Highlights of the latest franchising cases from around the country.

Features

When the decision to purchase traditional practice management software or subscribe to a Software-as-a-Service ("SaaS") provider arose this past January, I didn't have time to become mired in a rigmarole of sales calls and consultants. I simply wanted direct access to a product that would increase my productivity, file sharing and practice cohesiveness. I also wanted something that fit into my hardware preference for Mac products.

Features

Representatives from the Federal Trade Commission, the Maryland Attorney General's Office, and the California Department of Corporations updated franchise attorneys about the latest developments in franchise regulation at the International Franchise Association's 44th Annual Legal Symposium.

Features

In recent years, the importance of strategic archiving has intensified amid increasing demands to better control data growth and infrastructure costs, while reducing risks associated with corporate, legal or regulatory compliance. As legal teams and other corporate stakeholders strive to decrease the cost and complexity of responding to the growing volume of e-discovery and governance requests, archiving continues to gain prominence as a critical corporate IT priority.

Several African countries are demonstrating that they have the market size, growth, opportunities, and developing laws to support franchise development that would be attractive to forward-thinking, established franchisors and entrepreneurs looking for new investments.

Features

Disruptive technologies, new expectations from franchisees, tight profit margins, and limited access to capital for growth are among the issues challenging franchisors these days. Franchise attorneys must position themselves to help franchisors overcome those issues, or they will be marginalized as business leaders move forward, observed panelists at the International Franchise Association's 44th Annual Legal Symposium, held in May in Washington, DC.

Imagine if that same lawyer and IT professional could turn back time to the late 90s and come up with a solid policy to govern how e-mail was created, stored and disposed of that not only satisfied the legal requirements, but was also enforceable from an IT perspective. That is where we are right now with SharePoint. Have we learned a lesson?

The recovery of costs directly attributable to a client over and above the fees being charged is a common practice in the legal industry. The justification behind the practice was that clients' generated expenses were above and beyond overhead expenses and were directly attributable to the individual, as they were not included in the hourly rate charged by the firm.