Features

Two Techniques That Up Your Team Management Skills In 2023
Good team leaders create an environment in which attorneys and staff work hard, are loyal, and add to profitability. Setting expectations and goals is an essential step in becoming an effective team leader. Make a commitment this year to up your management skills with these two key techniques.
Features

Using Feedback To Improve Team Performance
The problem with giving feedback is that it often comes across as criticism. Human beings tend to react defensively, resulting in a denial of the feedback or worse, entrenchment in the behavior or attitude that may be derailing them in the first place. How can we give feedback in a way that minimizes defensiveness?
Features

Best Practices In Second Request Document Review: Eliminating the Fear Factor
Part One of a Two-Part Article: Challenges and solutions in document review HSR second requests have become increasingly common in mergers or acquisitions that meet the premerger reporting threshold, which in 2022 was a transaction value of more than $101 million. The burdens of complying with second requests are onerous. The mere thought of undergoing such an exercise tends to strike fear in the heart of the legal department. In this article series, we'll outline the major challenges of second requests, suggest strategies to overcome them, and discuss how to face a second request with equanimity and confidence.
Features

Copyright Claims Board: Now Entering the "Active Phase"
2023 is shaping up to be a big year for small claims. Since making its debut in June of 2022, the Copyright Claims Board (CCB) has received over 250 claims, and at least 11 have made it to the "active phase," with more on the way. Active phase means a respondent was served, failed to "opt out," and now the esteemed three-member tribunal of copyright experts may finally get a chance to make some rulings.
Features

How to Give and Receive Feedback Effectively to Improve Team Performance
The problem with giving feedback is that it often comes across as criticism. Human beings tend to react defensively, resulting in a denial of the feedback or worse, entrenchment in the behavior or attitude that may be derailing them in the first place? How can we give feedback in a way that minimizes defensiveness?
Features

Is Trademark Protection Going to the Dogs?
The Ninth Circuit held in VIP Prods. LLC v. Jack Daniel's Properties that VIP's "Bad Spaniels" dog toy mimicking the appearance of a Jack Daniels whisky bottle was protected expression under the First Amendment. The Supreme Court granted cert in November 2022 to consider the principal question whether humorous use of another's mark on a commercial product should be assessed under Rogers or the traditional multipart test of likelihood of confusion.
Features

Court Declines to Block Retroactive Application of HSTPA
The Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act amended the Rent Stabilization Law and, among other draconian changes, severely curtailed landlords' incentives to modernize and otherwise improve rent regulated apartments by limiting the ability to recover the costs of individual apartment improvements (IAIs) to vacant apartments.
Features

Development Issues for Tenants to Consider In Build to Suit Leases
There are several issues and terms to consider related to the development process that differentiate build to suit leases from a standard commercial lease that are important for the tenant to understand to effectively manage costs and effectively protect itself from delays in the development schedule.
Features

Trouble Prosecuting Trump Allies Signifies DOJ's Difficulties In Prosecuting Non-Traditional Foreign Influence Cases
Despite the broad language of the Espionage Act, the DOJ has faced significant hurdles in pursuing prosecutions outside the traditional espionage context, and particularly where the alleged foreign agent's activity involves ostensibly legitimate international business dealings.
Features
U.S. Bankruptcy Court Denies Chapter 15 Recognition to a Case on the Isle of Man
Cases interpreting Chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code after it was enacted in 2005 often addressed basic issues, such as whether a foreign debtor must have property in the U.S to file a case there. But even when there's no property in the U.S., there's an easy remedy: the foreign administrator can deposit a retainer payment with its U.S. law firm.
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