Columns & Departments

A look at the latest developments in intellectual property law.

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Through a unilateral bankruptcy filing, a president and manager of a limited liability company sought to utilize the Chapter 11 process and sell a debtor’s business as a going concern over the objection of the debtor’s other members. In this case, the issue was whether the president was authorized to do so.

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The federal debt is a huge number at $36 trillion. That has major implications for the government and the economy. Debt numbers this large automatically send out ripples the size of tsunamis. Some of them could wash over long-term Treasury yields and then flood the cost of commercial real estate capital.

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With Republicans poised to take control of the White House and Congress, the odds are high that key elements of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act set to expire at the end of 2025 will in fact be extended — potentially for the better part of the next decade. Still, given the relatively narrow majorities expected in both the House and the Senate, the exact path forward for tax reform and broader federal budget negotiations also includes some unknowns.

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The 2024 LTN Law Firm Tech Survey spoke with 30 technologists at top U.S. law firms to get a sense of what technology issues they faced over the past year, how their technology posture, policies and investments are changing, and their thoughts on technology’s impact on the future of the legal industry.

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Structural, generational and workplace trends are redefining the professional development landscape. There is a new model emerging — one which recognizes the value of human skills in client development and talent retention and acknowledges the firm’s responsibility in helping budding lawyers build these skills. Yet today’s partners typically have notable gaps in the areas most needed today. One area, in particular, few get the training they need to be most effective in leadership.

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After nearly four years of litigation, the Second Circuit held recently that a small commercial landlord lacked standing to seek declaratory relief against the City of New York challenging the Guaranty Law under the Contracts Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

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Most of the federal circuit courts that have addressed what qualifies either as a "compilation" or as a single creative work apply an "independent economic value" analysis that looks at the market worth of the single creation as of the time when an infringement occurs. But in a recent ruling of first impression, the Fifth Circuit rejected the "independent economic value" test in determining which individual sound recordings are eligible for their own statutory awards and which are part of compilation.