LJN Newsletters

As law firms grow and become more interested in the international, national and regional marketplace, their involvement in the local community has begun to wane. This has left a gaping hole in many places that have relied on the large firms to bankroll charitable events or to populate the important boards. It has opened a door to local- and state-oriented law firms to step forward and implement a strategy that will create a new law firm culture that I call 'Community Active' in order to fill the void left by the mega firms.

Recent rulings of importance to you and your practice.

The union of the Internet and commerce has lead to increases in productivity, convenience, and access for consumers everywhere. At the same time, it has spawned tremendous privacy concerns. It is not uncommon these days to hear of businesses inadvertently publicizing consumers' personal data, or worse, hackers obtaining personal financial information.

One of the leading issues currently faced by bankruptcy practitioners can be found in the frequently recurring disputes between first and second lienholders ' an issue that was recently addressed in the context of a ' 363 sale. In Contrarian Funds, LLC v. Westpoint Stevens, Inc. (In re Westpoint Stevens, Inc.), 333 B.R. 30 (S.D.N.Y. 2005), the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (the District Court) reversed a ' 363(b) sale order (Sale Order) of the bankruptcy court on the grounds that the Sale Order authorized an in-kind distribution of equities ' rather than cash ' to first lien holders outside the Chapter 11 plan confirmation process.

When is an executory contract not just an executory contract? When it's also a regulation, of course. So ruled Judge Richard Casey of the District Court for the Southern District of New York in In re Calpine, 337 B.R. 27 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 27, 2006), dismissing Calpine's request for authority to reject under 11 U.S.C. ' 365 certain regulated wholesale power supply contracts that fall within the exclusive jurisdiction of a federal administrative agency. Casey's decision and the subsequent appeal to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, where the case is currently pending, culminate a 3-month legal sprint through the executive and judicial branches of government in a case that pits the authority of the judiciary against the jurisdiction of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) ' the administrative agency tasked with regulating the wholesale sale and transmission of electric power.

With the implementation of Legal Files, we have successfully consolidated case information, provided better case-management reporting, and enabled our lawyers to manage their cases more cost effectively and efficiently. Through the use of Legal Files, we can successfully manage multi-district litigation (MDL), gather expert information, categorize, associate and manage groupware items (e-mails, calendar events, and tasks), maintain matter-centric documents, manage deposition and evidentiary documents and produce dynamic reports for overall management of cases.

Think back just 6 or 7 years to the approaching end of the millennium. If the woes of Y2K planning held the primary focus for IT leaders and litigation support professionals alike, the lofty promises about how to become an 'instant ASP' and 'deliver applications, with unmatched levels of security, speed, and availability, in a fully managed and integrated environment' ran a close second.
Although it took a bit longer than the optimists originally forecast, the 'buzz' from the 1990s ' the promise of more affordable, more accessible, on-demand software delivery (paying others to host, maintain, and upgrade applications under an umbrella of guaranteed uptime) continues to gain market acceptance, now under a new name, 'Software as a Service' (SaaS).

Employers frequently enter into employment agreements with their employees for a fixed period of time at a stated annual salary. What happens if, at the end of such an agreement's term, both parties continue to perform under the expired employment agreement as if the agreement were still in effect?