Features

How to Make Working from Home, Work for You
In the legal industry it is time for a paradigm shift. Many firms have struggled with allowing people to work from home for a myriad of reasons. At this point, we have no choice. To help you get off on the right foot, the following are some best practices as we move forward into this new working environment.
Features

Make It Stick: Eight Strategies to Make Your Business Development Training More Effective
One factor in the slack of demand for law firms that is not being talked about is the state of the business development training and coaching that firms use to build their business development capabilities in the firm.
Features

Linking Partner Pay to Strategic Firm Objectives
In general law firms have been slower to adopt pay for performance systems. What law firms need now, and this article describes, is an approach to partner compensation that closely links a partners pay to their ability to contribute to the achievement of the firm's strategic objectives.
Features

Attorney's Fees After Octane: More Chances for Defendants to Even the Playing Field
With fewer restraints after Octane, district courts now have broader discretion to grant motions for attorney's fees. But understanding the circumstances under which exceptionality has been found is critical. Recent decisions by the Federal Circuit post-Octane provide some important guidance on when attorney's fees may be available under Section 285.
Features

Swedish Music Industry Views: Part Two
Part Two of a Two Part Article This article discusses, among other things, the Swedish music industry perspective on the European Union's Copyright Directive, the growth of multi-country music licensing hubs and the impact of Brexit.
Features

Kozinski Angle In 9th Circuit's Led Zeppelin Ruling
Defendants Led Zeppelin and its music labels were the winners in the copyright decision by the Ninth Circuit over the song "Stairway to Heaven." But the estate of songwriter Randy Wolfe (p/k/a California) wasn't the only one who got the short end. Among the collateral damage from the ruling was a 2002 precedent written by former Chief Judge Alex Kozinski that endorsed the so-called "inverse-ratio" rule.
Columns & Departments
IP News
VARA Lives On: A $6.75M Lesson on Respecting Moral Rights
Features

"Potentially Monumental" Ninth Circuit En Banc Decision in Infringement Case Over Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven"
For the past five years, the copyright bar and the music industry have carefully followed the many twists and turns of the potentially monumental infringement case that asserted that the opening of the iconic Led Zeppelin song "Stairway to Heaven" was copied from the introduction of a little-known 1967 instrumental "Taurus," written by the late Randy California. In March 2020, a unanimous en banc panel of the entire Ninth Circuit affirmed portions of a prior three-judge appellate ruling that "Stairway" did not infringe the Spirit song — and in the process resolved some thorny issues involving substantial similarity and copyright scope that will be important for future litigants
Features

Kozinski Angle In 9th Circuit's Led Zeppelin Ruling
Defendants Led Zeppelin and its music labels were the winners in the copyright decision by the Ninth Circuit over the song "Stairway to Heaven." But the estate of songwriter Randy Wolfe (p/k/a California) wasn't the only one who got the short end. Among the collateral damage from the ruling was a 2002 precedent written by former Chief Judge Alex Kozinski that endorsed the so-called "inverse-ratio" rule.
Features

CASE Act Explained
The Copyright Alternative in Small Claims Enforcement Act is a proposed congressional amendment to the current copyright statute that would create an alternative dispute resolution program for copyright small claims and other legal proceedings.
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
- 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 ›
- Structuring Strategies for Off-Balance-Sheet Treatment of Real Property LeasesThe Financial Accounting Standards Board released a new set of lease accounting standards, ASC 842, which went into effect earlier this year. Most significantly, publicly traded companies are now obligated to list all leases of 12 months or longer on their balance sheets as both assets and liabilities. Large private companies will follow suit in 2020.Read More ›
- 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 ›
- 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 ›
- The DOJ's New Parameters for Evaluating Corporate Compliance ProgramsThe parameters set forth in the DOJ's memorandum have implications not only for the government's evaluation of compliance programs in the context of criminal charging decisions, but also for how defense counsel structure their conference-room advocacy seeking declinations or lesser sanctions in both criminal and civil investigations.Read More ›