Conversations with CGL: Professional Insights and Personal Journeys

Cyberattacks are not going anywhere soon. The risk of a data breach has been steadily increasing for businesses over the past decade. In fact, in Q3 of 2021, there were more data breaches caused by cyber attacks than there were total breaches in 2020.

These dynamic and new threats are coming up constantly. According to the 2021 Business Aftermath Findings:

*  58% of small businesses have been impacted by at least one data breach or one security breach. 

*  45% of small businesses spend between $250,000 and $500,000 to cover the cost of a breach.

*  15% had to reduce their headcount to cut expenses following the breach.

Moreover, around 85% of data breaches are caused by human error. And while cyber breaches significantly affect large enterprises, small businesses aren’t immune either.

In this episode, I'm discussing some recent data breaches and some important lessons and takeaways for U.S. businesses. 

In this episode, you will hear:

• The Accellion breach
• Practicing ongoing evaluations of third-party providers
• Using contracts to protect your company
• Embedding requirements and routine audits in your contracts
• The Colonial Pipeline attack
• The importance of network segregation and segmentation
• The Facebook and LinkedIn data scraping incidents
• Reducing the risk of a breach resulting from human error
• The benefits of a data minimization policy

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Have you subscribed to our podcast? We’d love for you to subscribe if you haven’t yet. Each week, we share authentic discussions with business leaders where they flesh out substantive issues while also getting deeper into their stories. We’ll dive into conversations on the fusion of business and humanity, success and authenticity, and the challenges of balancing life and work, in addition to regularly sharing legal updates and substantive content.

Privacy is ubiquitous in our legal and business landscape today and it can seem really big and daunting to companies of all sizes. Although privacy as a legal concept and an operational imperative is new for organizations, the law is developing so rapidly that it can be hard to keep up.

In this episode, CGL partner Keri Kelly and Robert Glaser, Managing Principal at Conduit Privacy Solutions join the conversation to discuss operations, privacy, and data security. They also dig into the link between privacy, legal, and IT – a triad of elements to form a single operational program.

Discover: 

• what a functional operational privacy program looks like, 
• how a functional operational privacy program decreases the financial and reputational risks to an organization, and 
• how to implement privacy into your operations and product offerings. 

Security and privacy need to be part of the fabric of your organization. To do this, it should be part of everybody's job from the executive suite down to customer-facing employees.It’s not just about the policies and procedures, but about making a culture of privacy inside the organization.

In this episode, you will hear:

• Privacy blind spots
• The triad: privacy, security, and law
• Privacy as a team sport within organizations
• The “privacy by design” framework
• The foundations of operational privacy
• How privacy and security can affect a company's valuation during an M&A process
• About the risk deceptive or misleading practices about your privacy pose in your public-facing materials
• Types of privacy and security training in the onboarding process

Subscribe and Review

Have you subscribed to our podcast? We’d love for you to subscribe if you haven’t yet. Each week, we share authentic discussions with business leaders where they flesh out substantive issues while also getting deeper into their stories. We’ll dive into conversations on the fusion of business and humanity, success and authenticity, and the challenges of balancing life and work, in addition to regularly sharing legal updates and substantive content.

Founders have a tendency to avoid seeking legal advice in the early stages. That is completely understandable considering the limited resources they have. However, this could lead to compliance issues down the road. 

From the outset, the cost of legal advice can seem really intimidating, but it is always more expensive to fix what has not been done right. Fixing legal mistakes can be significantly more expensive than being compliant. 

In today’s episode, we discuss five common mistakes early-stage startups make and some ways to avoid those to set your company up for compliance success.

If you have any concerns about compliance, it is best to reach out to an attorney who can help you navigate this because there can be catastrophic consequences for non-compliance. 

Building a relationship with an attorney who's experienced in these issues can help you avoid the mistakes that most startups make because there are consequences, and they come with a hefty price. Ultimately, a good lawyer can help you strategize, mitigate risks, and help you make the most informed business decisions. 

In this episode, you will hear:

• Relying on trust between founders instead of legal documents
• Having a clear tiebreaker when making decisions
• Failing to choose the right corporate structure
• Not respecting trade secrets and intellectual property
• Not paying your employees properly
• What happens when privacy is not built into your startup from the beginning
• The role and value attorneys provide when it comes to startup compliance

Subscribe and Review

Have you subscribed to our podcast? We’d love for you to subscribe if you haven’t yet. Each week, we share authentic discussions with business leaders where they flesh out substantive issues while also getting deeper into their stories. We’ll dive into conversations on the fusion of business and humanity, success and authenticity, and the challenges of balancing life and work, in addition to regularly sharing legal updates and substantive content.

In this replay episode, I speak with privacy expert Jessica Clark about her journey to distributed work with CGL. She explains how she moved from a fulfilling job with the FTC in Washington D.C. to a leafy suburb in Canada. She also discusses why she didn’t want to (or ultimately need to) choose between her career and the lifestyle she desired. 

To be sure, Jessica’s story shows the value of distributed work for lawyers. However, in her experience, the clients benefit too. 

In this episode, you will hear about:

• Jessica’s career background
• What spurred her decision to pursue distributed work
• How she came across CGL
• The impact the distributed work model has had on her life
• The distinction between distributed work and remote work
• The benefits of a distributed model
• How a distributed model differs from COVID work-from-home arrangements

Subscribe and Review

Have you subscribed to our podcast? We’d love for you to subscribe if you haven’t yet. Each week, we share authentic discussions with business leaders where they flesh out substantive issues while also getting deeper into their stories. We’ll dive into conversations on the fusion of business and humanity, success and authenticity, and the challenges of balancing life and work, in addition to regularly sharing legal updates and substantive content.

Do you remember the toilet paper panic buying scenario during the onset of the pandemic? 

Since the beginning of the pandemic, supply chains have been making headlines. The supply chain struggles have affected most of us in one way or another. And if you’re following up on what’s going on with the baby formula shortage right now, it’s an undeniable fact that supply chains significantly impact our society and economy. 

Supply chain strains are caused by various factors, from shutdowns and the rising cost of production, to trucker issues, warehouse, and worker shortages, reduced inventories, inflation, and a whole lot more. 

From a business standpoint, this could become a major problem over time – and contracts play a huge role in improving your supply chains while reducing the risks involved.

In this episode, we discuss how you, as a business, can better your supply chains with better contracts. We also outline other things to consider when renegotiating your supplier contracts, which is especially relevant in this post-pandemic world. 

Finally, we can’t stress enough the importance of having transparent communication about your supply chain issues with your potential purchasers. Transparency helps you meet your compliance obligations. It also better manages your consumer expectations thereby maintaining trust, protecting your brand, and reducing complaints or negative reviews.

In this episode, you will hear:

• Why transparent communication with consumers important
• Ways to improve your supply chains
• Benefits of supplier diversity
• How to diversify your portfolio contract
• Ways to reduce the risk of forced labor
• Key factors for success in reshoring lines
• Clauses to include when you're renegotiating your contract
• Considerations when you have a direct-to-consumer delivery model

Subscribe and Review

Have you subscribed to our podcast? We’d love for you to subscribe if you haven’t yet. Each week, we share authentic discussions with business leaders where they flesh out substantive issues while also getting deeper into their stories. We’ll dive into conversations on the fusion of business and humanity, success and authenticity, and the challenges of balancing life and work, in addition to regularly sharing legal updates and substantive content.