Black Duck Legal Specialist Certification Course

Provided free, to those applications that are accepted, compliments of Black Duck Software

Next Sessions:

Our next session date will be Wednesday, March 21, 2012 at 11:00 a.m EST.  If you would like to apply, please fill out the following contact form.

Why Attain Certification

Black Duck's M&A Assessment business has grown at over 30% during each of the last two years. The return of the M&A market has led to a resurgence in the need for legal services related to software intellectual property due diligence.  As market leader in M&A assessments, over 700 companies rely on Black Duck to analyze their code and identify unapproved open source or other software policy violations. While Black Duck analysis helps establish the facts related to software licensing and compliance, our customers often need legal assistance to guide their policy and remediation decisions. The Black Duck Legal Specialist certification identifies an elite group of legal professionals who can partner with Black Duck’s rapidly growing assessment team to provide these services.

While the course is geared towards firms advising clients in the context of M&A due diligence, we’ve had several in-house counsel participate and find it valuable as well.

Practical Skills for your Open Source Legal Practice

The certification program is based upon a 2-hour live web training course.  In this course you’ll gain the skills to assist companies in efficiently and effectively navigating and interpreting the output of a Black Duck analysis.  After becoming certified you will thoroughly understand:

• The importance of analyzing code and how to relate that to clients
• When organizations need to analyze their code
• How Black Duck analyzes code
• Where code analysis ends and legal counsel takes over
• Tips and tricks in reading Black Duck analysis reports
• Remediation options when an issue is discovered
• How to use Black Duck analysis in M&A negotiations

Additionally, the course will allow you to interact with a Black Duck subject matter expert and fellow legal professionals who are also working with Black Duck. For those attendees from legal firms you have the opportunity to have you and your firm added to the list of certified legal professionals on the Black Duck website so that companies can find you when they need assistance.  

Please note: In-house counsel will not be added to the list on our website to maintain confidentiality of any current or potential corporate M&A transactions.

Prerequisites

The course is aimed at IP attorneys, but is open to M&A lawyers as well. Several in-house counsel have participated in the past and found it valuable as well. Participants must hold a JD and be in good standing with a state bar association. Before attending the certification training you should have familiarity with open source licensing.

You can fulfill this requirement by viewing pre-recorded training videos from the Black Duck Legal Webinar Series.  We recommend the following webinars in particular:

• Introduction to Open Source Software Licenses
• Understanding the Top 10 Open Source Licenses
• Open Source Due Diligence in M&A and Financing

Cost

This course is provided free of charge to those applications that are accepted, based on the prerequisite qualifications.

To Apply

Our next session will occur on Wednesday, March 21, 2012 at 11:00 a.m EST.  If you would like to apply, please fill out the following contact form.