Features

Defense Counsel Discuss Outcome in Dance Steps Case
Kirkland & Ellis has notched a win in cutting-edge litigation that questions the protectability of dance steps, what constitutes choreography and the relationship between copyright, and right of publicity and trademark law.
Features

Introducing Pricing Transparency to Legal Services
The COVID-19 crisis has caused a money crunch across industries, and CLD budgets are tightening. This downturn demands that CLDs stop writing blank checks for services of indeterminate scope and duration. Here are some ideas for law departments looking to do better.
Features

Law Firm Leasing Drops During COVID-19
Overall, the pandemic will likely result in long-term changes for law firm offices. While law firm leasing activity will eventually pick up, firms may decrease their overall footprints, taking up 10% to 15% less square footage because some people will continue working from home.
Features

Pouring Resources Into Business Development and Coaching Provides Mixed Results
The largest law firms are pouring substantial resources into business development training, cultivating leadership skills and professional coaching, according to a new report, and they're fielding teams of marketing professionals and lawyers to court and maintain clients. But the report found that the efforts — and the results — have been uneven, especially when it comes to developing leadership and building effective client teams.
Columns & Departments
Landlord & Tenant Law
Lease Provision Does Not Bar Conversion Claim for Damages After Issuance of Warrant of Eviction
Columns & Departments
IP News
Federal Circuit Finds Preamble Not Limiting and Claims Reciting Means-Plus-Function Limitations Without Disclosure of Corresponding Structures Cannot Be Determined Unpatentable as Indefinite in an IPR Proceeding Federal Circuit Finds That District Court Correctly Applied the Disclosure-Dedication Doctrine In Granting a Motion for Judgment of Non-Infringement on the Pleadings
Features

Legal Analytics and the Evolving Practice of Law
While we may use analytics differently in our respective companies, one thing is certain: Legal analytics is the future and it's time to jump on board.
Columns & Departments
Bit Parts
Right of Publicity Laws Don't Pierce CDA Immunity Shield Second Circuit Affirms Dismissal of Wolf of Wall Street Defamation Suit
Features

Corporate Resiliency: How to Ensure Financial Health Ahead of an Economic Downturn
Proper planning is key to ensuring a company's financial health when facing an economic downturn. Although companies will come into such planning with different levels of financial health, the same considerations can be helpful in determining the best path forward.
Features

SEC Targeting Fraudulent Disclosures During Pandemic
In the midst the current COVID-19 pandemic, the SEC is paying attention. The Division of Enforcement has made clear that it will act, and act quickly, to stop fraudulent conduct that falls under its jurisdiction related to the pandemic.
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MOST POPULAR STORIES
- Protecting Innovation in the Cyber World from Patent TrollsWith trillions of dollars to keep watch over, the last thing we need is the distraction of costly litigation brought on by patent assertion entities (PAEs or "patent trolls"), companies that don't make any products but instead seek royalties by asserting their patents against those who do make products.Read More ›
- Meet the Lawyer Working on Inclusion Rider LanguageAt the Oscars in March, Best Actress winner Frances McDormand made “inclusion rider” go viral. But Kalpana Kotagal, a partner at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll had already worked for months to write the language for such provisions. Kotagal was developing legal language for contract provisions that Hollywood's elite could use to require studios and other partners to employ diverse workers on set.Read More ›
- 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 Goes Phishing: The Rise of False Claims Act Cybersecurity LitigationWhile the DOJ Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative is still in its early stages and cybersecurity regulations are evolving, whistleblower plaintiffs have already begun leveraging the FCA to pursue alleged noncompliance with government cybersecurity requirements.Read More ›
- Private Equity Valuation: A Significant DecisionInsiders (and others) in the private equity business are accustomed to seeing a good deal of discussion ' academic and trade ' on the question of the appropriate methods of valuing private equity positions and securities which are otherwise illiquid. An interesting recent decision in the Southern District has been brought to our attention. The case is <i>In Re Allied Capital Corp.</i>, CCH Fed. SEC L. Rep. 92411 (US DC, S.D.N.Y., Apr. 25, 2003). Judge Lynch's decision is well written, the Judge reviewing a motion to dismiss by a business development company, Allied Capital, against a strike suit claiming that Allied's method of valuing its portfolio failed adequately to account for i) conditions at the companies themselves and ii) market conditions. The complaint appears to be, as is often the case, slap dash, content to point out that Allied revalued some of its positions, marking them down for a variety of reasons, and the stock price went down - all this, in the view of plaintiff's counsel, amounting to violations of Rule 10b-5.Read More ›