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M.L.E. Post (2)

Compliance reporting to law: My posts of July 25 concerning best practices for law departments in Europe assumes compliance is integral, July 31 about law and compliance under the same roof, and Aug. 27, 2005 about Microsoft’s compliance function reporting to the General Counsel needs an update. At Citicorp, according to the Nat. Law Journal, Aug. 2005, Supplement at 7, the huge compliance function reports not to the general counsel but to the company’s chief risk officer.

GC discussion groups: To my post of Feb. 20, 2005 add the Wisconsin GC Forum, founded by David Romoser, GC of A.O. Smith Corp. (Corp. Legal Times, Sept. 2005 at pg. 30)

Invoice approval levels. A large manufacturer requires that all invoices over $100,000 must be reviewed and approved by an Associate General Counsel.

Accruals. At one law department, they do not track accruals during the year, because a study showed that invoices were coming in on time. That department only does an accrual at the end of the year if there is a large amount due and the department wants to get it into the fiscal year.

Electronic discovery. Most of us can’t comprehend the size of some responses to a discovery request. I saw a slide that helped. If you print 10 gigabytes of documents, the stack of paper would be 1,111 feet tall, which is twice the height of the Washington Monument!