Compliance and Risk Management
I’ve developed compliance programs and procedures for companies in the accounting, mining, ecommerce, and direct selling industries. While the rules and regulations are different for each industry, certain universal principles apply whether you’re providing nail polish or financial planning.
First, compliance procedures should be simple enough for any of your team-members to follow. My job is both to know the intricacies and nuances of the regulations affecting your industry and to distill those rules into policies and procedures your team can easily follow. Sometimes that involves flowcharts with different response scripts for each situation. Other times, it involves a video or live training (like I’m doing in the photo below). The goal is not to spot issues, but to create robust systems and procedures that can run on their own as well as a company culture that supports compliance.
Second, compliance procedures should be narrowly tailored to the actual risks your business faces and, wherever possible, should further rather than hinder your business objectives. As an in-house attorney, I made sure I fully understood how a particular aspect of the business worked before creating a policy to regulate it. I worked closely with the business leaders to find solutions that allowed us to be 100 per cent compliant without losing momentum or competitive advantage. I will bring that same perspective to your business. Below are some examples of compliance services I provide.
Here are a just few examples of compliance services I provide:
Drafting or updating employee manuals and HR policies to comply with state and federal regulations.
Drafting or updating advertising and branding guidelines to comply with FTC regulations.
Drafting or updating privacy policies and internal data processing and data security procedures.
For online marketplaces, Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) policy that includes:
drafting the public facing policy
drafting the takedown request form
creating a flow chart for frontline agents to follow after receiving a request
creating scripts and form responses for each outcome detailed in the flowchart
For direct selling/MLM companies:
Drafting or updating your distributor contract
Drafting or updating your distributor policies and procedures
Drafting or updating your income disclosure statement
Training your distributors on online and in-person income claims
Drafting or updating your compensation plan
Managing your international expansions, including creation of international subsidiaries, engaging counsel in international markets, setting up third party logistics and customs agents, etc.
For cosmetics and consumer goods
product testing for CSPC, FDA, California Prop 65
labeling review and revision for US and international products, including hazardous materials
international registrations of products
supply chain and customs compliance
These are some examples of the compliance matters have handled for companies as an in-house attorney. If you have a compliance need that is not on this list, please reach out to me. If it’s not one I’m able to handle, I will refer you to an attorney with the right skill set.