South Africa's Consumer Protection Act will have a significant impact on franchising in that country. The president of South Africa signed the new legislation into law on April 24, 2009, and it was published in the government gazette on April 29, 2009. The Act codifies many franchise practices that have been advocated by the Franchise Association of South Africa since the early 1990s and expands on existing provisions of South Africa's Competition Act, 1998.

While the United States shares a common language and common law background with the United Kingdom and New Zealand, those countries have gone in a different direction in regulation of franchising.

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Recently, physicians and other health care providers have been inundated with information regarding electronic medical records ("EMR"). However, it is believed that the vast majority of health care transactions are still taking place on paper.

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Who's doing what; who's going where.

If you follow the tabloids and Hollywood divorces, you might mistakenly believe that property is automatically divided 50/50 in a divorce. While that it is true in community property states like California, it is not true in Illinois.

In the area of business valuation, the experienced practitioner should know as much, if not more, of the lingo than the competition. The seasoned attorney will know enough to size up his/her expert so the court does not dismiss a valuation as inherently unfair.

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Lawyers who specialize in divorce and custody disputes say they have witnessed a flood of activity in family courts in recent months due to the state of the economy.

At one time or another, most attorneys handling litigated custody disputes have obtained evaluators' notes, only to find them to be undecipherable. It is the author's position that when this occurs, evaluators bear the responsibility for having their notes transcribed at their own expense.