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Choosing the jurisdiction and applicable law for disputes arising out of an insurance or reinsurance contract may be secondary to sorting out the actual terms of coverage, but the importance of the choice should not be underestimated. A good lesson in the different approaches of even mainstream insurance jurisdictions can be had by looking at the experience of the insurers embroiled in the film finance saga, which has kept banks, insurers, reinsurers, and the courts worldwide busy for the last seven years.
They may lament that they are the poor cousins of hedge fund managers and private equity stakeholders, but law firm partners are hardly suffering.
In March, <i>The American Lawyer</i> ran a cover story about a prestigious national law firm that found itself mired in legal and ethical problems even as it enjoyed unparalleled growth and economic success. The article asks: Are the firm's great strengths — enterprise, speed, and daring — also its great flaw?
With all of the reporting capabilities of sophisticated time and billing systems, it is easy to lose sight of the most basic rule of law firm economics: Cash in must exceed cash out. To that end, one of the most valuable assets any business can have is a cash cow. Yet, we find that many law firms never benefit from practices that could be cash cows because they just don't seem to understand the concept. I know, it sounds pretty simple ' bleed as much revenue as you can out of practice areas in which your firm has a dominant position. But, somehow, we keep screwing it up.
It is a well-reported fact within the legal industry that law school enrollments have flattened in recent years, with total J.D. enrollments showing little or no growth since 2004. This trend, in combination with the significant and ongoing growth in the size of law firms, translates into an intensely competitive market for top law school talent. With only a few exceptions, firms throughout the industry are struggling to secure as many of the best candidates as they need and want. The widening gap between law firms' investments in campus recruiting and the resulting payoff in terms of candidate acceptances is driving law firms to take a harder look at their approach and strategy in law school recruiting. And the smartest of these firms are asking the hardest of questions: What is the best way to approach law school recruiting?
News about lawyers and law firms in the product liability field.
Features
Highlights of the latest product liability cases from around the country.
Part One of this article discussed the <i>Philip Morris</i> decision and prior Supreme Court decisions addressing punitive damages. Part Two continues the discussion of prior decisions and considers whether <i>Philip Morris</i> is a logical step in the evolution of due process or a potential turning point in awarding punitive damages.
As litigation grows more complex, the costs of defending tort lawsuits continue to rise. Defendants frequently settle such cases, not to avoid potential liability, but to avoid the high costs of discovery and other litigation expenses. Motions for summary judgment reduce those costs, but only to a certain degree. Consequently, defendants in tort suits are constantly searching for strategies and defenses that will result in dismissals early in the litigation. One such defense is the 'political question' doctrine, a longstanding legal principle that has enjoyed a resurgence in recent years.
During a recent product liability trial, the plaintiff's expert opined in his original disclosure that the subject machine was defective because it lacked a clutch safety mechanism. Trial counsel, retained just weeks before jury selection, learned from the same expert that no machine in the industry contains such a mechanism. They concluded that cross-examination of the expert on this point would probably outweigh any benefit that such testimony might add to the plaintiff's case, and that a simpler explanation for the accident was the manufacturer's failure to place conspicuous warnings to the user on how to operate the device properly. They decided that it would be wise to have the expert testify about the missing warnings instead of the design defect. The problem was that the expert's design defect theory had been presented in the plaintiff's pretrial disclosure statement, which had been served on the defendants, but nothing was disclosed about the failure to warn.
