Kent Alexander – former U.S. Attorney of the Northern District of Georgia, former general counsel of Emory University and now general counsel of CARE, Inc. – sent out his first ever mass email today,  telling recipients he is doing so because it is the first ever #GivingTuesday.

#GivingTuesday was created as a non-profit alternative to Black Friday and Cyber Monday. But rather than emphasize shopping, it emphasizes giving by creating, as Alexander describes it, “a post Thanksgiving opportunity to reflect and to help those most in need during the holiday season.”

CARE is participating in #GivingTuesday.  Alexander includes not only a contribution link to CARE, www.care.org/GivingTuesdayDonationPage,  but also to his own powerful reflections on a trip to West Africa that he made in March.

In Alexander’s  blog post on CARE’s web page, www.care.org/TheRealHungerGames, he wrote this of a visit to a village in Niger:

Then, at the end of our visit, I saw something that gave me a small but jolting idea of what poverty is like. As we headed to the car for our departure, dozens of young children crowded behind the Toyota and were uncharacteristically pushing and shoving each other. The tail gate was open, and the driver stood beside our cooler containing a few leftover cold drinks from lunch earlier in the day. Philippe Leveque, the National Director of CARE France said, “Kent, this is the face of poverty.” Frankly, I thought he was overreacting a bit and said as much. After all, the day was broiling – over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Of course the kids were elbowing in for a shot at a cold drink.

“Then I took a closer look. The cooler was shut tight, and the driver was not handing out drinks at all. He was handing out a few of our empty cans and plastic bottles. The cans were fodder for tin toy planes and cars to use or sell. The bottles were to be used as receptacles for months down the road when the rains finally come. The throng of children only dispersed after a man swatted at them with a stick.

Our trash was their treasure.

….According to a recent report over 10 million of Niger’s 16 million citizens will run out of food stocks well before the next harvest, expected around October. All families have cut back on their food consumption. Most who I met are down to one meal a day.

Alexander also included in his mass email a link to a Huffington Post blog that he said “gives a moving account of the origin of the ‘care package’ (named for CARE.)”

Alexander’s email concluded:

Whether you donate to CARE or another worthy organization, I hope you take a minute today to consider a favorite charity and make a contribution.  You’ll be doing a good deed and will forever become part of #Giving Tuesday history.

Legal consultancy Altman Weil’s latest survey asking in-house legal honchos how they are controlling costs found that negotiating price reductions with outside counsel is the most popular approach.

In the annual survey of chief legal officers, 71 percent of respondents said they re-negotiated outside fees in the past year. Almost half—47 percent—shifted work in-house and 41 percent shifted work being done by outside counsel to lower-priced firms. About a third—36 percent—reduced the total work they sent to firms, and 10 percent instituted a law firm convergence program.

More law departments (39 percent) decreased their outside counsel budget in 2012 than those that increased their outside spend (34 percent). This is the first time in three years that the percent of law departments decreasing their outside spend was higher than those making increases, according to Altman Weil.

Law departments are cutting costs internally as well. About a third (36 percent) shifted work in-house from lawyers to paralegals and 35 percent used contract lawyers. One fourth of respondents said they outsourced some work to non-law-firm vendors to save money.

In other findings, chief legal officers said the top factor in choosing outside counsel is demonstrating understanding of their business or industry—which they ranked 9.6 in importance on a 1 to 10 scale. In-house chiefs continue to express skepticism about firms’ willingness to change their service delivery model, rating firms’ change-willingness at 3 on a 1 to 10 scale.

There were 204 responses to the annual survey from the 1,297 corporate legal departments invited to participate—a 15.7 percent response rate.

The 2012 Corporate Counsel GC Compensation Survey showed that Coca-Cola Enterprises’ senior vice president and general counsel John Parker Jr. took home $2.36 million last year, putting him at number 89 in the top 100 highest paid GCs.

The breakdown: $510,000 salary; $511,632 bonus; $1,339,177 stock options exercised and stock value realized.

Parker’s compensation was ranked number 58 for the previous year.

Parker, 60, was named to his current position in 2008, according to the announcement on the company’s website. His prior position was senior vice president, strategic initiatives for CCE. He’s worked 25 years for Coke-related companies, starting as legal counsel for the Coca-Cola Company in 1987.

Each year Corporate Counsel, a Daily Report affiliate, ranks the highest paid chief legal officers by searching corporate proxy filings. The Daily Report provides that information on Georgia and Southeastern GCs annually in October.

Here’s the link to the Corporate Counsel pay package: http://www.law.com/jsp/cc/PubArticleCC.jsp?id=1202562613886

The Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice is getting a new leader, with the current one moving to a general counsel post elsewhere in government.

Gov. Nathan Deal’s Office announced Monday that former GBI agent Gale Buckner will be the new commissioner of the DJJ and that current commissioner, Amy Howell, will become general counsel for the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities.

Howell was appointed DJJ commissioner in January and became the first woman to take the helm. She started to work for the DJJ in 2005 as its legal services director and was appointed deputy commissioner a year later.

As DJJ’s commissioner, Howell also was involved in the proposed legislative revisions to the state’s juvenile justice code that will come before the Legislature when it reconvenes in January.

Buckner, her successor, is currently serving on the State Board of Pardons and Paroles, to which she was appointed in 2005 by then-Gov. Sonny Perdue.

“As the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities implements the state’s settlement with the federal Department of Justice, I wanted to put Commissioner Amy Howell’s experience and skill set to work on that important task,” Deal said in a written statement. “The timing of this has worked out great as it comes near the end of Gale Buckner’s tenure on Pardons and Paroles.”

Buckner also has served as executive director of the Governor’s Criminal Justice Coordinating Council from 2000 to 2005.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Wendell Willard said he will introduce a bill in the upcoming legislative session that would allow non-attorneys to file information for their companies in garnishment actions.

Businesses have had “heartburn,” the Sandy Springs Republican said, following a decision by the Georgia Supreme court on Sept. 12 that said companies must use a lawyer when they answer certain garnishment actions. The ruling approved a State Bar opinion that a non-lawyer who answers for a garnishee other than himself is engaged in the unlicensed practice of law.

Businesses say the ruling will impose the expense of hiring a lawyer to fill in the blanks on a form that simply asks for an employee’s financial information. Proponents of the rule have argued that it provides more protection for consumers whose funds are at stake in garnishment actions because attorneys will be less likely to make mistakes.

Willard said his bill will be limited in scope and will still require the involvement of lawyers in any garnishment matter that involves a court hearing, filing of pleadings or other contested action.

“This will be very narrow,” Willard said. ”We’re not going to open the door wide.” 

He said he’ll work with the State Bar on his bill, and he noted that the Bar already has shown a willingness to consider a measure that would ease the burden on businesses in simple, uncontested garnishments. He said that filling out the garnishment form “doesn’t constitute filing an answer, in the sense of a pleading,” and thus doesn’t constitute the practice of law.

Willard characterized filling out the garnishment form as providing information “at the direction of a court.”

Kevin Levitas, a Georgia attorney, former legislator and vice president of Hill Manufacturing, a chemical maintenance product company, addresses the issue from the standpoint of businesses in today’s At Issue column in the Daily Report. He fears that the State Bar will “cling to their monopolistic hold over legal representation with a fierce tenacity,” and that it may require a constitutional amendment to remedy the situation. Read his column here.

Home Depot has named Teresa Wynn Roseborough its new general counsel, corporate secretary and executive vice president.

Roseborough, who will join Home Depot on Nov. 7, is the deputy general counsel for MetLife and was a partner at Sutherland, handling trial and appellate litigation.

Roseborough will report to Frank Blake, Home Depot’s chairman and CEO. She replaces Jack A. VanWoerkom, who left Home Depot in June after four years as GC, corporate secretary and executive vice president. Home Depot had recruited him from the same post at Staples Inc.

Roseborough has also served as deputy assistant attorney general for the U.S. Department of Justice and clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.

“She brings an incredible legal background to our company, and is sure to be an asset to the entire organization,” said Blake in a statement.