As noted on the About page, this blog focuses on essential aspects of building resilient businesses: protecting assets, navigating change, solving problems, and getting deals done effectively.
Key components of resiliency are awareness and openness to change. Denial is absolutely not a strategy. Resilient business keep pace with innovation, think strategically, exercise sound judgment, rely on core values and build effective teams.
This Fall has offered numerous opportunities to connect with others on topics at the intersection of technology and finance – each fundamental to any resilient business. This post highlights a few recent and upcoming events/writings and provides links to those interested in exploring further.
- In late September, I was pleased to attend a TMA Global Executive Board meeting in connection with the 2018 TMA Annual Conference. Plenty of interesting discussions there — but I particularly enjoyed the keynote from Frits van Paasschen, who held the CEO position at Coors then Starwood and several senior positions at other global companies before that. He authored The Disruptors’ Feast — which carries the apt subtitle “How to avoid being devoured in today’s rapidly changing global economy.” Based on his remarks, I very much look forward to reading the book.
- This summer, I received an invitation from the American Bar Association Law Practice Division to serve on the board of its Legal Technology Resource Center (LTRC). The LTRC is focused on providing legal technology guidance and resources for the efficient and effective practice of law. Guidance is provided through a technology blog, regular webinars, various publications and a dedicated website — Law Technology Today. As technology continues to evolve rapidly, I look forward to working with the LTRC team who I enjoyed meeting earlier this month.
- Coming up next week on October 23, I will join Silvia De Sousa of Thomson Dorman Sweatman LLP in Winnipeg and Kiriakoula Hatzikiriakos of the National Bank of Canada in Montreal (who recently published Secured Lending in Intellectual Property) to present a webinar sponsored by the Canadian Bar Association focused on Secured Transactions in Domain Names & Websites As has been proven time and again, websites and domain names can be sources of value for companies and creditors — but critical to unlocking that value is successfully navigating various legal issues and understanding cross-border implications.
- Each year, Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education hosts a New England Bankruptcy Law Conference. This year, I will join Adrienne Walker from Mintz and Lindsay Zahradka Milne from Bernstein Shur on a business panel focused on trade creditor issues. With stories of significant trade creditor issues emanating from the Toys R Us case and similar situations, a discussion focused on practical tools for trade creditors is timely.
- Last spring, I presented as part of a panel discussion at the ABA Business Law Section’s 2018 Spring Meeting on “Effective Mediation of E-Discovery Issues in a Post-M&A Dispute Involving a Distressed Company.” This fall, one of the organizers of that session, Leslie Berkoff of Moritt Hock & Hamroff LLP in New York, and I collaborated further on the use of mediation to resolve such disputes efficiently. Our co-authored article “Using Mediation to Resolve e-Discovery Issues” was the cover story of the October 2018 ABI Journal.
- Finally, the 2018 Norton Annual Survey of Bankruptcy Law was published this Fall. The book contains my chapter analyzing technology and intellectual property issues in distressed circumstances — including a discussion of the Tempnology case which was the subject of an earlier blog post here. Since that blog post in early September, activity before the Supreme Court has continued with petitioner Mission Product Holding filing a reply brief on September 25 arguing that the High Court should grant review and resolve the question of whether rejection requires termination of a licensee’s rights. Stay tuned.
In sum, the Fall has offered some interesting opportunities to collaborate with others in thinking through effective solutions for companies dealing with rapid change. Technology, finance, and disruption are sure to remain constant partners going forward.