LEGAL ISSUES PANEL:
Top 3 Legal Issues Facing Today's Business Community

Our February meeting features three Fasken Martineau lawyers - Michelle Pockey, Lindsey Taylor, and Susan Ben-Oliel - who will provide an overview and answer your questions about three top legal issues with which businesses are currently facing.

1. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR):  Corporate Social Responsibility generally has to do with a company’s ability or efforts to meet the social, economic and environmental expectations of society. Across our globe, these expectations are ever-increasing and are now becoming more stringently regulated.  Michelle Pockey will provide an overview of how CSR issues can manifest in small, medium and large businesses and how to address CSR risks in your business.

2. Employment Law 101: Everything you wanted to know about employment law but were afraid to ask.  Lindsey Taylor will  provide useful tips to use and traps to avoid in managing employee expectations, and avoiding employment litigation.   

3. Introduction to Intellectual Property and Why it Should Matter to You and Your Business: The most valuable assets of your company may be “intellectual” creations. Susan Ben-Oliel will highlight how to protect the creative and inventive endeavours of your company by patent, trade-mark, copyright and design registrations, how to maximize the value of your company and how to stake out a position in relation to your competitors. 

Panelist Bios:

Michelle Pockey is a Partner in Fasken Martineau’s Global Energy, Environmental, Corporate Social Responsibility, Aboriginal and Global Mining practice groups.  She advises land and natural resource project developers (including partnerships between companies and Aboriginal groups) on obtaining the “social licence” to construct and operate development projects and on obtaining project approvals and regulatory permits.  Michelle is known in the business community as a strong connector and a collaborator.  She encourages a collaborative, interest-based approach to resolving difficult issues that can pose legal and business risk and toward achieving positive corporate and community outcomes.  Michelle helps organizations develop and implement effective corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies and strategies.  She is a respected speaker and publisher on topics in environmental law and CSR and is recognized as one of the top energy and environmental lawyers in Canada.  She serves a director and an advisory board member for several Canadian businesses, business associations and non-profit organizations.  She is a founder and the National Chair of the Professional Women's Network. She serves on the board of the Sarah McLachlan School of Music Society, and has received several awards for her efforts in advancing the economic empowerment of women.

Lindsey Taylor is an associate in the Labour, Employment and Human Rights Group. She articled at Fasken Martineau before joining the firm as an associate in 2009. Lindsey has appeared in mediations, settlement conferences, and in both the Supreme and Provincial Courts of British Columbia.  Prior to pursuing her legal career, Lindsey acquired valuable experience working for a major national telecommunications corporation in a variety of capacities, including positions in Human Resources management.

Susan Ben-Oliel is a technology lawyer and registered patent agent with over 20 years of experience assisting companies in all aspects of protecting and commercializing intangible assets in Canada and internationally. Previously, she has worked as in-house counsel for a TSX and Nasdaq listed Vancouver-based technology company where she provided legal advice to management relating to its research, manufacturing and sales divisions. Currently, Susan works with technology companies, of all sizes, and universities to assist in protecting their technologies, including via patent, trade-mark, design, and copyright registrations.  She develops and aligns these protection strategies to achieve a client’s business objectives, and she negotiates and prepares commercial contracts including: license agreements, supply agreements, distribution agreements, service agreements, research agreements and confidentiality agreements.

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