Are you confident that your compliance policies and processes are effective, adaptable, forward-looking and able to anticipate and address regulatory change?

These are important building blocks to ensure compliance within any organization but today’s effective compliance programs start with a deep understanding of the business mission and strategy of the organization. Effective compliance is driven by clear, regular messaging about ethical behavior.  But an ethical culture is also established by executives, middle management and peers who model ethical behavior every day, even when difficult challenges arise.

What tools or resources do you have access to for horizon scanning?

Understanding what might be ahead for your business or your industry is key to staying ahead of the curve and spotting potential issues before they happen. There are a number of legal and industry associations that can provide you with insight around the risks you should be contemplating, but you may also consider who within your business can give you the latest data and insight regarding the direction of travel internally. 

Do you have a crisis communications plan in place to help respond to a significant event?

The law department can play an important role in preparing the organization for a response in the event of a crisis - from evaluating and prioritizing risks and putting in place a framework to assess severity levels of different crisis situations to designing an effective crisis response process and even scenario planning around priority threats.