From the category archives:

Risk Management and Risk Optimization

Breaking Down The Silos That Separate Business People And Lawyers

by Doug Park March 3, 2010

In many companies, business and legal operate as separate silos. On the business side, there is business development, corporate development, marketing, finance, and human resources. On the legal side, there are in-house attorneys and outside counsel. Business sees legal as a cost center, not as a value driver.  Unfortunately, this separation of business and legal [...]

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The Risk Of Using Location Based Services: Higher Insurance Premiums

by Doug Park February 23, 2010

Do you use location based services, such as Foursquare, Twitter, or Facebook? If so, you may start paying a price in the form of higher home insurance premiums.
Why? Because social media, geolocation, and location based services alert others as to your location. Specifically, people can figure out when you are or are [...]

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Why Strategy, Law, And Organization?

by Doug Park February 18, 2010

Good business lawyers understand that legal problems are necessarily business problems. Yet, understanding the law, by itself, is insufficient to understand and solve complex business problems.
In this short post, I advance a simple argument: A combined Strategy, Law, and Organization lens provides superior solutions to difficult business and legal problems. Examples include mergers [...]

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Compensation and Reputation Risk Under New SEC Disclosure Rules

by Doug Park January 11, 2010

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) new disclosure rules mandate disclosure of material adverse risks created by compensation policies. A prominent corporate attorney’s recent analysis of compensation program design and risk focuses on process, but completely ignores reputation risk.
Reputation risk based on the amount of compensation, regardless of adherence to established procedures, is “reasonably likely” [...]

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Apple Acquires The “i-phone” Trademark In China

by Doug Park January 7, 2010

Apple has finally ended its iPhone trademark problem in China by acquiring the rights to the “i-phone” mark from Hanwang Technology. The acquisition ends a dangerous intellectual property and marketing situation for Apple.
As I wrote in an earlier post, because of an apparent oversight in coordinating its marketing strategy and trademark strategy, Apple faced the [...]

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