Features

Can A Private Citizen Perform An Official Act?
This article discusses the importance of the "official act" requirement established in McDonnell v. United States, and how its logic should lead to a parallel requirement that private citizens should not be chargeable with the commission of official acts as part of a scheme to deprive the public of honest services.
Features

Pros and Cons of Master Leases
Section 365 of the Bankruptcy Code grants debtors the ability to assume or reject any executory contract or unexpired lease. Debtors must assume or reject a lease in its entirety and are not free under Section 365 to assume only favorable provisions of a lease. Courts, however, have consistently held that they will not find a multi-property master lease to be a unitary lease merely because such properties are demised in a single document.
Features

SCOTUS Passes on Bankruptcy Law Cases, Leaving Circuit Court Splits
'Purdue Pharma' Looms Although four cases presenting important bankruptcy issues were teed up for the Supreme Court's consideration this term, the Court denied certiorari for each. Each of these petitions involve splits among the circuit courts of appeals, influencing choice of venue and the extent to which bankruptcy decisions are subject to meaningful appeal.
Features

How Should Law Firms Use Their Windfall of Profits?
After many firms experienced a highly profitable 2020 and sky-high demand levels in 2021, they found themselves with more cash than usual. While more than enough Big Law money has been lavished on associates and laterals recently, those aren't the only ways firms are spending their riches.
Features

Being Selective: How Companies May Best Protect Privilege When Cooperating With a Government Investigation
This article explores a key consideration for companies under government investigation: whether voluntary disclosure of privileged information in an effort to obtain cooperation credit waives the privilege vis-à-vis third parties in subsequent litigation.
Features

Pleading Alter Ego Liability In Commercial Lease Disputes
The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged commercial landlords to rely on various legal theories to protect their legitimate rights. As federal, state and local governments enact laws to protect tenants from evictions and/or the enforcement of personal lease guarantees, a landlord's counsel must seek avenues to press its clients' rights against any entity who may be liable for outstanding rent arrears due and owing under a commercial lease.
Features

State Attorneys General Issue Support for Bankruptcy Venue Reform Legislation
Attorneys general from 41 states, along with Puerto Rico and Guam, have issued a statement in support of legislation before Congress geared toward stopping corporations from venue-shopping bankruptcy cases.
Features

Report: Talent War Heating Up to 'Boiling Point'
Law firms are paying more for talent than ever before. But like other industries that've been hit by a so-called "Great Resignation," they're also hemorrhaging it like never before, and the result is a diminished return on investment that could reach a "boiling point" in the near future.
Features

Implications of Second Circuit Ruling on Fugitive Disentitlement
Historically, the "fugitive disentitlement" doctrine has foreclosed challenges to criminal charges by a defendant who does not physically submit to a U.S. court's jurisdiction. As a consequence, to make even threshold challenges to an indictment, a defendant who lives abroad must leave home, waive the right to oppose extradition, and risk pre-trial detention in the United States.
Features

Five Things Law Firm Leaders Need To Do As People Return to the Office
While we all look forward to returning to normal, the normal we left in early 2020 remains elusive. For those who are leading teams (such as executive committees, practice and industry groups, client teams, administrative departments, and firm committees), the struggle is more complex.
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
- Judge Rules Shaquille O'Neal Will Face Securities Lawsuit for Promotion, Sale of NFTsA federal district court in Miami, FL, has ruled that former National Basketball Association star Shaquille O'Neal will have to face a lawsuit over his promotion of unregistered securities in the form of cryptocurrency tokens and that he was a "seller" of these unregistered securities.Read More ›
- Bankruptcy Sales: Finding a Diamond In the RoughThere is no efficient market for the sale of bankruptcy assets. Inefficient markets yield a transactional drag, potentially dampening the ability of debtors and trustees to maximize value for creditors. This article identifies ways in which investors may more easily discover bankruptcy asset sales.Read More ›
- Compliance Officers and Law Enforcement: Friends or Foes?<b><i>Part Two of a Two-Part Article</b></i><p>As we saw in Part One, regulators have recently shown a tendency to focus on compliance officers who they deem to have failed to ensure that the compliance and anti-money laundering (AML) programs that they oversee adequately prevented corporate wrongdoing, and there are several indications that regulators will continue to target compliance officers in 2018 in actions focused on Bank Secrecy Act/AML compliance.Read More ›
- Removing Restrictive Covenants In New YorkIn Rockwell v. Despart, the New York Supreme Court, Third Department, recently revisited a recurring question: When may a landowner seek judicial removal of a covenant restricting use of her land?Read More ›
- Artist Challenges Copyright Office Refusal to Register Award-Winning AI-Assisted WorkCopyright law has long struggled to keep pace with advances in technology, and the debate around the copyrightability of AI-assisted works is no exception. At issue is the human authorship requirement: the principle that a work must have a human author to be eligible for copyright protection. While the Copyright Office has previously cited this "bedrock requirement of copyright" to reject registrations, recent decisions have focused on the role of human authorship in the context of AI.Read More ›