy

n You can be too easy to reach

n May reduce visibility to senior management

Outreach—Pipeline Review

w Pros

n Get heads-up of potential problems

n Problems can be easier to fix if identified early

n Avoid deadline crunches

w Cons

n Creates lots of extra work

w Many projects never come to fruition

n Can be hard to critique ill-formed ideas

n Clients may feel micro-managed

Gatekeeping—Legal Signoff

w Pros

n Veto power

n Strong sign of management support

w Cons

n Creates bottleneck

w Clients always wait until the last minute

n Painful to scuttle a project after it is “done”

w An easy solution at the project’s beginning may be painful at the end

n Some clients will try to game the system

Gatekeeping—Webmaster

w Pros

n Removes power from rogue clients

n Increases opportunity for QA

n Reduces the number of people you need to train and interact with

w Cons

n You have to trust the webmaster’s skill/instincts

n Webmaster usually operates under tight deadlines

Cost Accounting—Chargeback Billing

w Pros

n Clients internalize costs into their decision-making

n Creates a penalty for bad legal behavior

n Communicates value of legal support

w Cons

n You must keep track of your time

n May discourage clients from asking for help

n Clients may try to game price differentials between you and outside counsel

A Solution?

w Win the friendship and respect of your co-workers, and they will voluntarily ask you for guidance

w How do you win respect?

n Be easy to reach

n Turn around requests quickly

n Don’t be judgmental

n Be creative in your solutions