InCounsel Weekly #275

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.

InCounsel Weekly #274

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.

InCounsel Weekly #265

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.

InCounsel Weekly #253

Bite-sized 🍣 for in-house counsel and creative legal minds. Curated and crafted with ❤️ by David Bushby. Newcomers can subscribe here :)

Listen

A conversation with one of our favourite GC authors, Sterling Miller 🎙

Workshop

A last minute shout-out for a virtual contract design workshop from one of the best in the biz 🎟

The day

A beautiful idea to create a new favourite part of the day 🌅

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"One of the only mail outs I genuinely enjoy reading." – Mandy Chapman at Beyond International.

InCounsel Weekly #250

Bite-sized 🍣 for in-house counsel and creative legal minds. Curated and crafted with ❤️ by David Bushby. Newcomers can subscribe here :)

What is ‘market’?

Get free access to a new product that provides real market data on hundreds of contract terms 📊

Liability limits

… and a deep dive analysis of said data on ‘what is market’ for limitation of liability clauses 🛡

Know-it-all

How sole GCs can manage the expectation to ‘know all the laws’ 🦸

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"Best legal related snippets I have read/watched in ages." – Caroline Ferguson, Business Transformation and Innovation Director at Simpson Grierson.

InCounsel Weekly #249

Bite-sized 🍣 for in-house counsel and creative legal minds. Curated and crafted with ❤️ by David Bushby. Newcomers can subscribe here :)

Templates

A free set of template contracts vetted by over 30 in-house lawyers for parties to negotiate by cover page, not redlines 👏

Desk

adidas Director of Legal Solutions, Alex Herrity unearths this gem showing the evolution of the desk since 1980 📠

Workspace

… and a science-backed deep dive on how to optimise your workspace for productivity, focus and creativity 🧠

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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.

InCounsel Weekly #248

Bite-sized 🍣 for in-house counsel and creative legal minds. Curated and crafted with ❤️ by David Bushby. Newcomers can subscribe here :)

Robust

The biggest cause of drawn out contract negotiations is starting from unreasonable AKA “robust” standard terms 😭

Home

This country looks set to make working from home a legal right 🏡

NotLeap

A class-action for firms that have had to spend time and money moving from LEAP Legal Software ⚖️

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"Still one of my favourite sources of news on legal innovation and tech." – Shilpa Bhandarkar, CEO at Nakhoda.

InCounsel Weekly #244

Bite-sized 🍣 for in-house counsel and creative legal minds. Curated and crafted with ❤️ by David Bushby. Newcomers can subscribe here :)

Recap

Happy EOFY! Here's a recap of your three most popular items (by click through) so far for 2022...

#1 Templates

A (small) collection of free, open source template contracts vetted by a solid crew of in-house lawyers 💪🏻

#2 LinkedIn

One of the best reasons I've read for GCs to post on LinkedIn ✍🏻

#3 Automate

An in-house guide to document automation 📝

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"I love reading these gems each week with a fresh coffee." – Mel Scott, Senior Legal Counsel at Megaport.

InCounsel Weekly #243

Bite-sized 🍣 for in-house counsel and creative legal minds. Curated and crafted with ❤️ by David Bushby. Newcomers can subscribe here :)

Climate clauses

Get free access to the clauses and tools you need to align your contract drafting with net zero 🍃

At CLOC ‘22…

"Stand up if you have CLM" "Stay standing if it's working well for you" Half of audience sits down 🤦

Spend

Codat’s sole counsel, Rebecca McKenzie on how she tracks external spend using a shared spreadsheet 📊

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"One of the only mail outs I genuinely enjoy reading." – Mandy Chapman at Beyond International.

InCounsel Weekly #242

Bite-sized 🍣 for in-house counsel and creative legal minds. Curated and crafted with ❤️ by David Bushby. Newcomers can subscribe here :)

Clusters

A new eDiscovery tool to help lawyers sort through millions of documents, featuring a 30,000-foot snapshot and a granular, down-to-the-document view 🔍

Clause library

The ultimate guide to building clause libraries 👏

Question

At a company where legal ops is new, which of the ‘Core 12’ would you start with? 🤷

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"They are a nice ‘pause’ in my busy working day." – Melissa Monks, Lead Counsel – Competition & Compliance and BlueScope Steel.

InCounsel Weekly #239

Bite-sized 🍣 for in-house counsel and creative legal minds. Curated and crafted with ❤️ by David Bushby. Newcomers can subscribe here :)

Contracts per hr

The math that shows 👆 how improving productivity from 1 to 2 contracts per hour is more impactful than going from 2 to 50 🤯

oneDPA

After several rounds of feedback from 1,000+ lawyers reviewing, commenting and voting on the project, the oneDPA is go 🚀

Overflow

Why outsourcing "overflow” work is not only bad for the supplier, but also bad for you 🚨

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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.

InCounsel Weekly #237

Bite-sized 🍣 for in-house counsel and creative legal minds. Curated and crafted with ❤️ by David Bushby. Newcomers can subscribe here :)

Inbox

A different kind of legal inbox that uses a few of my favourite tools, and one of the best process maps I've seen 🥰

Backstory

Here's a timely backstory on ex-Tesla commercial counsel, Laura Frederick's hugely popular 'How to Contract' resources ✍🏻

Zero

A framework for in-house lawyers to stop firefighting, and strive for 'Destination Zero' – a place where every legal problem is prevented 🏆

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"The one email I always read and click on all the links!" – Natalie Truong, Head of Legal and Regulatory Affairs at Ad Standards.

InCounsel Weekly #234

Bite-sized 🍣 for in-house counsel and creative legal minds. Curated and crafted with ❤️ by David Bushby. Newcomers can subscribe here :)

Privacy program

Eight strategic tips for developing a privacy program 🔐

Different

A free legal careers summit for anyone considering the path less travelled 🧭

Font

Refresh your contract templates with these alternative fonts 🔡

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"I love reading these gems each week with a fresh coffee." – Mel Scott, Senior Legal Counsel at Megaport.

InCounsel Weekly #233

Bite-sized 🍣 for in-house counsel and creative legal minds. Curated and crafted with ❤️ by David Bushby. Newcomers can subscribe here :)

Rebuild

How legal spend evaporated after consolidating 30 versions of a contract template into one, and rebuilding it from scratch ⚡️

OneDPA

If you deal with Data Processing Agreements, here's your chance help standardise it for the greater good 🥰

Coming in

“We’re not going to make you [come into the office] every day,” Sullivan said. “And if you do, we’re going to make it worth your while, so you see real value in coming in, rather than thinking, ‘Man, I came in because I felt I had to be there, and everything I did in the office I could have done at home.'”  👏

[read more]

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"One of the only mail outs I genuinely enjoy reading." – Mandy Chapman at Beyond International.

InCounsel Weekly #230

Bite-sized 🍣 for in-house counsel and creative legal minds. Curated and crafted with ❤️ by David Bushby. Newcomers can subscribe here :)

TLDR Act

A piece of draft legislation that applies the "Too Long; Didn’t Read" retort to online T&Cs 😲

Claustack

A new platform for lawyers to create common contract standards, share knowledge and access templates for free 🥳 

Wag the dog

Too often, GCs appear to let the digital 'tail' of digital transformation wag the transformational 'dog' – a scholarly deep dive offering a new approach 💁

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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.