Last month's edition featured a new book excerpt on resolving balance sheet issues in law firm mergers. This recent news report on Pennie & Edmonds underscores the potentially extreme challenges of harmonizing disparate accounting systems.
While A&FP regularly seeks to explore new and advanced profitability techniques, the wide experience of our authors regularly confirms the vital need to keep an eye on basics. It's been some time since we revisited these particular perennials in the profitability garden. Our Editorial Board member Bill Brennan's review clarifies their importance and provides some fresh insights
Last month's medley of views on law firm ranking metrics, while diverse, by no means exhausted what A&FP Board members and other contributors have to say about this important subject. The following two mini articles continue to address ranking-related problems, but will also help us broaden the scope of our discussion.
With more U.S. law firms serving ' or becoming ' global enterprises, many readers will need to gain new fluency in dealing with foreign currencies and exchange-rate issues. Before you immerse yourself in technical details, here's a preview of some practical issues you may encounter and some business advantages you might seek.
When an insured entity becomes a debtor in bankruptcy, the interests of liability insurers collide with fundamental principles of the Bankruptcy Code. Most liability insurance policies require the policyholder to pay a deductible or self-insured retention ("SIR") before the insurer is obliged to pay anything. And many insurance policies require the policyholder to pay the entire claim first and to seek reimbursement from the insurer afterward. Almost by definition, however, insolvent policyholders are unable to make these upfront payments. Indeed, in many cases, the policyholder's inability to do so in the face of a deluge of litigation was the principal cause of the insolvency in the first place.
Highlights of the latest insurance cases from around the country.
During recent years, insureds have faced a wide range of claims with potential liability exceeding the limits of their primary insurance policies. In such a setting, excess insurers typically argue that their duties are not triggered unless and until the primary policy has paid its limits. Such arguments should not be readily accepted. Excess insurers owe duties even before primary policies have exhausted. And, when a primary insurer settles with its insured, excess insurers may be obligated to pay under their policies even if the settlement was for less than the primary policy's limits.
The situation is not uncommon: A buyer purchases a residence or piece of land, discovers material defects, and files suit against the seller based on fraud and negligent misrepresentation, seeking the cost of repairing the defective condition or rescission of the purchase agreement. Judging by the growing body of case law, the seller then tenders the suit to its liability insurer, typically under a homeowners or general liability policy.
At an estimated $15.5 billion ' an increase of 28.1% from 2003's first quarter ' this year's estimated first-quarter e-commerce accounted for 1.9% of all first-quarter retailing, which the U.S. Census Bureau last month guessed totaled $834.8 billion, a nearly 9% rise from the same quarter last year.
Recent developments in e-commerce law and in the e-commerce industry.
