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: How to Avoid and Defend Supply Chain Disputes addresses supply chain processes and buyer-supplier relationships and contracts. The first book of its kind, Legal Blacksmith explains how to optimize supply chain relationships, starting with marketing outreaches and supplier bidding through handling legal disputes when supply chain relationships fail. This book 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 US and international supply chain relationships, 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.