Online: 'WHO' Site Provides Health, Vaccination Information
For information about vaccines, visit the World Health Organization Web site, <i>www.who.int/immunization/en/</i>. The goal of the World Health Organization ("WHO"), the United Nations specialized agency for health established in 1948, is the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health. Health is defined in WHO's constitution as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
Case Notes
Highlights of the latest Product Liability cases from around the country.
Practice Tip: Suing Experts in Product Liability Cases
It is not pleasant to contemplate suing an expert hired to testify for your client. Nevertheless, an attorney's cautious and prudent behavior may be enhanced and professional anguish minimized by frank consideration of the unpleasant possibilities.
Saving Vaccines: A Look at How Current Liability Laws Are Keeping Much-Needed Vaccines Off the Market
On April 12, 1955, Thomas Francis stood on a podium at the University of Michigan and announced that Jonas Salk's polio vaccine was safe and effective. At last, Americans would be freed from the bonds of polio, a disease that routinely crippled as many as 50,000 children every year. However, triumph quickly turned to tragedy.
Features
Think Twice, Click Once: E-mail Guidelines
Document retention, and the host of related e-discovery issues, have been front and center for product liability attorneys for a number of years. Nevertheless, even with the best document retention program and the most sophisticated e-discovery system, companies and their attorneys are still going to have to deal with the documents themselves. As many trial lawyers have learned, it can take only one bad document to bring down the house. With respect to the increased use of e-mails as evidence in litigation, companies need to educate their employees on what constitutes appropriate online communication. We recommend that companies focus on training their employees to 'think twice and click once.'
Features
A Regulatory Lawyer's Perspective: The FDA's Guidances on Risk Assessment, Minimization and Management
In the pharmaceutical industry, due to all types of business pressures and constraints, it is not atypical for a company to behave reactively and in triage-mode, rather than considering proactive steps that it can take in the compliance arena. In 2005, the Food and Drug Administration ("FDA") issued three final guidance documents to help focus the industry and encourage companies to consider more thoughtfully and thoroughly the issues of quality risk assessment, minimization, and management collectively.
Increasing Equipment Reliability
While we used to copy millions of pages a month and send out hundreds of overnight mail packages a day, current copying rates have dropped to a few hundred thousand pages, replaced by thousands of e-mails per day and "scan to PDF and print" jobs totaling millions of pages. With these advances in technology have come heightened client expectations to complete work in minutes or hours, rather than days. This means our equipment has to be very reliable and easy to use, allowing the attorneys to spend their available time focused on legal work, not on mechanical problems with scanners, copiers and printers.
Features
Protecting E-mail For Complete Client Privacy
Attorney-client privilege, liability for breach of confidentiality obligations and damage to a firm's reputation were all reasons originally cited for stopping the use of e-mail at law firms before it even started. Convenience and responsiveness to clients became justification enough to ignore the basic issue that e-mail was inherently insecure. The standard form disclaimer that we now see at the end of every lawyer's e-mail became the solution to protecting the confidential nature of attorney-client communications. Is it sufficient today?
Strategies Needed To Support Compliance Policy Initiatives
Proactive Compliance. Risk Management. Loss Prevention. Regardless of what you call it, all firms have the need to assure that client information is handled properly at all stages, to mitigate litigation and penalty risks, and to protect client and firm reputation.
<b>Practice Tip:</b> Processing Evidence: The Technical Challenges of Lotus Notes
Lotus Notes, the desktop client for the Lotus Domino collaboration product suite, is one of the more widely used messaging platforms in large corporations. The unique aspect of Lotus Notes is that it's an application environment, as well an e-mail exchange system. It provides a platform from which to build a wide range of business applications where messaging and collaboration are the necessary foundation.
Need Help?
- Prefer an IP authenticated environment? Request a transition or call 800-756-8993.
- Need other assistance? email Customer Service or call 1-877-256-2472.
MOST POPULAR STORIES
- 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's New Parameters for Evaluating Corporate Compliance ProgramsThe parameters set forth in the DOJ's memorandum have implications not only for the government's evaluation of compliance programs in the context of criminal charging decisions, but also for how defense counsel structure their conference-room advocacy seeking declinations or lesser sanctions in both criminal and civil investigations.Read More ›
- The DOJ's Corporate Enforcement Policy: One Year LaterThe DOJ's Criminal Division issued three declinations since the issuance of the revised CEP a year ago. Review of these cases gives insight into DOJ's implementation of the new policy in practice.Read More ›
- Surveys in Patent Infringement Litigation: The Next FrontierMost experienced intellectual property attorneys understand the significant role surveys play in trademark infringement and other Lanham Act cases, but relatively few are likely to have considered the use of such research in patent infringement matters. That could soon change in light of the recent admission of a survey into evidence in <i>Applera Corporation, et al. v. MJ Research, Inc., et al.</i>, No. 3:98cv1201 (D. Conn. Aug. 26, 2005). The survey evidence, which showed that 96% of the defendant's customers used its products to perform a patented process, was admitted as evidence in support of a claim of inducement to infringe. The court admitted the survey into evidence over various objections by the defendant, who had argued that the inducement claim could not be proven without the survey.Read More ›
- Questions Every Law Firm Business Development Leader Should Be AskingIn a legal marketplace transformed by technology, heightened client expectations, and fierce competition, law firm leaders must approach strategy with rigor and clarity. The following questions, accompanied by relevant statistics and explanations, offer a focused guide for uncovering opportunity and driving sustainable growth.Read More ›
