As AI becomes increasingly prevalent in everyday life, legislators have taken notice, eyeing ways to regulate its use. Illinois has become the second state — after Colorado in May 2024 — to enact a law restricting AI use in employment. This new legislation builds upon existing protections in the Illinois Human Rights Act — a comprehensive law designed to protect individuals from discrimination in various aspects of daily life, including employment — and reflects broader concerns about AI’s role in perpetuating bias in hiring and other employment decisions.

Taft attorneys Marcus Harris, Benjamin Morrell, and Michael Leo Pomeranz recently published an article discussing some of the implications of the Illinois law. Click here to read it.

Understanding what to negotiate and who you are negotiating against is fundamental in leveraging the ERP contract negotiation process to your advantage.

You want to have a plan going into the negotiation process for what you will ask for, how you will mitigate risk, critical asks, and fall-back positions.

If you treat the ERP contract negotiation as an afterthought, you are setting yourself up for failure.

Marcus Harris discusses negotiation strategies in the video below.

The themes underlying failed SAP and Oracle ERP and digital transformation lawsuits are almost always the same. Vendors misrepresent functionality, cloud products are not fully baked, and salespeople minimize the software’s limitations while overselling its capabilities.

In this video, I discuss common themes in the many failed ERP implementations I have litigated in my career.

ERP implementations and digital transformations do not fail because of technology, they fail because of people. As a result, the master services agreement and the statements of works attached to it are easily some of the most important agreements you will negotiate to ensure project success. What does it need to include?  Milestones, deadlines, clearly defined vendor obligations, expectations, and user acceptance testing criteria are all critical.

While the statement of work is critical to managing your ERP implementation or digital transformation, it has a fundamental flaw. It is a snapshot in time. If done right, it will capture the parties’ expectations and intentions before the project starts. But what happens when things change? Building in flexibility, including a change management process, and incorporating other relevant documents is very important.

Attorney Marcus Harris discusses these issues in this video.

ERP Vendors are notorious for selling the “sizzle” and not the “steak.” It is no secret that with the rush to Cloud many solutions are half-baked.

When ERP vendors misrepresent the software’s functionality, the fit of the software for your business or industry, or misrepresent their experience in your industry, you may have a basis for a lawsuit.

Taft partner Marcus Harris discusses that in the video below.

Cloud Software is far from a sliver bullet. It is not a one-size-fits-all solution. The adoption of Cloud has less do to with its benefits but vendors’ desire to make money. 

Software vendors love to tout the benefits of cloud software. They will tell you that it offers more flexibility, is cheaper, requires less configuration, and is safer than traditional on-prem software.

That is not always true.

The Cloud provides vendors with multi-year commitments from customers with difficulty moving to an alternative platform. These multiyear commitments provide tremendous revenue for Cloud vendors.

Taft partner Marcus Harris discusses some of the issues with SAAS software and cloud computing.

In this video, Taft partner Marcus Harris explains how the ERP contract negotiation process is one of the most valuable tools you can use to mitigate the likelihood of an ERP failure.

If done correctly, your expectations, concerns, and a process for resolving disputes should all be addressed in detail.

ERP software vendors and integrators are often the reason behind an ERP implementation or digital transformation failure. ERP vendors and integrators breach their contractual obligations in a variety of ways.

Some of the things we have seen:

  • ERP vendors misrepresent their experience or skills in the customer’s industry or their experience or skills in implementing the particular software;
  • they assign inexperienced consultants who use the customer’s implementation project as a training ground;
  • significant functionality basic to the customer’s industry is missing or misrepresented;
  • the software does not work as represented.

What can you do about this, and how hard is it to get an ERP Vendor or integrator to accept responsibility?

In this video, Taft partner Marcus Harris discusses these issues.

Taft attorneys Jayna Cacioppo and Christine Walsh authored the article “The Wild West of Artificial Intelligence regulations,” which was published on Aug. 14 in The Indiana Lawyer. The article discusses different legislative approaches that have been proposed to regulate artificial intelligence (AI) in the U.S. and Europe. It also highlights Indiana’s current regulations and offers takeaways for what Indiana could see in the future in terms of AI regulation.

To read the article, please click here. (subscription required)

Cacioppo is a partner in the Indianapolis office of Taft, and the past Chair of the Indianapolis Litigation practice group. Cacioppo’s practice concentrates in the areas of complex commercial, civil, and white-collar criminal litigation, arbitration, as well as regulatory investigations by state and federal agencies. She is a trial lawyer with significant courtroom experience in both criminal and civil matters.

As an associate in Taft’s Litigation and Compliance, Investigations, and White Collar Defense practice groups, Walsh represents individuals and entities in a variety of complex litigation matters in federal and state courts, as well as individuals and entities who are involved in government and regulatory investigations. Walsh has experience with matters involving the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the Indiana Attorney General’s Office, and other federal and state investigative agencies. Part of Walsh’s practice also focuses on compliance with U.S. international trade laws, including CFIUS, export controls, OFAC sanctions, and customs compliance.