Law Department Management Blog
The Walt Disney Company’s law department has some 350 lawyers companywide. To help keep them all part of the same kingdom, a “couple of years ago, the legal department began having global videoconferences three or four times a year to discuss influential changes in the business, such as emerging technologies.” This quote comes from SuperLawyers, Bus. Ed. 2011 at 18, and its article about Alan Braverman, the veteran general counsel of Disney. As I have written teleconferencing will become the handmaiden of globally distributed lawyers (See my post of June 8, 2011: videoconferences internal to law departments.). Note also that the video updates focus on the company’s operations, not substantive legal developments.
The article also states that Braverman “told his lawyers it’s imperative that each has and plays with a PDA or table computer.” The article does not say what hardware qualifies, since a Blackberry is a PDA nor whether the legal department pays for the device. But I commend the progressive view: these technologies and associated software will grow and glow in the near future (See my post of Oct. 10, 2011: apps and tablets in the future.).