Christian Liipfert

Overview

Christian Liipfert has spent much of the past 30 years practicing law in-house in the energy sector, having worked in Washington, DC, Atlanta, Paris, Chicago, Hong Kong, and Houston. Most recently he has worked on two ongoing Monitor assignments, one involving an FTC Consent Order in the US and the other involving a Competition Bureau Canada Consent Agreement in Canada.

Experience

While in-house, Christian conducted investigations into major industrial accidents, responded to allegations of criminal violations of environmental laws, negotiated major transactions in Asia, and managed the arbitration of large corporate contractual disputes.  For the past several years, he has concentrated on code of conduct  compliance and information governance on a global scale, including e-discovery and knowledge management, bridging the gaps between Legal, IT, Compliance, Records Management, Operations, Knowledge Management, Audit, and the users.  He developed training and materials for lawyers in how to respond to crises and emergencies, and compliance materials on antitrust and competition law, export control, and environmental, health & safety topics.

Christian has spoken and written extensively on information governance, e-discovery, knowledge management, antitrust and competition law, crisis management and emergency response, and the use of technology for compliance training and monitoring.  He was a pioneer in the creation of e-learning modules for client education on legal topics ranging from environmental compliance, attorney client privilege and fatality investigations to international antitrust and competition law.

Christian received his B.A. from Bucknell University in 1973 and received his J.D. summa cum laude from Washington College of Law at American University in 1979.

Publishing & Speaking

PUBLICATIONS

• “Using Technology for Compliance Training and Monitoring,” Corporate Legal Compliance Handbook, Co-Authored with Frederick Z. Banks & Theodore L. Banks, eds, Wolters Kluwer, 2007- present.
• “Business Case,” Law Technology News, October 2011.
• “New Problems Require New Solutions,” Managing the Evolution of Library and Information Services, Caroline Poynton ed, Ark Group, 2008.
•  infogovnuggets.com (blog), August 2013 – present.

SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS

Information Governance

• “Headlines:  A Year’s Worth of Information Governance Failures,” 2018 ARMA Houston Annual Spring Conference, Houston, Texas, April 25, 2018.
• “IG in the ‘eWorkplace’ era and its impact on eDiscovery,”  E-Discovery for Corporate Market, Today’s General Counsel, Houston, Texas, September 10-11, 2015.
• “Information Governance and Information Management,” Rice University Jones Graduate School of Business, Houston, Texas, 2014-2015.
• “An Information Governance Perspective of the EDRM,” Houston Association of Litigation Support Managers, Houston, Texas, June 19, 2013.
• “Spanning the e-Discovery Divide,” Masters Conference keynote, Houston, Texas, August 16, 2011.
• “Minimizing Risk, Maximizing Compliance: Information Governance on a Global Scale,” Knowledge and Information Management for Oil & Gas USA (World Research Group), December 9, 2010.
• “Various Dimensions of the Management of Information,” Houston Chapter of the Texas Society of CPAs’ CFO/Controller Conference, Houston, Texas, November 5, 2010.
• “Information Governance,” Corporate E-Discovery Forum, Houston, Texas, December 3, 2009.
• “e-Discovery – a New Team Sport,” AIIM Southwest Chapter Houston, Texas, November 12, 2009.
• “Proactive Approaches to Litigation Before the Cases Hit,” and “Different Views of Records Management & ESI,” LegalTech New York, New York, February 2008.
• “Negotiating the Labyrinth of Information Management and Associated Challenges,” Best Practices for Information Retention & E-Disclosure Management, London, England, May 22-23, 2007.

Knowledge Management

• “Avoiding Legal Pitfalls in Knowledge Management Initiatives,” World Research Group Integrating Knowledge & Information Management Summit for E&P, Houston, Texas, September 28, 2010.
•  “Client Impact: Should Law Firms Combine Disparate ‘Support,” Functions Into One Practice Support Department?”  Ark Conference, New York, New York, March 19, 2008.
• “Using Knowledge Management to Enhance Client Service,” with Oz Benamram, Legal Technology Exchange, Pinehurst, North Carolina, November 4-6, 2007.
• “Practical Technologies That Add Value,” and “A Three-Step Approach to KM,”  Association of Corporate Counsel Annual Meeting, San Diego, California, October 2006.
• “A Contrarian Lawyer’s View of Knowledge Management,” Integrating Information & Knowledge Management Architectures in the Legal Profession, Toronto, Canada, June 13-14, 2006.
• “The Evolving Knowledge Management Organization,” The Fourth Annual Knowledge Counsel Forum, West LegalWorks/Baker Robbins & Company, Co-Chair, (with Robert Dinerstein and Risa Schwartz,) “Knowledge Management – Your Client’s Perspective” (with Phil Crowley and Charlotte Russell-Hargreaves); “The Attorney’s Honest View of KM” (with Bruce Kayle, Browning Marean, and Rod Satterwhite) New York, New York, March 2006.
• “Fostering a Knowledge-Based In-House Environment,” LawTech Corporate Counsel Summit, Rancho Mirage, California, May 16, 2005.
• “Knowledge Management at the Crossroads: Sharing the Value Between Clients and Firms,” and “Knowledge Management:  A Micro View,” LegalTech, New York, New York, February 2005.
• “KM – A Road Map for Success”;  “Partnering with Corporate Counsel on the Web:  Deal Rooms, War Rooms and Beyond” and “Effective Collaboration Between Inside and Outside Counsel” 7th Annual Daily Journal LegalWorks Seminar, San Francisco, California, April 2003.
• “Knowledge Management within a Multi-location, Multi-discipline Legal Function,” Energy Law Institute, Houston, Texas, August 2002.
•  “The Demand for Knowledge Management,”and “Defining KM for the Legal Space,” and “Developing and Implementing a KM Strategy” Knowledge Counsel Forum, Baker Robbins & Company and Glasser LegalWorks, Orlando, Florida, April 2002.

Compliance Training

•  “Using Social Media to Promote Compliance and Ethics,” PLI Compliance &Ethics Institute 2015, Chicago, Illinois, May 4, 2015.
• “A View from the Trenches:  Effective Communications and Training (An In-House View),” PLI Chicago Compliance & Ethics Institute, Chicago, Illinois,  May 20-21, 2009, and May 13-14, 2010.

Crisis Management

• “Disaster Recovery: Preparing for the Unexpected,” Association of Corporate Counsel Annual Meeting, Washington, District of Columbia, October 2005.
• “Crisis Management for Lawyers,” with Mary T. Flynn, Petroleum Marketing Attorneys Meeting, Washington, District of Columbia, March 2004.
• “Developing an Effective Crisis Team: Balancing the Legal and PR Skill Sets,” Effectively Managing Public Relations for High-Profile Litigation, NorthStar Conferences, New York, New York, January 2004.
• “A Practical Guide to Planning for and Responding to a Crisis,” with Ray Thompson, Energy Law Institute, Houston, Texas, August 2003.
• “The In-House Lawyer’s Role in Surviving a Crisis,” Third Annual In-House Legal Forum, Business Law Education Centre, Sydney, Australia, November 2000.
• “Mastering a Crisis,” Optimising Your In-House Legal & Compliance Department Conference, Business Law Education Centre, Hong Kong, September 1999.

Miscellaneous

• “The Dark Side of Technology,” American Corporate Counsel Association, Chicago Chapter, Chicago, Illinois, June 1996.
• “Litigation Risk Analysis,” “Decision Trees – Another Tool for Inhouse Counsel,”  Litigation Management Seminar, Chicago, Illinois, April 1996,
• “Internal Auditing Programs,” University of Illinois,  May 1995.
• “Minimum Required Technology: One Client’s View,” The American Lawyer, May 1995.
•  “How Can Electronic Communication Make Your Operation More Competitive and Efficient?” Linking In-House and Outside Counsel,  ABA Tech Show, Chicago, Illinois, April 1995.

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