When corporate legal and IT departments deploy new enterprise software, migrating legacy data into the new system is usually one of the larger challenges faced. When it comes to e-discovery software, this challenge is exasperated as matter information may be contained in legacy systems or in a collection of spreadsheets or other ad hoc tools.
Writing in many parts of the legal and business worlds has probably changed more in the last decade than in any comparable period over the last five centuries. Those who fail to adapt will pay the consequences.
Attorneys are typically very good at describing their skills and recounting problems they have solved for other clients, but they struggle with asking for the business.
Successful business generators tend to ask questions in particular sequence. This sounds fairly simple, but it takes consistent work and strong skills to become effective at using this approach.
If we were to analyze law firm mergers by plotting client satisfaction on one axis and partner satisfaction on the other, the resulting scatter diagram would reflect a surprising few combinations that were deemed satisfactory after the fact to all parties.
Many law firm decision makers in the AmLaw 100/200 and more turn to leasing equipment and technology for their firm as a competitively advantageous way of performing in the new business model landscape. Just make sure when you are reviewing your Master Lease Agreement, that you are, in fact, looking at a "Rembrandt.
With 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.
Insiders (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.
At 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.
This 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.
While 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.
