Podcasts about drinker biddle

GUEST OVERVIEW: Joe Hoft worked around the world for a Fortune 500 Corporation while attending executive meetings, and board and audit committee meetings in multiple countries. He lived in Hong Kong for nearly a decade overseeing the major business function for a multinational US corporation and prior to that oversaw the financial reporting for multimillion-dollar and billion-dollar entities. He's earned ten degrees or designations, including an MBA, CPA, CISA and FLMI. GUEST OVERVIEW:  Matt Thayer is a filmmaker GUEST OVERVIEW: Gerard Filitti is Senior Counsel at The Lawfare Project. He joined The Lawfare Project after working as a litigator in private practice for over 15 years, including at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP and Osen LLC. He has broad experience in commercial and complex litigation across a wide variety of practice areas, in both state and federal courts.

GUEST 1 OVERVIEW: Mark Powell Real Estate Broker and Owner of Discovery Property Group also the 2024 President-Elect for the San Diego Association of Realtors.   GUEST 2 OVERVIEW: Gerard Filitti is Senior Counsel at The Lawfare Project. He joined The Lawfare Project after working as a litigator in private practice for over 15 years, including at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP and Osen LLC. He has broad experience in commercial and complex litigation across a wide variety of practice areas, in both state and federal courts.   GUEST 3 OVERVIEW: Kent Heckenlively is a science teacher, an attorney, and a founding editor of Age of Autism. Heckenlively has worked for U.S. Senator Pete Wilson and the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Francisco.        

GUEST OVERVIEW: Gerard Filitti is Senior Counsel at The Lawfare Project. He joined The Lawfare Project after working as a litigator in private practice for over 15 years, including at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP and Osen LLC. He has broad experience in commercial and complex litigation across a wide variety of practice areas, in both state and federal courts.

GUEST 1 OVERVIEW: Gerard Filitti is Senior Counsel at The Lawfare Project. He joined The Lawfare Project after working as a litigator in private practice for over 15 years, including at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP and Osen LLC. He has broad experience in commercial and complex litigation across a wide variety of practice areas, in both state and federal courts. GUEST 2 OVERVIEW: Patriot_Mom007, Noél Roberts is the Phoenix Co-Chair of independent Womens Network, and is intricately involved in the Arizona Grassroots movement, serving on the board of Riders USA and Patriots Of Arizona organizations. She volunteered during the 2020 and 2022 elections as a ballot counter and poll observer. Currently she serves as an Elected Precinct and State Committeeman for LD3. http://www.takeourborderback.com/  GUEST 3 OVERVIEW: Eric Rice has a diverse work experience in various roles and industries. Eric is currently serving as the Chief Growth Officer at King Operating Corporation since May 2022. Previously, from 2013 to 2022, they worked as the Managing Partner at 25 Ventures, where they focused on developing and growing startup companies.     

  GUEST 1 OVERVIEW: Joe worked around the world for a Fortune 500 Corporation while attending executive meetings, and board and audit committee meetings in multiple countries. He lived in Hong Kong for nearly a decade overseeing the major business function for a multinational US corporation and prior to that oversaw the financial reporting for multimillion-dollar and billion-dollar entities. He's earned ten degrees or designations, including an MBA, CPA, CISA and FLMI. GUEST 2 OVERVIEW: Gerard Filitti joined The Lawfare Project (where he is currently Senior Counsel) after working as a litigator in private practice for over 15 years, including at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP and Osen LLC. He has broad experience in commercial and complex litigation across a wide variety of practice areas, in both state and federal courts. You can find him on X at @GerardFilitti and learn more about The Lawfare Project at: thelawfareproject.org.  GUEST 3 OVERVIEW: Mike ter Maat was born in Portland, Oregon. He earned a B.S. in aeronautical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1982, an M.B.A. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1983, and a Ph.D. in economics from George Washington University in 1992. Ter Maat's career experience includes working as a police officer in Broward County, Florida, an economist, an economics professor, and a substitute teacher. 

On today's show, Derrick Broze reports on the fate of Roger Ver (AKA "Bitcoin Jesus") who was arrested in Spain by the US DOJ and charged with criminal tax fraud. Later, Gerard Filitti provides an update on former President Donald Trump's hush money trial. GUEST 1 OVERVIEW: Derrick Broze is an investigative journalist, documentary filmmaker, activist, and author from Houston, Texas. He is the founder of The Conscious Resistance Network and Cofounder of The Freedom Cell Network and The Greater Reset. You can follow him on X/Twitter at @DBrozeLiveFree and his articles can be found on TheConsciousResistance.com and thelastamericanvagabond.com X/Twitter: @DBrozeLiveFree GUEST 2 OVERVIEW: Gerard Filitti joined The Lawfare Project (where he is currently Senior Counsel) after working as a litigator in private practice for over 15 years, including at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP and Osen LLC. He has broad experience in commercial and complex litigation across a wide variety of practice areas, in both state and federal courts. You can find him on X at @GerardFilitti and learn more about The Lawfare Project at: thelawfareproject.org

GUEST 1 OVERVIEW: Gerard Filitti is Senior Counsel at The Lawfare Project. He joined The Lawfare Project after working as a litigator in private practice for over 15 years, including at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP and Osen LLC. He has broad experience in commercial and complex litigation across a wide variety of practice areas, in both state and federal courts. GUEST 2 OVERVIEW: Dr. Mark Richards served for years as a physician consultant to the White House and in leadership positions in medical and surgical societies. This Yale educated scientist noticed that something unexplained, yet treatable, was taking a heavy toll on human health and relationships. His search for answers led to a shocking discovery he details in his book, NOBODY WANTS YOU HEALTHY: Achieving Better Health by Avoiding the Corruptions in Modern Medical Science. (Go to NobodyWantsYouHealthy.com for more information.)

GUEST 1 OVERVIEW:After spending more than a decade as an international corporate executive, Joe Hoft is now a radio and TV host and an author. As one of “The Hoft Brothers,” he also contributed at conservative website, The Gateway Pundit. GUEST 2 OVERVIEW: Gerard Filitti is Senior Counsel at The Lawfare Project. He joined The Lawfare Project after working as a litigator in private practice for over 15 years, including at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP and Osen LLC. He has broad experience in commercial and complex litigation across a wide variety of practice areas, in both state and federal courts.

GUEST 1 OVERVIEW: Gerard Filitti is Senior Counsel at The Lawfare Project. He joined The Lawfare Project after working as a litigator in private practice for over 15 years, including at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP and Osen LLC. He has broad experience in commercial and complex litigation across a wide variety of practice areas, in both state and federal courts. GUEST 2 OVERVIEW: Bryan "Hesher" McClain is the host of "State of the Nation" on TNT.

GUEST 1 OVERVIEW: Tim Murtaugh is the former Communications Director for Trump's 2020 campaign. Currently Tim is the Founder and Principal of Line Drive Public Affairs and Columnist at The Washington Times, Author of **Swing Hard in Case You Hit It: My Escape from Addiction and Shot at Redemption on the Trump Campaign" Host of Line Drive Podcast GUEST 2 OVERVIEW: Gerard Filitti is Senior Counsel at The Lawfare Project. He joined The Lawfare Project after working as a litigator in private practice for over 15 years, including at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP and Osen LLC. He has broad experience in commercial and complex litigation across a wide variety of practice areas, in both state and federal courts. GUEST 3 OVERVIEW: Between 2018 and 2020, Mike represented District 1 in the Florida House of Representatives. He served on the Judiciary Committee and the Public Integrity and Elections Committee during this term. Between 2013 and 2016, he represented District 2 and served on the Finance and Tax Committee and the Rules, Calendar and Ethics Committee. Both districts are in Florida's panhandle – the Pensacola area.    

On today's show, Joe Lombardi discusses Taxes and the market and inflation. What people are doing with their 401ks and IRAs now. GUEST 1 OVERVIEW: Basil Valentine is a TNT political Editor. GUEST 2 OVERVIEW: Gerard Filitti is Senior Counsel at The Lawfare Project. He joined The Lawfare Project after working as a litigator in private practice for over 15 years, including at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP and Osen LLC. He has broad experience in commercial and complex litigation across a wide variety of practice areas, in both state and federal courts. GUEST 3 OVERVIEW: Joe Lombardi specializes in insurance and wealth preservation. https://ironhawkfinancial.com/

GUEST OVERVIEW: Gerard Filitti is Senior Counsel at The Lawfare Project. He joined The Lawfare Project after working as a litigator in private practice for over 15 years, including at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP and Osen LLC. He has broad experience in commercial and complex litigation across a wide variety of practice areas, in both state and federal courts.

On today's show, Eddie Garcia discusses his run in Senate for the State of Virginia. GUEST 1 OVERVIEW: Gerard Filitti is Senior Counsel at The Lawfare Project. He joined The Lawfare Project after working as a litigator in private practice for over 15 years, including at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP and Osen LLC. He has broad experience in commercial and complex litigation across a wide variety of practice areas, in both state and federal courts. GUEST 2 OVERVIEW: Eddie Garcia is a father, husband, Army veteran with six combat deployments, veterans advocate, conservative, and your next Republican Senator for Virginia.

GUEST 1 OVERVIEW: Gerard Filitti is Senior Counsel at The Lawfare Project. He joined The Lawfare Project after working as a litigator in private practice for over 15 years, including at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP and Osen LLC. He has broad experience in commercial and complex litigation across a wide variety of practice areas, in both state and federal courts. GUEST 2 OVERVIEW: Senator Brian W. Jones represents the 40th Senate District which includes the Cities of Escondido, Poway, San Marcos, Santee, San Diego City communities of Carmel Mountain Ranch, Mira Mesa, Rancho Bernardo, Rancho Peñasquitos, Scripps Ranch, Sorrento Valley, and University City, along with the San Diego County unincorporated communities of 4S Ranch, Alpine, Bonsall, Fallbrook, Lakeside, Pine Valley, Rainbow, Ramona, and Valley Center.

GUEST 1 OVERVIEW: Gene Valentino is a GOP Political Strategist and Insider. He is the host of the Grassroots Truth Cast Podcast and a former County Commissioner in Escambia County, Florida. Twitter/X: @GeneValentino GUEST 2 OVERVIEW: Gerard Filitti is Senior Counsel at The Lawfare Project. He joined The Lawfare Project after working as a litigator in private practice for over 15 years, including at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP and Osen LLC. He has broad experience in commercial and complex litigation across a wide variety of practice areas, in both state and federal courts. GUEST 3 OVERVIEW: Giorgio Kirylo is a Retired Marine and East Village Resident.

On today's show, David Dodd discusses the increase in COVID and flu cases across the country. Later, Gerard Filitti discusses Trump's court appearance today. GUEST 1 OVERVIEW: David Dodd is the Chairman & CEO of GeoVax. GUEST 2 OVERVIEW: Gerard Filitti is Senior Counsel at The Lawfare Project. He joined The Lawfare Project after working as a litigator in private practice for over 15 years, including at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP and Osen LLC. He has broad experience in commercial and complex litigation across a wide variety of practice areas, in both state and federal courts.

On today's show, Craig "Pasta" Jardula discusses the documentary series "Lahaina On Fire." Later, Gerard Filitti discusses the ballot decision in Colorado. GUEST 1 OVERVIEW: Craig "Pasta" Jardula is the guest host of The Jimmy Dore Show. You can find more information at http://www.youtube.com/craigpastajardula GUEST 2 OVERVIEW: Gerard Filitti is Senior Counsel at The Lawfare Project. He joined The Lawfare Project after working as a litigator in private practice for over 15 years, including at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP and Osen LLC. He has broad experience in commercial and complex litigation across a wide variety of practice areas, in both state and federal courts.

On today's show, Ed Butowsky discusses the economy in the US and provides an update on the Federal Reserve. Later, Gerard Filitti discusses Elon Musk's X suing Media Matters over an antisemitism report. Also, George Papadopoulos discusses "Deep State Target" and shares his thoughts on Jeff Sessions, Bill Barr, John Durham, Joseph Mifsud, General Flynn, and more. GUEST 1 OVERVIEW: Ed Butowsky founded Chapwood Investments in 2005 after almost 20 years of serving clients at Morgan Stanley & Co. Ed Butowsky has spent the past ten years highlighting the problem of athletes going broke. Sports Illustrated featured Butowsky in a cover story on the issue in 2009, as did ESPN in 2012 for a “30 for 30” documentary called “Broke.” In addition, Ed Butowsky is the author of, “Never Go Broke” which is available on Amazon. GUEST 2 OVERVIEW: Gerard Filitti is Senior Counsel at The Lawfare Project. He joined The Lawfare Project after working as a litigator in private practice for over 15 years, including at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP and Osen LLC. He has broad experience in commercial and complex litigation across a wide variety of practice areas, in both state and federal courts. GUEST 3 OVERVIEW: George Papadopoulos is the former aide to then-Republican candidate Donald Trump's 2016 campaign.

On today's show, Kirsten Acuna discusses the loss of Matthew Perry. Later, Gerard Fillitti discusses updates on the new House Speaker. Alos, Gary Shallow who had temporary home confiscated removed from Charlotte commission meeting. GUEST OVERVIEW: Gerard Filitti is Senior Counsel at The Lawfare Project. He joined The Lawfare Project after working as a litigator in private practice for over 15 years, including at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP and Osen LLC. He has broad experience in commercial and complex litigation across a wide variety of practice areas, in both state and federal courts.

GUEST OVERVIEW: Gerard Filitti is Senior Counsel at The Lawfare Project. He joined The Lawfare Project after working as a litigator in private practice for over 15 years, including at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP and Osen LLC. He has broad experience in commercial and complex litigation across a wide variety of practice areas, in both state and federal courts.

GUEST CO-HOST: Lou Pate filling in for Steve Hook. GUEST 1 OVERVIEW: Gerard Filitti is Senior Counsel at The Lawfare Project. He joined The Lawfare Project after working as a litigator in private practice for over 15 years, including at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP and Osen LLC. He has broad experience in commercial and complex litigation across a wide variety of practice areas, in both state and federal courts. GUEST 2 OVERVIEW: Jared Feuer used to march for defund the police and now he is all about the refund!

GUEST OVERVIEW: Gerard Filitti is Senior Counsel at The Lawfare Project. He joined The Lawfare Project after working as a litigator in private practice for over 15 years, including at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP and Osen LLC. He has broad experience in commercial and complex litigation across a wide variety of practice areas, in both state and federal courts.

GUEST OVERVIEW: Gerard Filitti is Senior Counsel at The Lawfare Project. He joined The Lawfare Project after working as a litigator in private practice for over 15 years, including at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP and Osen LLC. He has broad experience in commercial and complex litigation across a wide variety of practice areas, in both state and federal courts.

COO Jane Koehl shares her experience navigating the merger between Faegre Baker Daniels and Drinker Biddle & Reath.

Patricia Proctor is the Founding Director of the Simon Perry Center for Constitutional Democracy at Marshall University. Before beginning her work at the Simon Perry Center in August of 2011, Ms. Proctor was a Member of the law firm Steptoe & Johnson PLLC from 2004-2011. Prior to that, she was a partner in the law firm Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, practicing in its complex commercial litigation group (courtesy Marshall's website). To support the channel: https://www.seabassmorris.com/get-involved Sebastian's social media links: www.instagram.com/seabassmorris www.facebook.com/seabassmorris www.twitter.com/seabassmorris www.linkedin.com/company/seabassmorris "The Seabass Show" podcast social media links: www.instagram.com/seabasspodcast www.facebook.com/seabasspodcast www.twitter.com/seabasspodcast www.linkedin.com/company/seabasspodcast --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/seabasspodcast/support

In 1956, as an 11th grader, Ellery Schempp challenged the mandatory Bible readings at his public school in Abington, Pennsylvania. His protest became a landmark Supreme Court case, Abington School District v. Schempp, that ended the practice, and Ellery and his family were represented by lawyers from the ACLU-PA and from the law firm Drinker Biddle. He visited with ACLU-PA staff recently and reflected on the case.

It's a new decade for the IndyBar, and leading the association into it is President Andy Campbell, a partner at Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath. In this episode, we talk law firm mergers, political science and life at the University of Montana, work/life balance, what's next for the IndyBar and more.

Dave shares a Washington Post story about the data your car may be collecting about you. Ben digs in to recent revelations about government surveillance, and later in the show we interview Jason G. Weiss, former forensic expert with the FBI and current Counsel at Drinker Biddle and Reath, where he focuses on cyber security and privacy law. Links to stories: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/12/17/what-does-your-car-know-about-you-we-hacked-chevy-find-out/ https://www.cnet.com/news/aclu-is-suing-ice-for-details-on-how-it-uses-phone-spying-devices/ https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/us/politics/fisa-surveillance-fbi.html Thanks to our sponsor, KnowBe4.

First Monday is coming, and you know what that means...all eyes will be on the United States Supreme Court as it opens its new term.Brian Paul of Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP joins us on this episode of Off the Record with James Bell to provide an update on where the court is and a preview of where it might go in this term. Plus, hear a moving tribute to former Dean Norman Lefstein of the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, who passed away on August 29, 2019. To subscribe to updates on the U.S. Supreme Court from Brian and the team at Faegre Baker Daniels LLP, click here.

We last spoke with my guest Fred Reish, ERISA Attorney and Partner at Drinker Biddle in the immediate aftermath of the demise of the DOL Fiduciary Rule.  Today, we catch-up on what has happened since and what implications they have for employers, their employees and retirement service providers.  Without stealing too much of Fred’s thunder, we start with why this conversation and regulations exists, what has changed in concept and with new and newish players entering the fray like the SEC and several states.  We also put a finer point to some concepts that sound the same but have different meanings like conflict of interest & prohibited transaction or fiduciary & best interest.  Also Fred is pretty candid about what he thinks the result of these regulations will be and for my closing question, I get him to wax a little philosophical.   As a reminder, check out the website for todays episode at 401kfridays.com/reish2019 for a full transcript, links to Fred’s blog and other information he puts out as well as his answer to this weeks bonus question.  To give you a little preview, Fred shares his opinion on whether the DOL will revisit the fiduciary rule and what that could look like.   Guest Bio Fred Reish is an ERISA attorney whose practice focuses on fiduciary responsibility, prohibited transactions and plan qualification and operational issues. He has been recognized as one of the “Legends” of the retirement industry by both PlanAdviser magazine and PlanSponsor magazine. Fred has received awards for: the 401(k) Industry’s Most Influential Person by 401kWire; one of RIABiz’s 10 most influential individuals in the 401(k) industry affecting RIAs; the Commissioner’s Award and the District Director’s Award by the IRS; the Eidson Founder’s Award by the American Society of Professionals & Actuaries (ASPPA); the Institutional Investor and the PlanSponsor magazine Lifetime Achievement Awards; and the ASPPA/Morningstar 401(k) Leadership Award. He has also received the Arizona State University Alumni Service Award. Fred has written more than 350 articles and four books about retirement plans, including a monthly column on 401(k) fiduciary issues for PlanSponsormagazine. Fred Co-Chaired the IRS Los Angeles Benefits Conference for over 10 years, served as a founding Co-Chair of the ASPPA 401(k) Summit, and has served on the Steering Committee for the DOL National Conference. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over 150 prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

Could retirement plan loans be the next big fiduciary concern for plan sponsors?  Hard to tell, but my conversation today with Bruce Ashton, ERISA Attorney and Partner in the Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation Practice at Drinker Biddle, will certainly help you understand why multiple regulators are taking a harder look at the retirement plan loans, especially defaults.  We cover a ton of ground including my opening question which is likely the first thing that would come to the minds of most employers, we delve into how loans become a fiduciary concern and much more.  I also ask Bruce the inevitable question of whether the time has come to eliminate loans in workplace retirement plans.   Before we get started, don’t forget that we have bonus question on the website, a full transcript of the episode, a copy of the white paper Bruce authored on the loan challenges we discuss today and much more. You can find it by going to 401kfridays.com/ashton.   Guest Bio Bruce L. Ashton has more than 35 years of experience handling employee benefits matters. His practice concentrates on representing plan service providers (including RIAs, independent record-keepers, third-party administrators, broker-dealers and insurance companies) in fulfilling their obligations under ERISA. His experience includes representing public and private sector plans and their sponsors, negotiating the resolution of plan qualification issues under IRS remedial correction programs, advising and defending fiduciaries on their obligations and liabilities, and structuring qualified plans, non-qualified deferred compensation arrangements. Combining his employee benefits and transactional experience, Bruce is also active in the installation and funding of employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs). Bruce is a contributor to Drinker Biddle’s Broker-Dealer Law Blog, which provides practical insights on litigation, regulatory, compliance and fiduciary issues impacting broker-dealers. He has co-authored four books on employee benefits issues and a quarterly column in the Journal of Pension Benefits on IRS remedial programs, and is a frequent contributor to various tax and pension publications. He is a frequent speaker on employee benefits issues ranging from fiduciary responsibility to ESOPs, and is a regularly featured speaker at conferences sponsored by ASPPA, and other organizations. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over 150 prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

Welcome to Compliance Dos & Don’ts, where experts share their licensing and compliance knowledge.  Today our guest is Dan Brown, a partner with Drinker Biddle, a full-service law firm that provides litigation, regulatory and business solutions to public and private corporations nationwide.  Dan shares his dos and don’ts for brokers in the London markets who need to comply with U.S. insurance laws and regulations.  His secret for success: Know which activities you can and can’t engage in, for each state. And if you only learn one thing from this podcast, let it be this: Don’t put all your eggs in one basket; have more than one surplus lines-licensed individual to support your agency licenses.

Welcome to Certificant Connections, a podcast powered by the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards. In this episode, CFP Board takes a quick look at the latest news and trends in the financial planning profession. With interviews and insights from newsmakers and thought leaders in the profession. Maureen Thompson and retirement expert Fred Reish of Drinker Biddle talk about the organization’s new working group, which will be focused on developing policy ideas on how to encourage more people to save for retirement and how their savings can last a lifetime.   Key Takeaways [:20] Dan Drummond welcomes Maureen Thompson, CFP Board's VP for Public Policy, and Fred Reish resident retirement expert to the podcast to talk about a new initiative for the CFP Board — the retirement issues working group. [00:41] Maureen talks about the retirement issues working group, its purpose, mission, how it came about and how it will be operated. [2:07] Dan asks Fred what kinds of challenges he has seen the public face in terms of retirement issues and what kind of results he expects the retirement issues working group to yield. [4:00] Dan asks Maureen and Fred to talk on what Congress has in the works in terms of legislative proposals. [6:55] Maureen and Fred outline some of the important focus areas to work on as pertaining to retirement savings? [10:12] What the schedule is for the retirement issues working group operations and what the end product is expected to be. [11:40] Dan thanks Maureen and Fred for coming on the podcast and explaining the new retirement issues working group.   Thank you for listening to another episode of Certificant Connections, for more information, visit our website and check out our blog.   To submit questions, email us at podcast@cfpboard.org.   If you enjoyed the show, we hope you visit iTunes to subscribe, rate and leave us a review.   Join us next time for another edition of Certificant Connections.   Mentioned in this episode Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards   More about your hosts Dan Drummond is the Director of Communications of Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. (CFP Board)   Maureen Thompson is the Vice-President of Public Policy of Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. (CFP Board)   Fred Reish of Drinker Biddle is a consultant and expert witness on ERISA litigation and FINRA arbitration, with a focus on cases involving broker-dealers, registered investment advisers, financial service companies and other service providers.  

The DOL Fiduciary Rule died, or did it?  Maybe its coming back to life in another form, through another government agency or even the states will take a crack at it.  What should employers know? How will this impact employees?  In this timely and action packed episode I am excited to have Fred Reish, ERISA Attorney extraordinaire with Drinker Biddle and the closest follower I know of the long and winding path of the fiduciary rule.  For many, Fred requires no introduction.  If you are not familiar Fred is perennially listed as one of the most influential individuals in the retirement industry, he has been named one of the “Legends” in the development of retirement plan by PLANSPONSOR Magazine and given multiple lifetime achievement awards and other honors.  On top of that, Fred is a great guy with an easy to follow communication style as he shares his insights today.  If you want to learn more about Fred or subscribe to his blog that we reference today you can find him at fredreish.com As a quick aside, I worked in several questions we got from listeners who are email subscribers or follow me on LinkedIn.  If you want an opportunity to submit questions to future guests go to 401kfridays.com/subscribe to get connected.  Finally, Fred was an inspiration for me to start the podcast.  More on that in my wrap-up if you are interested.   Guest Bio Fred Reish is an ERISA attorney whose practice focuses on fiduciary responsibility, prohibited transactions and plan qualification and operational issues. He has been recognized as one of the “Legends” of the retirement industry by both PlanAdviser magazine and PlanSponsor magazine. Fred has received awards for: the 401(k) Industry’s Most Influential Person by 401kWire; one of RIABiz’s 10 most influential individuals in the 401(k) industry affecting RIAs; the Commissioner’s Award and the District Director’s Award by the IRS; the Eidson Founder’s Award by the American Society of Professionals & Actuaries (ASPPA); the Institutional Investor and the PlanSponsor magazine Lifetime Achievement Awards; and the ASPPA/Morningstar 401(k) Leadership Award. He has also received the Arizona State University Alumni Service Award. Fred has written more than 350 articles and four books about retirement plans, including a monthly column on 401(k) fiduciary issues for PlanSponsor magazine. Fred Co-Chaired the IRS Los Angeles Benefits Conference for over 10 years, served as a founding Co-Chair of the ASPPA 401(k) Summit, and has served on the Steering Committee for the DOL National Conference. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

Alicia Hickok and Eugene Volokh join National Constitution Center President and CEO Jeffrey Rosen to discuss a major Supreme Court case about public-union dues. The Supreme Court is considering arguments in a case that could have a huge effect on public-section unions and their membership. The case of Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) will be heard on February 26 at the Court. The question in front of the nine Justices is if public-sector “agency shop” arrangements -- payments that workers represented by a union must pay even if they are not dues-paying members -- should be invalidated under the First Amendment. The Supreme Court said in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education (1977) that government employees who don’t belong to a union can be required to pay for union contract negotiating costs that benefit to all public employees, including non-union members. The Abood decision has been challenged in court several times, and an evenly divided Court couldn’t decide a similar case, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, in 2016.  This time, a full Court will consider the issue. Alicia Hickok is a Partner at the law firm Drinker Biddle and a Lecturer in law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She wrote an amicus brief in the Janus case on behalf of the Rutherford Institute, siding with Janus’s position. Eugene Volokh is Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law at UCLA Law School. He co-wrote an amicus brief in Janus with Will Baude siding with the union. Questions or comments? We would love to hear from you. Contact the We the People team at podcast@constitutioncenter.org And don't forget to take our new podcast survey at constitutioncenter.org/survey The Constitution Center is offering CLE credits for select America’s Town Hall programs! Get more information at constitutioncenter.org/CLE.

Drinker Biddle talks Windstream's potential covenant defaults and exchange offer obstacles by Debtwire Radio

This episode features Brad Campbell from Drinker Biddle who shines light on the DOL Fiduciary Role, followed by former AALU Board Member Tim Malarkey, and where the industry has been, where its going, and what markets are the strongest right now.

In this second  podcast, Bennett continues where he left off last time. Borden describes his work on developing algorithms to find insider threats based on analyzing content and metadata. Transcript Cindy: Hi, everyone. Welcome to our Inside Out Security Podcast. Andy and I are very excited to have Bennett Borden. He plays many roles. He is an attorney, a data scientist, and also a partner at Drinker Biddle in Washington D.C. So welcome, Bennett. Andy: Thanks, Cindy. And again welcome, Bennett. Thank you for joining this call. So we're really excited to have you, and mostly because you have this unusual background that bridges law and data analysis. You've also written some really interesting articles on the subject of applying data science to e-discovery. I'm wondering for our non-lawyer readers of the blog, can you tell us what discovery is and how it has led to the use of big data techniques? Bennett: Sure, absolutely. And Andy and Cindy, thanks for having me. So discovery is a process in litigation. And it's a process when two or more parties get into litigation. These rules about discovery require the parties to trade information about whatever the case is about. So if you think of a patent infringement case or a breach of contract case, the two parties ‘serve discovery’—that’s what it's called--on each other. This is basically a game of Go Fish. And one side says, "Give me all your documents about the formation of the contract," and then the other side has to go and find all those documents. As you can imagine, in the information age, that could be anything! You've got to go find all the emails about that and all the documents like Word or PowerPoint. Depending on the case, it could be things like server logs or financial or HR data. It becomes quite the hunt in this modern age. Varonis: Right. So it has become e-discovery or electronic discovery. Bennett: That's exactly right. Varonis: The problem is finding relevant documents. And this problem of finding relevancy and how to decide whether a document is relevant would seem to lead to some ideas in data science. Bennett: Yes, and that's what's been really great about the advent of the information age and big data analytics in the last few years. Discovery has been around since the 1960's, but it was initially a paper endeavor.  You had to go to file cabinets and file rooms and you'd find stuff, and copy it, and hand it over. But as we’ve gotten into computerized systems and databases and especially email, it's become really quite burdensome. Millions of dollars are spent trying to find and locate these documents. It began as an issue of search technology, having to search these different repositories, document management systems and file servers and email servers. Then as data analytics came online, we have these advanced machine learning search capabilities. As I find something that I'm looking for, it's basically a “more like this” search, and analytical tools can help us understand the characteristics of what they call responsive documents and help us find more like that. It's greatly increased the efficiency of the discovery process. Varonis: Right. So it seems like some of these ideas of using data science started with e-discovery, but it has branched out from there. And I know you've written about how data analytics was used, for example, in other legal transactions like a mergers and acquisition case that you wrote about. Can you tell us more about how it's expanding from just e-discovery? Bennett: Yeah. This is really what's one of the most interesting parts of data science and its convergence in the legal sphere, because if you think about it, a lawyer's most fundamental product is really information. As a litigator, as a corporate lawyer, what we're trying to figure out is what happened and why: sometimes it’s whose fault it is or even trying to understand the value of a transaction or the value of a company, or the risk that's associated with certain kinds of securities transactions. All of that is based on information. The easier it is and the more accurately and quickly you can get at certainty of information, the better legal product you have. We started playing with these techniques. It’s the same techniques that were helping us find information that was relevant to a case, and tried to apply these to different settings. One of the most obvious is investigation settings, like a regulatory investigation or even an internal investigation. It's the same kind of principle, you're looking for electronic evidence of what happened. And that kind of pushed us into some interesting other areas. If you think about how a merger or acquisition happens, company A wants to buy company B, and so company A asks a bunch of questions — what they call due diligence. They want to know what your assets and liabilities are, what risks you might face, what are your uncollectible accounts, and, say, do you have any kind of environmental risk or litigation going on. The information provided by the target company is used to get an understanding of the value of the target, and that's what determines the purchase price. The more certain that information is or that value is, the fairer the price. When you start getting fluctuations in price, it really reflects the amount of uncertainty over the value of the company. Often when these companies trade information, they don't have a clear picture of the other side. We started using these electronic discovery and big data techniques in the due diligence process to get clearer information.   Varonis: Right. As I recall from the case, the company was sold, and then as part of verifying the company's disclosures about what they were doing were accurate, you actually went and looked at the file system. Bennett: Yeah. And this is what's interesting! When we were talking to our M&A lawyers, as one of the endeavors, we were going around to different practice groups in the firm, and we were saying, "Look, I have this skill set where I can get you information. And so how would that be valuable to you?" One of the lawyers I was talking to, the head of the M&A group, said, ‘Look, our biggest problem is that we don't have about what they're telling us and how accurate it is.’ Every M&A transaction has a provision, which they call an indemnification provision, that basically says, ‘You're going to tell me about your company, and then I'm going to give you some money for the company, but if I find out that what you told me was not accurate, then to the extent it wasn't accurate, I get to adjust my purchase price after.’ In other words, I get a refund of whatever the differences in value are. The problem with these indemnification provisions is that they are only open for like 30 or 60 days. Usually it's very hard to figure out whether the information is accurate within that very short period of time. So in this particular case, our client, the purchaser, had some doubts about the veracity of some of the information coming out of the other side, but really couldn't prove one way or the other.  Literally the day that the purchase closed, we owned all the information assets at the company we bought. We swooped in and did a data analysis, looking at all the information they had given us, and then walked it back through time. How did they come up with these figures in their disclosures? What was the internal discussion going on with their internal people and their outside auditors? We were able to show there was a pretty wide variance between what they told us and what is a reasonable basis for the valuation. We got millions of dollars back on that purchase price, and we've been able to do that over and over again now because we are able to get at these answers much more quickly in electronic data.   Varonis: Right. Yeah. It's fascinating that you're able to find the relevant files, you connect them over a period of time, and then sort of walk it back as a way to learn that the disclosure was not quite right. We're definitely on the same page about there's a lot of information on file systems, and data science can help pull it out! Back in December, we heard you speak at the CDO Summit here in New York City, and you also mentioned a system that you helped develop that can spot insider threats during and even before the actual incident. And I think you said you analyzed both the actual content and meta-content or metadata. Can you talk a little bit more about that system? Bennett: Sure. You know, this is one of the most intriguing things that I think we've done. And it sprang out of this understanding that electronic data inside of a company, and really anywhere, is really evidence of where someone has been at a certain point in time, and what they thought or did or purchased or communicated. So you can actually watch how decisions are made or how actions start to be undertaken. All of us go through our everyday lives, especially at work, leaving trails behind of conversations with people, emails back and forth, and how we come to decisions. All of these things are now kept in this electronic record. We have this sociological record-- more than we've ever had as a species, really! If you know how to get at those facts and how to put them together, you can really find the answer to just about how anything came about. I came out of the intelligence community before going to law school, and so figuring out what happened and why has been my background for my entire career. What we figured out in data science is we are pretty good at being able to predict what people are going to do as consumers. For example, this is why your Amazon suggestions, your gift basket, or your Netflix suggestions on movies, or the coupons they spit out at the local pharmacy are based on predictions of what you’re going to do. I thought if we can predict what someone's going to like or what someone's going to buy, surely I can predict if someone's going to do something wrong, because just like there's patterns in all human conduct, there's patterns in misconduct as well. So we tested this. We took a number of data sets that we had basically found in a discovery process-- a litigation or a regulatory investigation that was about corporate misconduct, something like financial statement fraud-- and all of these documents had already been analyzed by teams of lawyers to figure out which ones of those were relevant to the underlying misconduct. I had a target variable that a document was or was not related to the underlying misconduct. We built algorithmic models, predictive models, based on these underlying data, across all sorts of different kinds of misconduct, and it turned out that misconduct is actually highly predictable. We worked with some of my colleagues back at the intelligence agencies, some folks at the FBI, and some social scientists who worked with the psychology of fraud and the psychology of wrongdoing, and developed this algorithmic model that had aspects of text mining--- words and phrases people used. Some of it was based on social network analysis—looking at who was talking to who, and when, or strange patterns in communication, especially outside of work hours, people that don't normally talk to each other, or siphoning off communications outside of the network to personal email accounts. A significant part of this was conducting sentiment analysis. It turns out that the sentiment analysis actually was a large proportion of the predictive algorithm. After putting all of these features together into a model, it was stunningly accurate that we could find patterns as it began to develop, that people were either engaging in some kind of misconduct, or a situation was ripe where such misconduct could occur.   Varonis:  Right. There's some really interesting research about what they call precursors of insiders, and it sounds like you're spotting that in your algorithms. It also seems like you have a training set of data and you build it up, creating profile, a statistical profile. Bennett: Yes, that's exactly right. We looked specifically at the temporal aspect of misconduct. Catching someone after they've done it or kind of after the horse is out of the barn, that's easier, but what's harder is can we actually see the misconduct coming? So we built this model where we had a test set of data, some of which we used to build the model, and of course some of which we used to test it on, and we focused specifically on the behavior leading up to the misconduct. So could we catch it earlier? And that's where it's really interesting to see the dynamics, the sociological dynamics of how a corporation works, and people's frustration level and feelings of acceptance and support--was there some kind of loyalty  severancing event? It was really quite an interesting sociological effort.   Varonis: Absolutely, yeah. The researchers talk about trigger events that will push an insider over the line, so to speak. But we've also learned, as you suggested, that the insiders will actually try it out, they'll try to do some test runs to see how far they can get. And it sounds like your algorithms would then spot this. In other words, stop them before they actually do the act of copying or destruction or whatever it is. Bennett: That's exactly it.   Varonis: Yeah. We call that user behavior analytics, or UBA. That's the industry term of it. So it sounds like you think that's the right approach. Not everyone follows that way of finding these behaviors, or catching insiders, I should say, but it sounds like behavior is something that you're very interested in spotting. Bennett: It is. You know, it's fraught with very interesting issues. One of the things that I speak about quite often is the ethical use of data analytics. And there are certainly issues here. A lot of the triggering events or the triggers that come into misconduct situations have to do with people's personal lives, some kind of personal crisis or financial crisis, drug or alcohol dependencies, and a lot of it has to do with their interaction with their colleagues and superiors, stressful situations and feelings of ingratitude or not being recognized for their worth, and those are very personal things. And one of the things that we tested this on as part of a graduate program that I was involved in at New York University is what could you tweak this algorithm to find? We actually did some test runs. Could you find all the Republicans? Could you find people of a particular political belief or such? And you can! And it's very disconcerting that to realize that these kinds of algorithms can really find just about anything. So then the question becomes, "What's the right thing to do?" What responsibility do we have as a company or especially a public company to monitor behavior and to monitor compliance, and yet not interfere with people's personal lives? It's a very interesting question that the law is really not settled on, and is something that we have to consider as data analysts.   Varonis: Yeah, that's very interesting. The question is, "When do you turn it on?" Should it be on all the time or do certain conditions justify it? So yeah, I absolutely agree that is an issue for companies. I have one last question for you, and it has to do with, again, the insiders let's say who go bad, they're in a powerful position, they actually have created the content, they feel like they own it. And these people are sometimes very hard to spot because they're the creators, they could be high level executives, they own the content, and sometimes hard to determine whether they've actually done something wrong. They may be copying a lot of directories or files to a laptop, but that's just part of their job. So we are big believers in just keeping some basic audit trails on file activities, outside of any of the algorithms that we were talking about. So do you think that is just a minimal thing for companies to do? Bennett: It is. It's interesting because it's why we built the algorithms to capture so many different kinds of behaviors so that one person could not hide their trail well enough. But there's just basic things the companies should do to understand where their most valuable information is and where it's going. There is very simple technology out there that allows us to understand where valuable information is being routed and where it goes to that are far away from these kind of advanced algorithms. So it's common sense. In the Information Age a company's most valuable asset really is information. And so having what we call information governance principles, and so understanding and governing your information as you would any other asset is just good business.   Varonis: Right, absolutely agree. So thank you so much, Bennett, on your insights today. Bennett, if people want to learn more about what you do and follow you on Twitter, do you have a handle or a website that you can share with everyone? Bennett: Yes, thanks. My handle is @BennettBorden. And then most of my publications are on the firm's webpage at DrinkerBiddle.com under my profile. We write fairly often on this, and I would certainly welcome any thoughts from your listeners.

Once we heard Bennett Borden, a partner at the Washington law firm of DrinkerBiddle, speak at the CDO Summit about data science, privacy, and metadata, we knew we had to reengage him to continue the conversation. His  bio is quite interesting: in addition to being a litigator, he’s also a data scientist. He’s a sought after speaker on legal tech issues. Bennett has  written law journal articles about the application of machine learning and document analysis to ediscovery and other legal transactions. In this first part in a series of podcasts, Bennett discusses the discovery process and how data analysis techniques came to be used by the legal world. His unique insights on the value of the file system as a knowledge asset as well as his perspective as an attorney made for a really interesting discussion. Transcript Cindy: Hi, everyone. Welcome to our Inside Out Security Podcast. Andy and I are very excited to have Bennett Borden. He plays many roles. He is an attorney, a data scientist, and also a partner at Drinker Biddle in Washington D.C. So welcome, Bennett. Andy: Thanks, Cindy. And again welcome, Bennett. Thank you for joining this call. So we're really excited to have you, and mostly because you have this unusual background that bridges law and data analysis. You've also written some really interesting articles on the subject of applying data science to e-discovery. I'm wondering for our non-lawyer readers of the blog, can you tell us what discovery is and how it has led to the use of big data techniques? Bennett: Sure, absolutely. And Andy and Cindy, thanks for having me. So discovery is a process in litigation. And it's a process when two or more parties get into litigation. These rules about discovery require the parties to trade information about whatever the case is about. So if you think of a patent infringement case or a breach of contract case, the two parties ‘serve discovery’—that’s what it's called--on each other. This is basically a game of Go Fish. And one side says, "Give me all your documents about the formation of the contract," and then the other side has to go and find all those documents. As you can imagine, in the information age, that could be anything! You've got to go find all the emails about that and all the documents like Word or PowerPoint. Depending on the case, it could be things like server logs or financial or HR data. It becomes quite the hunt in this modern age. Varonis: Right. So it has become e-discovery or electronic discovery. Bennett: That's exactly right. Varonis: The problem is finding relevant documents. And this problem of finding relevancy and how to decide whether a document is relevant would seem to lead to some ideas in data science. Bennett: Yes, and that's what's been really great about the advent of the information age and big data analytics in the last few years. Discovery has been around since the 1960's, but it was initially a paper endeavor.  You had to go to file cabinets and file rooms and you'd find stuff, and copy it, and hand it over. But as we’ve gotten into computerized systems and databases and especially email, it's become really quite burdensome. Millions of dollars are spent trying to find and locate these documents. It began as an issue of search technology, having to search these different repositories, document management systems and file servers and email servers. Then as data analytics came online, we have these advanced machine learning search capabilities. As I find something that I'm looking for, it's basically a “more like this” search, and analytical tools can help us understand the characteristics of what they call responsive documents and help us find more like that. It's greatly increased the efficiency of the discovery process. Varonis: Right. So it seems like some of these ideas of using data science started with e-discovery, but it has branched out from there. And I know you've written about how data analytics was used, for example, in other legal transactions like a mergers and acquisition case that you wrote about. Can you tell us more about how it's expanding from just e-discovery? Bennett: Yeah. This is really what's one of the most interesting parts of data science and its convergence in the legal sphere, because if you think about it, a lawyer's most fundamental product is really information. As a litigator, as a corporate lawyer, what we're trying to figure out is what happened and why: sometimes it’s whose fault it is or even trying to understand the value of a transaction or the value of a company, or the risk that's associated with certain kinds of securities transactions. All of that is based on information. The easier it is and the more accurately and quickly you can get at certainty of information, the better legal product you have. We started playing with these techniques. It’s the same techniques that were helping us find information that was relevant to a case, and tried to apply these to different settings. One of the most obvious is investigation settings, like a regulatory investigation or even an internal investigation. It's the same kind of principle, you're looking for electronic evidence of what happened. And that kind of pushed us into some interesting other areas. If you think about how a merger or acquisition happens, company A wants to buy company B, and so company A asks a bunch of questions — what they call due diligence. They want to know what your assets and liabilities are, what risks you might face, what are your uncollectible accounts, and, say, do you have any kind of environmental risk or litigation going on. The information provided by the target company is used to get an understanding of the value of the target, and that's what determines the purchase price. The more certain that information is or that value is, the fairer the price. When you start getting fluctuations in price, it really reflects the amount of uncertainty over the value of the company. Often when these companies trade information, they don't have a clear picture of the other side. We started using these electronic discovery and big data techniques in the due diligence process to get clearer information.   Varonis: Right. As I recall from the case, the company was sold, and then as part of verifying the company's disclosures about what they were doing were accurate, you actually went and looked at the file system. Bennett: Yeah. And this is what's interesting! When we were talking to our M&A lawyers, as one of the endeavors, we were going around to different practice groups in the firm, and we were saying, "Look, I have this skill set where I can get you information. And so how would that be valuable to you?" One of the lawyers I was talking to, the head of the M&A group, said, ‘Look, our biggest problem is that we don't have about what they're telling us and how accurate it is.’ Every M&A transaction has a provision, which they call an indemnification provision, that basically says, ‘You're going to tell me about your company, and then I'm going to give you some money for the company, but if I find out that what you told me was not accurate, then to the extent it wasn't accurate, I get to adjust my purchase price after.’ In other words, I get a refund of whatever the differences in value are. The problem with these indemnification provisions is that they are only open for like 30 or 60 days. Usually it's very hard to figure out whether the information is accurate within that very short period of time. So in this particular case, our client, the purchaser, had some doubts about the veracity of some of the information coming out of the other side, but really couldn't prove one way or the other.  Literally the day that the purchase closed, we owned all the information assets at the company we bought. We swooped in and did a data analysis, looking at all the information they had given us, and then walked it back through time. How did they come up with these figures in their disclosures? What was the internal discussion going on with their internal people and their outside auditors? We were able to show there was a pretty wide variance between what they told us and what is a reasonable basis for the valuation. We got millions of dollars back on that purchase price, and we've been able to do that over and over again now because we are able to get at these answers much more quickly in electronic data.   Varonis: Right. Yeah. It's fascinating that you're able to find the relevant files, you connect them over a period of time, and then sort of walk it back as a way to learn that the disclosure was not quite right. We're definitely on the same page about there's a lot of information on file systems, and data science can help pull it out! Back in December, we heard you speak at the CDO Summit here in New York City, and you also mentioned a system that you helped develop that can spot insider threats during and even before the actual incident. And I think you said you analyzed both the actual content and meta-content or metadata. Can you talk a little bit more about that system? Bennett: Sure. You know, this is one of the most intriguing things that I think we've done. And it sprang out of this understanding that electronic data inside of a company, and really anywhere, is really evidence of where someone has been at a certain point in time, and what they thought or did or purchased or communicated. So you can actually watch how decisions are made or how actions start to be undertaken. All of us go through our everyday lives, especially at work, leaving trails behind of conversations with people, emails back and forth, and how we come to decisions. All of these things are now kept in this electronic record. We have this sociological record-- more than we've ever had as a species, really! If you know how to get at those facts and how to put them together, you can really find the answer to just about how anything came about. I came out of the intelligence community before going to law school, and so figuring out what happened and why has been my background for my entire career. What we figured out in data science is we are pretty good at being able to predict what people are going to do as consumers. For example, this is why your Amazon suggestions, your gift basket, or your Netflix suggestions on movies, or the coupons they spit out at the local pharmacy are based on predictions of what you’re going to do. I thought if we can predict what someone's going to like or what someone's going to buy, surely I can predict if someone's going to do something wrong, because just like there's patterns in all human conduct, there's patterns in misconduct as well. So we tested this. We took a number of data sets that we had basically found in a discovery process-- a litigation or a regulatory investigation that was about corporate misconduct, something like financial statement fraud-- and all of these documents had already been analyzed by teams of lawyers to figure out which ones of those were relevant to the underlying misconduct. I had a target variable that a document was or was not related to the underlying misconduct. We built algorithmic models, predictive models, based on these underlying data, across all sorts of different kinds of misconduct, and it turned out that misconduct is actually highly predictable. We worked with some of my colleagues back at the intelligence agencies, some folks at the FBI, and some social scientists who worked with the psychology of fraud and the psychology of wrongdoing, and developed this algorithmic model that had aspects of text mining--- words and phrases people used. Some of it was based on social network analysis—looking at who was talking to who, and when, or strange patterns in communication, especially outside of work hours, people that don't normally talk to each other, or siphoning off communications outside of the network to personal email accounts. A significant part of this was conducting sentiment analysis. It turns out that the sentiment analysis actually was a large proportion of the predictive algorithm. After putting all of these features together into a model, it was stunningly accurate that we could find patterns as it began to develop, that people were either engaging in some kind of misconduct, or a situation was ripe where such misconduct could occur.   Varonis:  Right. There's some really interesting research about what they call precursors of insiders, and it sounds like you're spotting that in your algorithms. It also seems like you have a training set of data and you build it up, creating profile, a statistical profile. Bennett: Yes, that's exactly right. We looked specifically at the temporal aspect of misconduct. Catching someone after they've done it or kind of after the horse is out of the barn, that's easier, but what's harder is can we actually see the misconduct coming? So we built this model where we had a test set of data, some of which we used to build the model, and of course some of which we used to test it on, and we focused specifically on the behavior leading up to the misconduct. So could we catch it earlier? And that's where it's really interesting to see the dynamics, the sociological dynamics of how a corporation works, and people's frustration level and feelings of acceptance and support--was there some kind of loyalty  severancing event? It was really quite an interesting sociological effort.   Varonis: Absolutely, yeah. The researchers talk about trigger events that will push an insider over the line, so to speak. But we've also learned, as you suggested, that the insiders will actually try it out, they'll try to do some test runs to see how far they can get. And it sounds like your algorithms would then spot this. In other words, stop them before they actually do the act of copying or destruction or whatever it is. Bennett: That's exactly it.   Varonis: Yeah. We call that user behavior analytics, or UBA. That's the industry term of it. So it sounds like you think that's the right approach. Not everyone follows that way of finding these behaviors, or catching insiders, I should say, but it sounds like behavior is something that you're very interested in spotting. Bennett: It is. You know, it's fraught with very interesting issues. One of the things that I speak about quite often is the ethical use of data analytics. And there are certainly issues here. A lot of the triggering events or the triggers that come into misconduct situations have to do with people's personal lives, some kind of personal crisis or financial crisis, drug or alcohol dependencies, and a lot of it has to do with their interaction with their colleagues and superiors, stressful situations and feelings of ingratitude or not being recognized for their worth, and those are very personal things. And one of the things that we tested this on as part of a graduate program that I was involved in at New York University is what could you tweak this algorithm to find? We actually did some test runs. Could you find all the Republicans? Could you find people of a particular political belief or such? And you can! And it's very disconcerting that to realize that these kinds of algorithms can really find just about anything. So then the question becomes, "What's the right thing to do?" What responsibility do we have as a company or especially a public company to monitor behavior and to monitor compliance, and yet not interfere with people's personal lives? It's a very interesting question that the law is really not settled on, and is something that we have to consider as data analysts.   Varonis: Yeah, that's very interesting. The question is, "When do you turn it on?" Should it be on all the time or do certain conditions justify it? So yeah, I absolutely agree that is an issue for companies. I have one last question for you, and it has to do with, again, the insiders let's say who go bad, they're in a powerful position, they actually have created the content, they feel like they own it. And these people are sometimes very hard to spot because they're the creators, they could be high level executives, they own the content, and sometimes hard to determine whether they've actually done something wrong. They may be copying a lot of directories or files to a laptop, but that's just part of their job. So we are big believers in just keeping some basic audit trails on file activities, outside of any of the algorithms that we were talking about. So do you think that is just a minimal thing for companies to do? Bennett: It is. It's interesting because it's why we built the algorithms to capture so many different kinds of behaviors so that one person could not hide their trail well enough. But there's just basic things the companies should do to understand where their most valuable information is and where it's going. There is very simple technology out there that allows us to understand where valuable information is being routed and where it goes to that are far away from these kind of advanced algorithms. So it's common sense. In the Information Age a company's most valuable asset really is information. And so having what we call information governance principles, and so understanding and governing your information as you would any other asset is just good business.   Varonis: Right, absolutely agree. So thank you so much, Bennett, on your insights today. Bennett, if people want to learn more about what you do and follow you on Twitter, do you have a handle or a website that you can share with everyone? Bennett: Yes, thanks. My handle is @BennettBorden. And then most of my publications are on the firm's webpage at DrinkerBiddle.com under my profile. We write fairly often on this, and I would certainly welcome any thoughts from your listeners.

Learn the Power of Listening:  Nicole chats with Nick Araco Sr. Director of Growth Strategies and Business Development at Drinker Biddle, and CEO of the CFO Alliance. Strengths/habits that have led to success: In this ever-changing noisy environment where time is the asset everyone is managing – be a qualified connector and break through the noise the C suite operates in. Growth strategy: Position yourself as a trusted connector and your clients and prospective clients will come to you for advice and counsel – even outside your area of expertise and technical background. Tactical best practices: Create meaningful dialogue – spend time learning what the firm does, how it’s delivered, and what it means to the clients you serve. Success story: To assist a highly respected lawyer in the corporate and securities world, Nick identified a dedicated business development director to go deep from a focus perspective. After meeting a firm client, a PE firm. After evaluating the firm’s investment criteria, he used his Rolodex to bring potential origination opportunities to this client. He also put a process in place to meet regularly to review the PE firm’s origination objectives. The client recognized this effort beyond the billable project – and subsequently exposed this individual to additional opportunities within their portfolio companies. Millennial, Mobile, Global: Talk to clients about their business – not to get work but to learn what’s happening today and into the future. Enjoy about work: Nick believes in the power of people. Building confidence in people’s decisions through connector relationships. Last word: Be authentic; use the information at your disposal to be more effective; and recognize that marketing and business development is not static. Stay connected with peers, seek training and use the information available to you. Nick Araco Bio

LeftFoot had the opportunity to attend a GroPro 20/20 Professional Services CMO event and interview several attendees for the LeftFoot podcast. Listen to what these Top Advisors have to say about GroPro 20/20 events … Jeff Berardi – CMO at K&L Gates; Brian Miske – CMO at KPMG MSPL; Nick Araco – Senior Director of Growth Strategies and Business Development at Drinker Biddle; and the CEO of the CFO Alliance; Jeff Antaya – Partner and CMO at Plante Moran

This seminar was given by Thomas Healey of Healey Development; and George Kendall and Kenneth Wilbur, both partners at Drinker Biddle and Reath, LLP. It was held on March 26, 2015 as part of M-RCBG’s business and government seminar series.

According to the Information Governance Initiative’s Annual Report, Information Governance (IG) practitioners “are taking action on a wide variety of IG projects right now. On average, SMBs have four IG projects under way, and large organizations have six.” This session will explore where IG stands today as a concept, as a practice and as a market; uncovering the projects that are getting funding, the technologies that are enabling action and the governance structures that are getting the most attention. At the end of this session you will have a clear picture of where the IG market really is so you can catch the wave and get started delivering value to your clients and organizations right now. Speakers include: Moderator: Julie Colgan, Head of Information Governance Solutions at Nuix Panelist: Fred Pulzello, President, ARMA International Panelist: Jay Brudz, Partner, Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP Panelist: James Arnold, Managing Director of Forensic Services at KPMG Panelist: Lauren Barnes, VP Records and Information Management, Credit Suisse.

Laurence Colletti from the Legal Talk Network interviews e-discovery expert Bennett Borden about how electronic data collection and analysis is increasing the efficiency and accuracy of large scale litigation. This historically unparalleled ability "to get to an answer" is having a significant effect on the legal industry. Not only is it driving companies to faster settlements and empowering small plaintiffs' firms to take large cases but it is also impacting the billable hour model used by large firms. Borden is a partner and Co-chair of the information governance and e-discovery group at Drinker Biddle and Reath LLP.

Risky Business: The Critical Value Information Governance Brings to Mergers, Acquisitions and Divestitures February 6, 2014 A difficult global financial market increases competition, which usually results in a flurry of mergers, acquisitions, liquidations and divestitures. For IG professionals, these high-stakes transactions represent critical opportunities to affect value for their organizations and clients, both pre- and post-transaction. This session at LegalTech New York 2014 shared case studies and insights on: · Supporting due diligence and HSR 2nd Request processes by finding and making information available that may not have well managed or easy to find · Facilitating the assimilation of information assets post-transaction to ensure information is available, protected and storage is optimized · Mitigating inadvertent release or disclosure during a divestiture or split Moderator: Julie J. Colgan, Director of Information Governance Solutions, Nuix and President, ARMA International Panelists: · Jim Arnold, Managing Director - Forensic Technology Services, KPMG · Bennett Borden, Partner and Co-Chair of the Information Governance and eDiscovery Group, Drinker Biddle & Reath · Stephen Stewart, CTO, Nuix · Jeffrey C. Sharer, Partner, Sidley Austin LLP

Information Governance: Rightsizing Your Program to Get Funding and Succeed February 6, 2014 Our panel of seasoned experts at LegalTech New York 2014 discussed best practices for breaking down the information governance equation in their or their clients' organizations in order to kick-start an IG program: · Assessing current realities to gain an understanding of what information-based threats and opportunities exist · Prioritizing threats and opportunities by evaluating risk/reward and estimating remediation ROI, including defensible deletion · Achieving cross-stakeholder support for development of an Information Governance framework and program Moderator: Barclay Blair, President and Founder, ViaLumina Panelists: · Julie J. Colgan, Director of Information Governance Solutions, Nuix and President, ARMA International · Galina Datskovsky, Independent Information Governance Consultant · Jason R. Baron, Of Counsel, Information Governance & eDiscovery Group, Drinker Biddle & Reath · Dan Regard, Managing Director, iDiscovery Solutions

In this edition of Digital Detectives hosts Sharon D. Nelson and John W. Simek invite Jason R. Baron, former director of litigation at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration to discuss Information Governance as it relates to e-discovery, privacy, record keeping and security. Baron connects the dots between all these areas and helps lawyers understand they need to know about information governance and the current trends he is see in this area. Baron serves as counsel to the Information Governance and E-Discovery Practice Group at the law firm of Drinker Biddle and Reath, in Washington, DC. His prior career in the federal service included acting as trial lawyer and senior counsel at the Department of Justice, and for the past 13 years as director of litigation at the US National Archives and Records Administration. He is an internationally recognized speaker on the subject of electronic records.