Did the Supreme Court Finally Rein in Punitive Damages?
Insurers should encourage policyholders to hold firm against the plaintiff's bar's threats of excessive punitive damages jury verdicts by pointing to the <i>Exxon Shipping Co. et al. v. Baker</i> decision and the recent trend of decreased outlier jury verdicts.
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'Hold the Arbitration Clause, Hold the Attorney Fees!'
Most contracts are the result of a give-and-take negotiation, as each side tries to have it its own way. Bricks-and-mortar businesses, for example, will often try to negotiate virtually every clause of every contract, or at least those worth the cost of the negotiation. the only persons who don't get to negotiate each clause, generally, are consumers and small-business customers ' and e-commerce buyers.
Burns & Levinson Find Ease and Efficiency with Esquire Innovations
As part of the network upgrade, it was very clear that we needed a macro/template package to assist us in both creating a consistent branding and in creating stable, functional documents.
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Social Networking And Legal OnRamp
True to all the hype, social networking tools are posed to be the next stage in the evolution of effective client communication. You've been under a rock if you haven't been confronted by the buzz about MySpace, Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. These are the most popular online social networking communities, but none of them are specifically targeted to the legal profession (unless your clients enjoy gaudy, blinking Web pages or virtual flowerpots).
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Getting Smart About Managing Smartphones
In a recent study, management-consulting firm Altman Weil cited lack of responsiveness as the number one reason clients terminate the services of a law firm. Lawyers need to have reliable, continuous access to clients ' whether they are on the road with a smartphone or in the office behind a desk. Having access to the firm's experienced professionals and extensive supportive resources without service errors, delays or interruptions is critical when a case is on the line.
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Court Watch
Highlights of the latest franchising cases from around the country.
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Sorting Software With the e-Discovery Application Matrix
With so many products that describe themselves as end-to-end solutions and the resulting struggle in the legal technology community in determining which products solve a particular problem, it was only a matter of time before an enterprising consultant created a tool to navigate the sea of product information.
Technology in Review for a Luddite Lawyer
Every day, someone is predicting a sea change in the way we conduct discovery. However, due to the dogged nature of many litigators, the old "belt and suspenders" style of discovery persists. Many attorneys adhere to the philosophy of reviewing each and every document in the order that they find them. I am not here to predict the downfall of those who are sticking to that philosophy; in fact, I am quite sure that the old methods of approaching discovery will last eternally. However, there may be a better way.
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MO Supreme Court Denies Auto Dealer's 'Bad Faith' Statutory Claim
In <i>Parktown Imports, Inc. v. Audi of Amer., Inc.</i>, the Missouri Supreme Court "fixed" an appellate court decision that could have set a precedent with potentially serious implications for automobile manufacturers and other franchisors or distributors because it would have allowed actions to block network changes on a mere claim of "bad faith," even when there is no standing to bring suit under a specific provision governing network changes.
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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 ›