Hi,

Welcome to With Less - a weekly newsletter dedicated to helping legal creatively do more with less. 

Here’s a tip for when you need to solve a problem - change the question.

With legal design, we want to ensure that start by identifying the real problem rather than assuming we know what the problem is. If we don't do look for the real problem, then we waste a lot of time, money, and energy solving wrong the problem and using a solution doesn't work.

Sticking with initial impressions of a problem is a problem. It’s crucial to challenge our initial impression of what we think the problem is. This is where we want to use creative questions to help us reframe and fine the real problem.

Creative questions are a way to get from where you are to what you want to create.

Join me on Friday May 6^th at noon Eastern for my free workshop Doing More With Less Using Legal Design. We’ll work on creative questions and other problem-solving techniques as ways to do more with less time, money, and energy. 

Full workshop details and registration are here.

Have a great rest of the week!  

Marty

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Here are the articles, tips, think pieces, and other reads I want to share with you this week.

!Events in bold are new to the list this week.

Webinars & Online Events

• Apr. 28 @ 16:00 CEST: Scaling International Legal Teams: Introducing Legal Operations. (ACC Europe)
• Apr. 28 @ 12:00 pm Eastern: European Compliance Update: What In-House Counsel Need To Know About The New Deal For Consumers (AKA The Next GDPR). (In-house Connect)
  
• Apr. 28 @ 4pm BST: Doing Things Differently In Legal: An Expert Discussion. (Summize)
• May 3 @ 9:00 am Eastern: ESG & Compliance Series: The E in ESG. (World Law Group)
• May 4 @ 12:15 Eastern: Digital Transformation Essentials For Corporate Counsel: Key Basics For Driving Legal Tech Innovation In Your Legal Department. (In-house Connect)
• May 5 @ 12:00 Eastern: The In-House Counsel Success Guide: Key Strategies And Insights To Jumpstart Your In-House Counsel Career. (In-house Connect)
• May 5 @ 1:00 pm Eastern: Environmental Social Governance & How Enterprises Can Advance Sustainability Initiatives: A Discussion with Christine Uri, Chief Legal Officer of ENGIE Impact. (Hanzo)
• May 6 @ 12:00 pm Eastern: Doing More With Less Using Legal Design for Inhouse Legal. (Legal Adjacency - that's me :)
• May 11 - 12: Counselwell Summit 2022 - virtual conference for in-house lawyers. ($ Counselwell).
• May 17 @ 4:00 pm Eastern: Communication Skills For In-House Counsel: Key Tips For In-House Lawyers To Better Communicate With The Business. (In-house Connect)

Substantive News & Insights

• An NDA leads to the loss of trade secrets, a failed deal and no recourse. (via Crowell)
• Seller beware: Ontario Court of Appeal on requirements to exclude statutory warranties and conditions. (via Bennet Jones)
• Survival periods — covenants are not representations or warranties, and fraud claims premised upon contractual representations and warranties are not the same as indemnification claims. (via Weil Global Private Equity Watch)
• Conflict in Ukraine: excuses for non-performance of contracts governed by German law. (via Jones Day)
• New UK consumer protection law announced. (via CMS)
  
• Clear and ambiguous clauses, commercial reality and oppression. (via Fasken)
  
• Importance of online brand enforcement increases. (via World Trademark Review)
• Flapjacks are too chewy to be taxed as cakes, tribunal rules. (via The Guardian) 
  
• Canada: non-compliant employees can be placed on unpaid leaves of absence. (via L&E Global)

In-house

• Watch the archive of the webinar Negotiating with Goliath: How startup GCs can navigate power differentials in contracting. (via Priori)
• "GCs and in-house hiring managers have told me that lawyer job candidates have started asking if they have legal tech and legal ops teams. Why? THIS is a differentiator in attracting talent now." Read the LinkedIn post from Mary O'Carroll.
  
• Ten (non-legal) books all in-house lawyers need to read. (via Ten Things You Need to Know as In-House Counsel)
• Balancing parenthood with being a company's first lawyer. (Crafty Counsel)

Legal Ops & Legal Tech

• Legal innovation and what other industries can teach us. (via Legal Business World)
• 7 ways to reduce eDiscovery costs. (via Hanzo)
• What can Emily in Paris teach us about CLM. (via Anna Lozynski)
• AI robot lawyers are saving Morgan Stanley millions in soliciting fees. (via CONTX)

Lawyers & Lawyering

• Lawyers with ADHD: understanding Neurodiversity in the legal profession. (via Lawyer Love Letters)
• Being #1 isn’t always a good thing — loneliness among lawyers. (via Legal Evolution blog)

Work

• Why Gen Z values authentic leaders (and how to become one). (via AllWork)
• The 25 micro-habits of high-impact managers. (via First Round Review)
• An inclusive language style guide. (via US GSA)
• This is a great guide to building a happy workplace culture. (via foundr)
• 3 ways for businesses to fuel innovation and drive performance. (via The Conversation)

Life

• 19 gardening shortcuts that save time, money and effort. (via Reader's Digest)
• Why do we want problems to be someone’s fault? (via Raptitude)
• A secret (curable) cause of imposter syndrome. (via Michelle Loucadoux, MBA)
• How to be more confident...by growing more comfortable with self-doubt. (via 99u)

Balance

• The 9 biggest myths about nonfiction trade publishing, debunked. (via A Writer's Notebook)
• Size matters: inside the politics of festival posters. (via The Ringer)
• Why innovation prizes fail. (via Works in Progress)
• The axe that Jack Nicholson used in the move The Shining is on the auction block. Current top bid is $90,000. I think I'll pass.

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