Litigation

Viewing, evaluating, or even writing consumer reviews, has become a ubiquitous element of the present day Internet experience for most users. Authentic customer reviews manifest indicia of reliability and candor that are believed not to be present in reviews that are motivated by financial interest, though many review sites do contain numerous reviews from advertisers masquerading as objective consumers.

The cloud will soon be as ubiquitous in legal as it is in other businesses. It's inevitable. As our reliance on the cloud grows, it's more important than ever for lawyers to understand how they connect to the cloud, the evolving risks that apply to them and what questions they need to ask to ensure confidentiality and privacy for their firms and their clients.

As we discussed in the Part One of this article, defense attorneys are increasingly finding themselves faced by opposing counsel bent on using any means possible to harass them and their clients, leading to a more contentious litigation environment than is really necessary. We continue herein with a review of some of those tactics, and we consider how they may be addressed.

Ah, the good old days. When the America Invents Act was being pushed through Congress in 2011, proponents of the proposed changes expounded on the virtues of a system that mirrored the patent practices of the majority of the industrialized world. But the unforeseen consequences of both the AIA and the seminal 2014 Supreme Court decision in Alice v. CLS Bank have created a hostile environment for patent portfolios, which has negative implications for investment in innovation and startups.

Many companies that have had disputes with developers have been surprised to discover that the agreements signed, often without input from legal, failed to hold developers to measurable standards, give the company ongoing interest in deliverables, or provide meaningful remedies to problems that arise.

Many local governments operate live event venues. Unlike dealing with private venues, concert promoters and producers might bring First Amendment free speech claims against government-controlled event facilities over how a local government chooses which promoters/producers with which to work. There's also the issue of whether the governmental authority or a private promoter owns ticket subscriber information that the private promoter generates through its live events work at a government-controlled venue.

On Oct. 21, 2015, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed a 2014 decision by the NLRB overturning the terminations of two employees who had complained about their employer on Facebook. Here's a look at that decision.

It's easy to see how the Information Age has transformed the world once again. Old ways of doing things are no longer practical, and new guidelines for the way we conduct business are being formed in real-time. Keeping up with this changing landscape is vital in order to survive.