Inaugural General Counsel Up-at-Night Report Highlights Key Challenges and Concerns

The survey results are categorized into five critical areas identified through ongoing discussions with GCs: privacy and data security, risk and crisis management, regulations and enforcement, litigation, and intellectual property. Within each category, participants were asked to identify particular areas of concern:

• Privacy and Data Security: hacking/phishing/malware/ransomware (87%), employee mistakes (62%) and risks of breaches via non-law firm vendors (50%)
• Risk and Crisis Management: cybersecurity threats (57%), potential cost/impact on budget (55%) and government/regulatory investigations (55%)
• Regulations and Enforcement: changes in regulation (65%) and differences in regulations across jurisdictions (64%)
• Litigation: labor and employment (59%), potential cost/impact on budget (57%) and commercial disputes (54%)
• Intellectual Property: enforcing IP rights (67%) and trademark/copyright infringement (60%)

"Our goal with the GC Up-at-Night Report is to create a longitudinal view of the evolving priorities of GCs, with an eye toward identifying trends, assessing gaps between priorities and resource allocation, and helping GCs benchmark their priorities versus their peers," said Andrew Neblett, President of ALM Intelligence.

"We conducted this survey to gain additional insights on the critical challenges facing GCs," said Larren Nashelsky, Chair of Morrison & Foerster. "Given the demands of the role, it is not surprising that the report shows that many GCs are looking at how best to allocate resources to meet relatively new business needs, like privacy and data security and risk and crisis management. The report highlights opportunities for GCs to prepare more robustly for real-world situations in these areas."

In addition to these areas, the report looks at how GCs are sourcing work. The research was conducted from April to June 2017 polling over 200 U.S.-based in-house counsel decision makers at Fortune 1000 corporations, including: General Counsel, Chief Legal Officer, Head of Legal, or titles of similar seniority. 

About ALM Intelligence

ALM Intelligence supports legal, consulting, and benefits decision-makers seeking guidance on critical business challenges. Our proprietary market reports, rating guides, prospecting tools, surveys, and rankings inform and empower leaders, enabling them to proceed with confidence.

About Morrison & Foerster

We are Morrison & Foerster — a global firm of exceptional credentials. Our clients include some of the largest financial institutions, investment banks, and Fortune 100, technology, and life sciences companies. The Financial Times has routinely named the firm to its lists of most innovative law firms in Northern America and Asia every year that it has published since publishing its Innovative Lawyers Reports in those regions. In the past few years, Chambers USA has honored MoFo's Privacy and Data Security, Bankruptcy, and IP teams with Firm of the Year awards, the Corporate/M&A team with a client service award, and the firm as a whole with the Global USA Firm of the Year award. Our lawyers are committed to achieving innovative and business-minded results for our clients, while preserving the differences that make us stronger.

ALM Media Contact:
Carrie Winans, Prosek Partners
212-279-3115 x218
[email protected]

MoFo Media Contact:
Tracy Hager
303-592-2205
[email protected]

SOURCE ALM Intelligence