Many larger firms have had long experience in systematically managing practice areas, and are now focused on optimizing profitability from each area with the aid of enhanced benchmarking tools and business intelligence software. But for many midsize firms, practice area management has not expanded beyond its original quality-assurance role, leaving largely untapped its potential for improving firm profitability.

As law firms grow in size, and expand geographically and across practice areas, the use of firm-wide profitability tools has become a business necessity. But understanding the urgency to adopt or update a profitability model doesn't guarantee its successful implementation.

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Experts see social networks as the next wave of business opportunities to come from the Web ' opportunities that are being exploited by small startups and companies as large as The Coca-Cola Co.

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Man Fired for Visiting Adult Chat Room Sues and Claims Addiction<br>RIAA Denounces New Fair Use Bill

Bob Dylan is the most cited musician in law, according to Oklahoma City University School of Law professor Alex B. Long. Dylan has twice the judicial and scholarly citations (160) of his nearest competitor, the Beatles (74), says Long. How does that affect you?

As they come, this judicial first wasn't exactly front-page news ' that is, if you are still in the habit of reading a quaint, old-fashioned newspaper. But in cyberspace, the decision of the U.S. District Court to include bloggers as bona fide members of the press pool during the recent 'Scooter' Libby trial was big news. For the first time ever in a federal court case, bloggers were officially welcomed as equals with newspaper and broadcast reporters, albeit in a little room down the hall from the actual trial in Courtroom 16.

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Law firms don't sell cheese or perfume ' they sell expertise. So how does one provide prospective clients with a 'taste' or 'spray' of something so intangible? The same question could be asked concerning existing clients. Given the marketing axiom that it is more cost-effective to generate additional business from existing clients than to sign up new accounts, how does a firm cross-sell other areas of expertise to existing clients whose exposure to the firm has been limited thus far to a single practice area?

This suit is potentially dealing with a very important issue that goes way beyond YouTube's actions or inactions ' the scope of the DMCA in today's Internet. The technology being utilized by YouTube was not even imagined a decade ago when the DMCA was enacted. <br>However, it is open for speculation that this suit, coming such a short time following a negotiations break-down between the parties on entering into a licensing arrangement, is just a negotiation strategy, gambit or ploy by Viacom for a more favorable deal.