Features
Data Analytics
Data analytics, the same data mining and interpretive analysis used for decades in other professions, is bringing change to the core business side of the legal profession.
Columns & Departments
At the Intersection: Notes on the New Year
By this time next year, legal service delivery will have become less firm-driven, more client-driven, more collaborative and more complicated.
Moving the Sales Process Along (Frank Mims V.)
Don't you just hate it when you know you have done everything correctly in the selling process and the customer is stalling? When the process is stalled several things are occurring with the prospect and with you.
Features
Meals and Entertainment Expenses
Meals and entertainment expenses are generally only 50% deductible, and provided the expenses are ordinary and necessary, have a business purpose and have proper documentation, there should be no issues surviving an IRS audit.
Features
Dancing on the Cliff Edge
In the last five years, we have heard increasing chatter about the failed business model of law firms, new technology that is erasing the need for lawyers and other information interpreters, and enhanced cognitive systems that mine and interpret data. Let's look at some examples of trends that are leading the way.
Features
Duane Morris Brings Early Case Assessment In-House
With a view to addressing a market imbalance ' litigation clients demanding better early case assessment, and commercial providers not developing tools to meet that need ' Duane Morris litigators handed the firm's technology team a mandate: Help us develop a system to assist our clients in the resolution of the ubiquitous try-or-settle conundrum and, in the process, position the firm to capture more litigation business.
Features
Hey Doc, It Hurts When I Do This!
Few initiatives generate more stress, frustration and disappointment for legal marketing professionals than a rebranding campaign. Rebranding efforts may include, among other items, a name change, new logo, revised messaging and advertising imagery, updated marketing materials or a combination of some or all of these components. The objective is to enhance, regain, transfer and/or recreate brand equity.
Features
Why Your Associates (And Partners) Need Help Branding
Since the changes in the legal economy in 2008, distinguishing oneself from other lawyers is critical to getting a job, work from colleagues, and more clients. This is true for both partners and associates. It's not enough to be smart and hardworking. A lawyer must be known for what he or she does, and must be able to sell him or herself.
Features
Office 365 Cloud Computing
The world is getting smaller as technology changes enable us to share documents with those on the other side of the globe. When sharing documents "in the cloud" it is possible to see real-time updates when using the Microsoft 365 Office Web Apps. As most legal documents are created in Word, this column will focus on the Word Web App.
Features
Business of Branding: Avoiding Bad Investments in Your Marketing
Like your finances, your firm's marketing efforts should be reviewed on a regular basis to ensure that your short- and long-term plans are in order.
Need Help?
- Prefer an IP authenticated environment? Request a transition or call 800-756-8993.
- Need other assistance? email Customer Service or call 1-877-256-2472.
MOST POPULAR STORIES
- Protecting Innovation in the Cyber World from Patent TrollsWith trillions of dollars to keep watch over, the last thing we need is the distraction of costly litigation brought on by patent assertion entities (PAEs or "patent trolls"), companies that don't make any products but instead seek royalties by asserting their patents against those who do make products.Read More ›
- Private Equity Valuation: A Significant DecisionInsiders (and others) in the private equity business are accustomed to seeing a good deal of discussion ' academic and trade ' on the question of the appropriate methods of valuing private equity positions and securities which are otherwise illiquid. An interesting recent decision in the Southern District has been brought to our attention. The case is <i>In Re Allied Capital Corp.</i>, CCH Fed. SEC L. Rep. 92411 (US DC, S.D.N.Y., Apr. 25, 2003). Judge Lynch's decision is well written, the Judge reviewing a motion to dismiss by a business development company, Allied Capital, against a strike suit claiming that Allied's method of valuing its portfolio failed adequately to account for i) conditions at the companies themselves and ii) market conditions. The complaint appears to be, as is often the case, slap dash, content to point out that Allied revalued some of its positions, marking them down for a variety of reasons, and the stock price went down - all this, in the view of plaintiff's counsel, amounting to violations of Rule 10b-5.Read More ›
- Meet the Lawyer Working on Inclusion Rider LanguageAt the Oscars in March, Best Actress winner Frances McDormand made “inclusion rider” go viral. But Kalpana Kotagal, a partner at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll had already worked for months to write the language for such provisions. Kotagal was developing legal language for contract provisions that Hollywood's elite could use to require studios and other partners to employ diverse workers on set.Read More ›
- Use of Deferred Prosecution Agreements In White Collar InvestigationsThis article discusses the practical and policy reasons for the use of DPAs and NPAs in white-collar criminal investigations, and considers the NDAA's new reporting provision and its relationship with other efforts to enhance transparency in DOJ decision-making.Read More ›
- The DOJ Goes Phishing: The Rise of False Claims Act Cybersecurity LitigationWhile the DOJ Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative is still in its early stages and cybersecurity regulations are evolving, whistleblower plaintiffs have already begun leveraging the FCA to pursue alleged noncompliance with government cybersecurity requirements.Read More ›