Call 855-808-4530 or email [email protected] to receive your discount on a new subscription.
Unlike the vast majority of businesses in the United States, law firms generally operate under open systems that disclose the compensation of individual attorneys. The closed systems at Jones Day and Greenberg Traurig are major exceptions. But some observers say that law firms are moving toward closed systems as they function more like businesses and less like true partnerships.
Attorney attrition is expensive. Replacing departing colleagues means not only recruiting and hiring strong candidates, but also investing in training for the new hires. Cost estimates for replacing an associate are typically between 100% and 200% of the associate's annual salary. The soft costs ' lost institutional knowledge and potential morale problems ' may be even greater. And attorneys who leave with bad feelings about the firm can spread their ill will in the local legal community, or try to lure others to follow. A mass exodus, of course, can cripple a firm.
Features
Legal ethics training has traditionally focused on attorneys. Law school training and continuing legal education are staples of the professional development require-ments for lawyers. Ethical training must be widened, however, due to tremendous growth in the num-ber of law office support personnel, the complexity of practicing in a multi-jurisdictional environment, and the ever-changing use of technology. Failure to implement an office-wide ethics plan with training for all employees can have practical and financial repercussions for lawyers.
Features
Highlights of the latest insurance cases from around the country.
Features
The Prudent Investor Rule sets forth the basic rules governing the conduct of fiduciaries in the management of trust assets. While the legal standards for investment fiduciaries can be traced as far back as an 1830 Massachusetts court case creating the redecessor 'Prudent Man' standard, the Prudent Investor Rule is of much more recent origin.
Features
In many insurance coverage disputes, an insured that brings a claim for breach of the insurance contract also claims breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. The carrier then must determine how to successfully defend both claims. The strategy employed in defending those claims must take into consideration the nuances of a claim for breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. In most jurisdictions, the best strategy may be to focus on defeating the contract claim, because the dismissal of the contract claim typically extinguishes any claim of breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.
Features
Insurance carriers and policyholders continue to engage in an ongoing debate with respect to the meaning and application of 'absolute' or 'total' pollution exclusions ' clauses that are contained in most general liability insurance policies sold since 1986. Absolute and total pollution exclusions generally preclude coverage for bodily injury or property damage 'arising out of the actual, alleged or threatened discharge, dispersal, seepage, migration, release or escape of pollutants,' and define 'pollutant' to mean 'any solid, liquid, gaseous or thermal irritant or contaminant, including smoke, vapor, soot, fumes, acids, alkalis, chemicals and waste.'
Features
For the second time in less than a decade, a report by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) was released in July. The previous IOM report on the subject, released in 1999 and titled, 'To Err Is Human,' rocked the medical community when it estimated that 44,000-98,000 Americans die each year as a result of medical errors. Similarly, the report released in July documents significant shortcomings in the provision of medical services in this country and startlingly points out that medication errors continue to harm at least 1.5 million people every year. According to the new report, the problem is so serious that, on the average, a hospital patient is subject to at least one medication error per day. The IOM estimates that the additional costs of treating medication-related injuries ' those occurring in hospitals alone ' can conservatively be estimated at $3.5 billion per year. At least one quarter of all such injuries are apparently preventable.
You have a big trial looming; let's say an infant death or quadriplegia case. You think the medicine is sound, your experts are comfortable with their positions and the client wants to go forward. At the same time, the injuries to the plaintiff are substantial. Do you 'roll the dice' with a jury, or do you settle for a 'reasonable amount'? This is the dilemma faced by medical malpractice lawyers every day, and the decisions required here are not easily made.
Features
When a doctor obtains insurance from more than one carrier and both policies contain language along these lines ' 'Insurance under this coverage is excess of and payable only after all other valid insurance limits of coverage have been exhausted' ' which will be deemed the primary policy and which the excess policy? Or will they each cancel the other out? The answer will depend on myriad criteria, including the specific language of the policies, the amount the insured paid for coverage and whether one policy identifies the other insurer as the primary insurer.