SCMR Columnist Co-Authors New Book on Supply Chain Disputes

Squire Patton Boggs partner Sarah K. Rathke has published a comprehensive legal and operational guide to successfully managing supply chain relationships. The book, Legal Blacksmith: How to Avoid and Defend Supply Chain Disputes, is co-authored with Rosemary Coates, President of Blue Silk Consulting and Executive Director of the Reshoring Institute.

The first book of its kind, Legal Blacksmith explains how to optimize supply chain relationships, starting with the first stages of supplier-buyer relationships through handling legal disputes when supply chain relationships fail.

Global supply chain operations are critically important to business performance and success. Supply chains have grown longer, more complex, and more international, and as a consequence, have become increasingly stretched, brittle, and thin. Although modern companies acknowledge the strategic importance of supply chains, they rarely dedicate sufficient legal and executive resources to ensure that supply chains are effective and protect company interests.

Legal Blacksmith is for in-house counsel who want to better understand supply chain operations, and supply chain operations personnel who want to better understand the law that applies to their field. Legal Blacksmith discusses both U.S. and international supply chain relationships across industries, and explores traditional and emerging supply chain issues, such as managing supplier risk, working with third-party logistics providers, corporate social responsibility issues in supply chains, and managing litigation when it arises.

“Typically, Rosemary and I become involved in supply chain relationships once they are failing. However, in many cases, early intervention and a better understanding of the law could help companies collaborate better and maximize profits. We wrote this book to help companies manage their supply chain relationships and to provide structure and discipline for these relationships before trouble begins.”

Legal Blacksmith takes the reader through each stage of the relationship, addressing issues such as drafting supply chain contracts, new product design and development, procurement, manufacturing, warehousing and logistics, import and export, product recalls, IT, and corporate social responsibility. It also discusses the typical litigation process for supply chain disputes.

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