finds everyone off to a good start. The past year has certainly seen a number of challenges, but thanks to the quick thinking and agility of ACC leadership, our members, and our sponsors, we've turned these challenges into opportunities to connect with more of our member base than ever before. We've been able to deliver useful, timely content to our ACC members, while showcasing the value of ACC membership to non-members as well. Here are a few highlights and previews of coming attractions:

1) Continuing to provide Contactless Delivery of Valuable Substantive Content: Thanks to technology and the flexibility of our valued sponsors, when the work-from-home mandates took hold in the midst of our 2020 Spring program planning we were able to quickly convert our in-person events to webinars. Doing so afforded more of our members the opportunity to attend a wide variety of webinars that would have otherwise been geographically untenable to attend in person. We will continue to offer programming in this format for the coming year.

2) In 2021, CLE credit will be offered for Substantive Programs: Recognizing that many of our members are licensed in states outside of Michigan that require CLE credit to maintain licensure, we will be adding yet another benefit to ACC-MI webinar attendance: CLE credits. Be on the lookout for those opportunities as programs are announced.

3) More Opportunities to Socially Connect: We are committed once again in 2021 to provide opportunities for our members to socially connect. We've just kicked off the social calendar on January 26 with a very well attended New Year Happy ½ Hour. We intend to add a few more of these opportunities to catch up and (re)connect in similar formats. In addition, we will be hosting our annual golf outing this fall as a fun, safe way to connect outdoors.

That's all for now, but stay tuned for further updates on the exciting programs that are being planned for this year.

Christopher Haven, Sr. Counsel, Meijer Inc.

ACC-MI President

Foreign Policy's spring 2020 issue asked "  Is this the end of globalization?" World Economic Forum Founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret, co-founder of "Monthly Barometer," titled their new book COVID-19: The Great Reset. And analysts explored the most likely scenario for the new normality.

Companies across the globe - including those that, not too long ago, declared an end to homeworking models - announced they would not bring their entire workforce back to the office but make flexible working solutions part of their corporate culture. Even departments reluctant to follow that trend will have to work with customers, suppliers, and clients that do - necessitating new workspace and behavioral adjustments.

Digital components for legal and risk management support were once viewed as expensive gadgets but have been increasingly recognized as business enablers. One example is the use of electronic signatures. While not surprising that their use sky-rocketed during the height of the lockdowns, the interesting observation was that, even after we (and our customers) eased back into the offices, usage remained in our case at a constant 800 percent compared to before the crisis. In addition to the potential to rationalize by automation, digital collaboration tools will become a precondition for effective legal, regulatory, and compliance support.

For example, legal seminars, frequent exchanges with legal experts, and trainings for our teams and clients, which in the majority of the cases were still carried out through on-site trainings and meetings, were suddenly no longer possible in these "old normal" formats. In addition to such structural knowledge management programs, the often underestimated (yet vital) internal information flow at the sidelines of meetings, corridor interactions with clients, and coffee machine chats fell away.

Newspaper knowledge, office gossip, the quick question or comment that appears not important enough to cross the materiality threshold that would, in times of increased workload, justify picking up the phone or drafting an email, turns out to be, more often than not, of utmost importance. As meetings decline in the "next normal," physical contacts generally reduced and the random gaining and sharing of information in canteens and at coffee machines less frequent, information flows and data management that are key to successful risk management will need to be more structured in the "next normal" - at least on the same level as pre-COVID, ideally better than before.

Collaboration tools
Irrespective if used at a fixed workplace, a flex desk, or WFH, collaborative tools and digital enablers are the precondition of the "next normal" workspace to increase productivity and reduce the burden of email. When we began our digital transformation, we were intentionally not looking at sophisticated AI solutions specifically targeting the legal or compliance market but, with the interoperability with client tools in mind, we sought to build on existing tools in use by other departments. Fixing the basics, we considered the minimum requirements:

• Secure videoconferencing systems, enabling internal and external calls
• Instant messaging to supplement phone and email to ensure fast response times
• Contract management tools automating approval flows, cross-referencing to
• Billing tools, facilitating electronic signatures, and providing document retention
• Cloud-based access to data, templates, information kits, etc.
• Global matter management tools facilitating resource allocation
• Optimization, and providing tracking and basic data analytics

Work schedules
Remaining productive in a distracting home environment, coupled with many customers and partners implementing new workflows, makes the work day a flexible concept that requires employees and managers to adopt a potentially unfamiliar time management regime. While goal orientation has clear advantages over mere presenteeism in the office, the downside of flexibility means that the boundaries between work and private lives tend to blur in times of intense workload. The "any-time-anywhere" availability (already driven by mobile devices) intensifies, which can lead to feeling frustrated and overloaded. To avoid that, we encouraged our teams to maintain a sense of normalcy by keeping normal business hours, avoiding overtime, and facilitating collaboration and planning by setting boundaries (like scheduling meetings in the middle of the week, avoiding sending emails late in the evening - just to get team members away from their "desks").

Direct communication
It may be stating the obvious, but communication became more important than ever. Isolation and email have a tendency to slow things down. Emails sent at the end of a long business day, multiplied by the same behavior by multiple recipients, can easily delay even simple matters by a few days. We encouraged our staff to use video instead of phone and phone instead of email wherever possible.

Distinct meeting types
As direct interaction with peers and colleagues in the familiar setting of an office space declines, engagement and purpose become more significant. Distinct meeting types can help. To promote direct engagement, we are institutionalizing monthly strategy calls with management and the teams to directly share developments but also to focus on selected topics of general interest (presented by the responsible professional). During the lockdowns, we held weekly "coffee catch-up" video meetings in small groups, intentionally forgoing an agenda, and open to any topic whether work-related or social (seeking to virtualize the coffee machine chat). Although requiring a certain effort to take time out of a busy schedule, mixing people who don't usually work in the same office and seeing them in the unfamiliar private home environment, ironically, brought us closer together while working remotely than when we were working side-by-side in our office space. Lastly, we increased the frequency of team meetings (without necessarily increasing the overall time invested) by shortening the duration of the meetings. Our aim was to keep the communication flow up. Switching from audio to video where possible helped build the connection.

Global vision - Local care
Reduced ability to fly experts around the globe and greater budget pressure will likely lead to a decline of central support functions and a push for stronger regional teams. Not only will such teams provide expert advice but they will have the necessary proximity to their clients - as well as understanding the local market and culture - that builds the trust necessary to deliver results. This requires skilled and empowered regional legal and compliance teams with more autonomy, but operating within the framework of a clear global vision and culture.

Vertical integration
One of the first steps we took during the lockdowns was to integrate the legal, regulatory, and compliance functions. By building a joint understanding, aligning objectives, and developing joint risk mitigation strategies, we moved from the traditional focus on legal, regulatory, compliance matters to a holistic enterprise risk program and approach, which also enabled us to expand our geographic footprint and client proximity - without increasing headcount.

Cross-functional alignment
Furthermore, we intensified the relations (including periodic reviews) with the service delivery, customs and trade, and operational teams - as well as the network of compliance and data protection officers not functionally reporting to the legal, regulatory, and compliance department - to raise awareness and create a closely knitted safety net to capture risk, without increasing resources.

To further reduce the workload pressure for the legal, regulatory, and compliance professionals, we started promoting a support model driven by associated risks, no longer just by functional responsibility. What sounds easy in theory provided some adjustment challenges in practice. For example, not everything dubbed as "legal" requires a qualified lawyer - which triggered a culture change for clients and lawyers that did not happen overnight.

For the "next normal," we are envisaging a risk-focused 4-Tier F.A.S.T. support model, pursuant to which we intend to provide Full legal support for complex Tier 1 projects, followed by an Accelerated light review of only key terms for Tier 2 projects for which we consider the risks to be medium and, finally, a combination of Self-service tools and simplified Templates utilized by empowered clients concluding low-risk projects - without direct involvement of the legal, regulatory, and compliance department.

A precondition for the model to work is simplicity of contract templates, which we simplified and shortened by 50 percent. We further launched a promising trial with a self-service tool enabling clients to create simple contracts and NDAs - which we long held do not require lawyers and can best and faster be managed by empowered staff outside of the legal department.

Data lake
The first step to data analysis and knowledge management is a working data lake. While it would be nice to have a fully operational data lake with e-research and alert functionalities, for starters, any central, safe, and globally accessible "data pool" (in the form of a cloud-based data repository - based on standard software) will do. The important points are that it has the necessary capacity and access is fast enough to resist the temptation to default to unconnected local storage as well as having an easy structure and the necessary discipline to actually use it as one central source of information.

Decentralized knowledge building
Combing through the vast amount of information and singling out the critical and the relevant is still labor and resource intensive. As the volume of legislation and regulation tends to grow with each year, central knowledge management teams, unless equipped with means most companies are not willing to invest, are fighting an uphill battle. We believe that the most efficient way in the "next normal" is decentralized knowledge management - where data gathering, the analysis of legal newsletters, leveraging local value partner relations and advising on legal and regulatory developments, etc., becomes a regional responsibility of everybody and not just a central regulatory, or knowledge management team.

Centralized risk management
By contrast, a centralized proactive risk management model - fostering a consistent approach to management briefings, providing weight, importance, and prioritization of risks and corresponding mitigation programs - will become more important in the "next normal." We dubbed our centralized program RADAR: Risk And Development Anticipation Repository - with the ambition to provide a holistic view, beyond the perimeter of just the legal, regulatory, and compliance functions, to establish a transversal and proactive approach to risk evaluation, prevention, and management.

A digital learning company
The "next normal," with fewer meetings, less ability for conventional class room trainings and less ability to pull in the lawyer next door, also requires new ways to share, maintain and overall improve knowledge - not only among the legal, regulatory, and compliance functions but also with our client base - by creating the culture of a learning company. This necessitates not only new ways of transporting knowledge and making it available on demand (i.e., by videos, podcasts, webinars, ideally all accessible from mobile devices) but also requires the skills to translate complex topics into easy to understand messages. The goal is not to impress clients with our mastery of complex matters but to raise knowledge and awareness so they can do things without having to consult the legal department.

Cognitive skills
The evolution from a "subject matter expert" to a "wider project and result-oriented legal and risk advisor" demands creativity, critical thinking, language, and complex information processing skills, and the ability to make decisions. We experienced that a constant focus on the overall project result (beyond just the legal or compliance aspects; a corporate culture aiming for simplification and clear communication; and the setting of clear objectives to complete specific projects within a certain timeframe beyond a vague "provide good support to the business," encourages the development of cognitive skills.

Empathy
Despite being a subject of debate, we believe that empathy is also a skill that can be learned and is gaining importance in the "next normal." Empathy will (with less interaction and potentially less direct contact) become more important for managers in the legal, regulatory, and compliance functions to balance the teams' performance with accommodating individual member's needs and expectations.

As empathy comes more natural for some and is (in some corporate cultures) even seen as a sign of weakness, setting some guidelines that foster empathy, whatever you want to call it, will improve the teams' performance. Among those guidelines can be the expectation for regular bilateral feedback rounds, structured periodic or ad-hoc "emoticon" employee satisfaction surveys and behavioral guidelines such as not sending work assignments after business hours; empowering by setting clear objectives; trusting in the execution of tasks (including turning down escalations); and giving clear feedback when a task is done.

Ability to learn and re-learn
Finally and maybe among the most important skills is the ability and willingness to learn and re-learn. Not only in the health and safety context of COVID, but in conjunction with the rapidly changing geopolitical landscape and evolving and disappearing industries, will legal and risk management functions need to adapt to changes and adapt faster than ever before. Learning new laws, new technologies, and new ways of working will very likely demand lifelong learning beyond the fashionable use of the word. Promoting a corporate culture that puts innovation at its heart, is open to change; accepts and excuses mistakes as part of a learning company; and encourages the ability to give and receive critical feedback, will be essential.