Features

Lawyers: Being Paid Shouldn't Be Like Pulling Teeth!
What Lawyers Can Learn From Dentists Attorneys have historically let the client lead the payment dance. Lawyers do the work and hope/expect to be paid without waiting too long or discounting the invoice too steeply. Yet, here we are at the beginning of another year with many law firms still waiting anxiously for overdue checks to arrive. Shame on us for letting this happen. What can we do differently?
Features

Athletic Coaches and the Tax Act
When the Tax Cut and Jobs Act became law in December of 2017 there was a question whether some of the highest salaried employees at non-profit organizations would be exempt from the $1M remuneration tax. In the majority of states, the highest salaried employees are athletic coaches.
Features

The How, What and Why of a Potential PG&E Bankruptcy
PG&E Corporation and its subsidiary, Pacific Gas & Electric Company announced that it expects to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on or around Jan. 29, 2019, right around the conclusion of a mandatory 15-day notice requirement under California law. Such a filing would represent the second time PG&E resorted to protection under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.
Features

Are Cybersecurity Solutions and Consulting a New Revenue Stream for Law Firms?
The Big 4 accounting firms have identified legal services as an area for growth beyond traditional financial services and consulting services.
Columns & Departments
Business Crimes Hotline
Head of International NGO Convicted of Bribery, Money Laundering Crimes
Features

Junior Noteholders Successfully Petition for Dismissal of Involuntary Filing
The bankruptcy court's ruling is a seminal decision that meaningfully circumscribes the ability of a secured noteholder under an indenture, particularly for structured debt, to force the debtor (i.e., issuer of the debt) into an involuntary bankruptcy.
Features

West Village Houses: Units Ruled Not Stabilized Despite Receipt of J-51 Benefits
Ever since 2009, it has been an article of faith that a building's receipt of J-51 benefits means that all of the apartments therein automatically become rent-stabilized. If those apartments were already rent-stabilized, they become stabilized a second time. The second layer of rent stabilization has the effect of barring luxury deregulation, at least until J–51 benefits expire. In West Village Houses Renters Union v WVH Hous. Dev. Fund, Justice Barbara Jaffe held that the tenants of 32 unsold cooperative units at the West Village Houses complex were not rent-stabilized, even though their buildings had received J-51 benefits.
Columns & Departments
Development
Town Cannot Hold Back Building Permits as Financial Security<br>Parkland Alienation Doctrine Does Not Preclude Dock on Open Space Easement<br>Landowner Failed to Exhaust Administrative Remedies
Columns & Departments
Real Property Law
No Duty to Maintain Bulkhead<br>Self-Conveyance Did Not Sever Joint Tenancy<br>Promissory Estoppel Not Available to Avoid Statute of Frauds<br>Presumption of Hostility Sustains Prescriptive Easement Claim
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