Ashurst cuts roles in London... Brexit not a major concern for in-house lawyers...
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Dentons has launched a new cyber incident package in the Australian market.
Cyber Ready provides an incident plan that helps businesses ensure they are ready to deal with a data breach.
They also get access to an online portal and a 24-hour helpdesk.
“Brands spend so much time investing in building their reputation and customer trust, and this can quickly come undone if an organisation is not ready to deal with incidents quickly,” explains partner and Head of Dentons’ White Collar & Government Investigations practice in Australia, Ben Allen.
He cited the recent incident in Australia with PageUp’s data breach that resulted in a lot of negative media coverage.
The package has been developed in response to recent changes to Australia’s Privacy Act and the EU’s GDPR, which mean increased reporting obligations and penalties relating to cyber attacks and data breaches.
“Ultimately”, Ben Allen noted, “we know from experience that if businesses take steps now, they can minimise the risk of damaging their hard-won brand reputation in the future.”
Ashurst cuts roles in London
Fifty-four support roles at Ashurst in London have been confirmed as redundant following a previously-announced restructuring of the secretarial function.
The firm had said that as many as 80 roles could be axed as secretarial and certain regional business functions were combined into a new ‘practice executive’ role.
The Law Society Gazette reports that 25 of the London-based executive assistants have accepted a new practice executive role and recruitment of a further 12 should be completed by the end of July.
Brexit not a major concern for in-house lawyers
Europe’s in-house legal teams are spending very little of their time on the fast-approaching exit of the UK from the EU.
A survey of in-house counsel by Thomson Reuters shows that three quarters are spending less than 10% of their time on Brexit-related matters. Most are spending no time at all preparing.
Almost two thirds of in-house teams think Brexit will make no difference at all to demand on their services; 73% where firms have no legal needs in the UK.
However, this would not be the case if the UK and EU fail to reach a deal; in that case half of respondents expect an increased Brexit-related workload.
“With a no-deal Brexit scenario still a very real prospect for the UK and EU in less than nine months, in-house lawyers in mainland Europe may be leaving their Brexit preparations too late,” said Jim Leason, VP of Market Development & Strategy at the UK & Ireland business of Thomson Reuters. “This report shows that these lawyers recognise that demands on their time will increase if this happens, and that they may not have the tools to enable them to meet the demand efficiently if it transpires.”
