Business Law Newsletter
December
From left to right: Frank Morrissey, chair and Brian Glennon, vice chair
Note from Business Law Leadership
Welcome to the December Business Law newsletter.
On Dec. 9 the Eighth Annual In-House Counsel Conference was held
at the MBA, 20 West St., Boston. The theme of this year's
conference was "Doing Business in The Electronic Age." There were
various panel discussions and presentations regarding legal issues
and risks arising from electronic communications, electronic
recordkeeping and use of new technologies. Krish Gupta, vice
president and deputy general counsel of EMC Corporation, began the
conference with remarks about the evolution of cloud computing and
the lawyer's role in understanding the impact of that technology on
the company's business. Judge Timothy S. Hillman participated in a
panel discussion with Conference Co-Chair James C Donnelly of
Mirick, O'Connell, DeMallie and Lougee LLP, and Elizabeth M.
McCarron, vice president and assistant general counsel of EMC
Corporation, regarding counsel's role with respect to electronic
discovery and litigation holds. If you missed the conference you
now have the opportunity to watch it via MBA On
Demand.
Scott D. Schafer, chief of the Consumer Protection Division of
the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office provided an overview
regarding the commonwealth's data security laws. Stephen Cesso,
Computershare Inc.'s general counsel and Donna Durkin,
Computershare Inc.'s chief information security and privacy
officer, discussed ways to address and manage privacy breaches.
Conference Co-Chair Peter D. McDermott of Banner & Witcoff
Ltd., and F. Kinsey Haffner, vice president of Intellectual
Property & Licensing of Raytheon Company, discussed the
challenges of trying to protect trade secrets, and to limit those
who need to know certain information, in light of increasing
collaboration and development through social networks. Dr. Graham
Gal of the UMass Isenberg School of Business discussed the types of
controls that might be needed to manage against the misuse of
company information. Finally, Stephanie M. Zierten, deputy general
counsel of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Information Technology
Division, and Douglaw E. Cornelius, chief compliance officer of
Beacon Capital Partners, reviewed the ways in which social media
are used by government and in business, the matters that would be
addressed in a social media policy, as well as important contract
terms to consider with cloud computing vendors.
Keep abreast of the many activities and resources sponsored by the
Business Law Section by visiting our Web
page.
As a member of this section, you are encouraged to network and
discuss pending issues from legislation, statutes, resolutions,
cases and reports and are urged to alert the section/division
council of any legislation, statutes, resolutions, cases and
reports which might require our attention. To contact any members
of the section council, click here.
Frank Morrissey, chair
Brian Glennon, vice chair
Business Law Section Council