Quick notes from ILTA educational session on Day 2!

8/24/2010
A good session at ILTA on Day 2 of tracks & sessions featured panelists Beth Chiaiese & Jodi Malek, both from Foley & Lardner LLP, titled The Changing Regulatory Landscape and Its Effect on Law Firms. While lawyers have historically been self-regulated in the U.S., the current economic climate is allowing their clients to demand more/better from their outside counsel and the gov’t continues its effort to step-up regulation of them. Because the attorney/client privilege requires their duty of confidentiality trumps all else, some argue regulations related to security or privacy enforced by the government should not apply to them.

Beth & Jodi shared some great examples of why this issue is so critical – from open-architecture and million-dollar KM systems that leave firms open to privacy breaches to client-driven issues including RFP responses loaded with commitments and ethical obligations that require consideration. Their chat about social networking was a bit amusing...some lawyers apparently forget that they are lawyers 24/7 and need to use a bit of common sense before posting on Twitter & Facebook!