Association of Corporate Counsel's virtual annual meeting draws attendees from over 40 countries

The Association of Corporate Counsel hosted its second virtual annual meeting, which attracted over 2400 attendees from 42 countries, spanning 10 time zones, as well as 49 legal solution providers that held sessions discussing the latest legal technology and services.

This level of participation from corporate legal department professionals shows how the annual meeting is important to the international in-house community and how lawyers are willing to keep meeting virtually in large numbers to learn and to network with their peers, said the association’s news release.

“ACC continues to have the highest caliber of speakers from some of the most recognizable companies in the world, including CLOs from more than a dozen Fortune 500 companies,” said Veta Richardson, the association’s president and chief executive officer, in the news release. “And by listening to feedback we received last year, we were able to improve opportunities for attendees to network and interact with each other on the virtual platform.”

The keynote speakers included Lucy Fato, executive vice president, general counsel and global head of communications and government affairs of the American International Group, Inc.; David Flavell, executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary of PepsiCo.; Shannon Klinger, chief legal officer and corporate secretary of Moderna, Inc.; Desiree Ralls-Morrison, executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary of the McDonald’s Corporation; Richard Rothberg, senior vice president and general counsel of Dell Technologies; Ritva Sotamaa, chief legal officer and group secretary of Unilever; and David Zapolsky, senior vice president, general counsel and secretary of Amazon.com, Inc.

Attendees benefited from access to daily keynote addresses, live interactive workshops, roundtable discussions, special sessions for the ACC CLO Club, substantive CLE/CPD courses, networking sessions and a virtual exhibit hall of legal service vendors.

More than 100 legal and technical sessions discussed topics such as COVID-19 and the law department; environmental, social and governance issues; intellectual property law; legal ethics; crisis management; business strategy for in-house counsel; legal operations and law department management; and diversity, equity and inclusion. Attendees could follow a particular theme and attend sessions most in line with their specific interests, needs or geographic location.

Attendees can access on-demand programs until the end of January next year, while those who did not register can buy content packages focused on particular topics in the upcoming weeks.

The Association of Corporate Counsel consists of over 45,000 members employed at over 10,000 organizations in 85 countries and advances the common professional and business interests of in-house counsel who work for corporations, associations and other organizations via information, education, networking and advocacy efforts.