AFAs
How not to be someone who pays $775 an hour for a first-year lawyer 💸
24/7
A leaked list of 'non-negotiable expectations' for a law firm’s associates 😓
Circle
A new law firm model without partners or associates, and reshaped from a pyramid to a circle 💡
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"One of the only mail outs I genuinely enjoy reading." – Mandy Chapman at Beyond International.
Pro Bono
A comprehensive guide to pro-bono for in-house lawyers, refreshed for 2023 🙌
Pause
An open letter calling for a 6 month pause on the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4 🚧
Comp
Brightflag’s 2023 Legal Operations Compensation Survey is out 💸
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"They are a nice ‘pause’ in my busy working day." – Melissa Monks, Lead Counsel – Competition & Compliance and BlueScope Steel.
Job share
Is it possible to job share the GC role? Yes, and here’s the proof 🙌
Copilot
Microsoft announces Copilot — combining AI with the data in your docs, emails, calendar, meetings and chats to turn your words into the most powerful productivity tool on the planet ⚡️
Hype
Despite the hype, hardly any lawyers are actually using generative AI, and roughly half think it will have “some impact” 🥱
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"The InCounsel Weekly newsletter is the best! I love when it hits my inbox." – Stephen Myers, VP, Head of Legal at People.ai.
Raising the Bar
A watershed result for Prof. Daniel Katz et al using GPT-4 to crush the Bar Exam:
“On the MBE, GPT-4 significantly outperforms both human test-takers and prior models, demonstrating a 26% increase over ChatGPT and beating humans in five of seven subject areas.” 🤯
Taxes
… and watch GPT-4 use a 16-page tax code to calculate the tax deductions for a married couple 🧮
Free
Zuva now has a free version of its contract review tool – no email required, just give it a whirl 🪄
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"My favourite newsletter and the only one I ever actually read. Love it 🥰" – Electra Japonas, CEO at tlb + Co-Founder at oneNDA.
Cut
A revealing true story on how only 5% of time could be cut by using tech to auto-flag contract issues 📑
Luminate+
A new streaming platform that looks a lot like Netflix for legal content 📺
Policy
A free policy generator for your staff to use ChatGPT 🤖
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"Best legal related snippets I have read/watched in ages." – Caroline Ferguson, Business Transformation and Innovation Director at Simpson Grierson.
Teardown
Privacy expert Avishai Ostrin, details the crucial elements of a DPA and flags a few issues/gaps in Slack’s DPA 🔍
GC 4.0
An evolution of the General Counsel over the past century – from 🦍 Paleo GC to GC 4.0 🚀
New role
The tradecraft of legal research evolving into the new role of ‘Legal Prompt Engineer’ 🤓
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"InCounsel manage to find the best of the web for this newsletter." – Jeremy Stevenson, Managing Director - Legal & Risk at CPE Capital.
Jail
Ben White unearths a great GC story: "… the only thing that kept me out of jail was some good luck and an outstanding General Counsel, and the right organizational design." ⛑
Matters
A useful guide for in-house teams on what a ‘matter’ is, and isn’t 💡
Demo
Dubbed “The Mother of All Demos” – how we’ve been augmenting human intellect, since 1968 📺
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"Still one of my favourite sources of news on legal innovation and tech." – Shilpa Bhandarkar, CEO at Nakhoda.
Top ten
Ten issues for in-house lawyers to pay attention to over the coming 12 months 🔍
ALSPs
Thomson Reuters biennial report on the ALSP market is out 📈
Locked in
It should never be this frustrating to change software providers 😭
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"InCounsel weekly is the one email I always read and click on all the links!" – Natalie Truong, Head of Legal and Regulatory Affairs at Ad Standards.
Survey
ACC's annual survey of global chief legal officers and general counsel is out 📊
CLM cuts
Layoffs in CLM have started with Icertis and SirionLabs cutting staff despite recent capital injections ⛅️
Sounds
Treat your ears (and mind) to a free repository of pure, immersive natural soundscapes from around the world 🎧
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"I open your emails as soon as I receive them!" – Melissa Monks, Lead Counsel – Competition & Compliance and BlueScope Steel.
Support
What happens when a GC spends time answering customer support tickets 🤲
Alliance
How a strong legal and procurement alliance can form the backbone of any business 💪
Subscription
A book that looks set to become the leading authority on the subscription model for professional firms 📖
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"I love reading these gems each week with a fresh coffee." – Mel Scott, Senior Legal Counsel at Megaport.
Job share
Is it possible to job share the GC role? Yes, and here’s the proof 🙌
Copilot
Microsoft announces Copilot — combining AI with the data in your docs, emails, calendar, meetings and chats to turn your words into the most powerful productivity tool on the planet ⚡️
Hype
Despite the hype, hardly any lawyers are actually using generative AI, and roughly half think it will have “some impact” 🥱
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"The InCounsel Weekly newsletter is the best! I love when it hits my inbox." – Stephen Myers, VP, Head of Legal at People.ai.
For GCs
Hands down the best set of practical use cases I’ve seen for GCs to use ChatGPT 👏
Liability
An analysis of three limitation of liability clauses, spanning the good, bad and ugly 🚩
NSDR
Take 10 mins to reset you mind and body with a non-sleep, deep rest session 💡
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"It's great that it can hit both my legal and engineering interests in a single newsletter." – Stephen Myers, VP, Head of Legal at People.ai.
Quiet quit
Vendavo Senior Legal Counsel, Elizabeth Colombo asks whether 2022 will see the end of ‘Quiet Quitting’ 🙇♂️
On the money
Another $17 million has just gone into auto-redlining contracts with your preferred positions 💸
My time
A great summary of ‘My Time’ and ‘Our Time’ communication 🙌
Watch the extended version of this issue 📺
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"One of the only mail outs I genuinely enjoy reading." – Mandy Chapman at Beyond International.
RIF
How in-house lawyers can get back on their feet after a layoff aka RIF (Reduction in Force) 🆘
ChatGPT
A glimpse at what we’ll soon be using to help with legal advice, drafting contracts, and far more… 🧠
Finite
According to this benchmark data, NDAs that are proposed with a finite term of confidentiality are 15% more likely to get signed ✍🏻
Bonus track: Watch an extended version of this issue 📼
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"They are a nice ‘pause’ in my busy working day." – Melissa Monks, Lead Counsel – Competition & Compliance and BlueScope Steel.
CoSec?
If you thinking about taking on the Company Secretary role, here’s what you need to know 📝
Auto-reply
Here’s a six question auto-reply to efficiently handle cold emails from tech vendors 👏
Krisp
A handy tool that removes background voices, noises and echo from all your video calls – works like magic 🙌
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"The InCounsel Weekly newsletter is the best! I love when it hits my inbox." – Stephen Myers, VP, Head of Legal at People.ai.
Compare
A handy comparison between two of most popular ‘standard’ NDA templates – oneNDA and Bonterms’ Mutual NDA 📑
Spellbook
An add-in for Word that reviews and suggests clause language for your contracts 🙌
Turnover
According to data [gated] from 16 firms, “roughly one-third of Australian associates left their firm over the past 12 months” 😧
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"They are a nice ‘pause’ in my busy working day." – Melissa Monks, Lead Counsel – Competition & Compliance and BlueScope Steel.
Demo
How we get our signed contracts from inbox to repository with minimal data entry ⚡️
Bill
A GC reacts to being billed 0.4 for a 5 minute exchange of 4 emails 😤
Brain
What back-to-back video meetings do to your brain 🧠
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"My favourite newsletter and the only one I ever actually read. Love it 🥰" – Electra Japonas, CEO at tlb + Co-Founder at oneNDA.
Money
The top findings from this year’s ACC compensation survey covering ~20,000 in-house legal professionals 💸
Lectures
Legal Tech Essentials kicks off today with a free lecture series on the future of the legal market 🔮
Unblock
If you ever get stuck part way through writing an article, this new word processor helps unblock your thoughts 💡
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"Best legal related snippets I have read/watched in ages." – Caroline Ferguson, Business Transformation and Innovation Director at Simpson Grierson.
DPA
Tech lawyer, Shahed Kader breaks down the anatomy of a Data Processing Agreement 🔍
Prioritise
A few tips on how to prioritise legal ops projects 🚥
Negotiate
These charts show how people from different countries tend to negotiate 🤝
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"InCounsel manage to find the best of the web for this newsletter." – Jeremy Stevenson, Managing Director - Legal & Risk at CPE Capital.
Bad news
There comes a time when all in-house counsel must deliver bad news – here’s how to do it 🤲
Academy
A brand new, on-demand legal ops training platform has just launched 🚀
Password
If you’re thinking about changing passwords, keep this mind 🔒
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"InCounsel weekly is the one email I always read and click on all the links!" – Natalie Truong, Head of Legal and Regulatory Affairs at Ad Standards.
"Best legal related snippets I have read/watched in ages."
— Caroline Ferguson, Business Transformation Manager at Simpson Grierson.
