Features

Defusing the UST Tax Bomb
<b><i>How Lenders and Debtors can Minimize UST Fees and Maximize Creditor Recoveries</b></i><p>As predicted in the first part of this article (May, 2018), the new United States Trustee (UST) fee has had a disproportionate effect on middle-market, high-velocity cash flow companies. The best solution is for Congress to revisit the fee structure and refine it to reflect the realities of particular cases and the actual burden on the UST.
Features

Law Firm Leaderships' Biggest Challenge: Equality of Outcome
<b><i>Aggressive Poaching In the Market Is Forcing Leadership to Contend With the Delicate Balance of Equality, Culture and Compensation In their Firms</b></i><p>Many leaders are no longer focused just on business development but are also trying to figure out how to continue making money and structure their firms in a way that allows them to spend the requisite money to pay top talent.
Features

Warner Media Implements New Inclusion Policy
It seems fitting that a new movie that highlights racism and inequity in the American prison system is the first Hollywood production to apply a policy aimed at increasing diversity and inclusion both in front of and behind the camera.
Columns & Departments
Real Property Law
Neighborhood Garden Users May Establish Adverse Possession Claim<br>Purchaser Entitled to Return of Down Payment Upon Revocation of Mortgage Commitment After Expiration of Contingency Period<br>Law Firm Not Liable to Non-Client for Turnover of Escrow Funds<br>Law Firm Not Exempt From Claim Under RPL 265-B<br>Presumption of Due Execution Rebutted<br>Title Insurance Regulation Annulled
Features

Cybersecurity and Email
In the legal community, professionals have embraced email. However, as increasing concerns and regulations around data security continue to evolve, the future of digital communication via email may not meet the more stringent requirements.
Features

Non-Traditional Trademarks: The Elusiveness of Branding a Trend
A look at several unique trademark cases where the plaintiff fashion brand proactively sought to invalidate a competitor's non-traditional trademarks, an action which reflects a push back on increasingly aggressive litigation tactics by fashion brands seeking to blur the lines between a non-protectable fashion trend and a protectable trademark.
Features

Stretching the Limitations Period in White-Collar Criminal Matters
<b><i>Part Two of a Two-Part Article</b></i><p>Though they might seem straightforward on their faces, limitations periods are often elongated by legislation or court interpretation. The authors began looking at some of these exceptions to the stated limitations periods last month in Part One of this article. They continue here with further examples.
Features

Eleventh Circuit Strengthens Creditor's Defense to Preference Claim
A defendant creditor in a preference suit may offset 1) the amount of later “new value” it sold to the Chapter 11 debtor against 2) the debtor's earlier preferential payment to the creditor, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit recently held.
Features

Sales Speak: Grow Your Clients: MLF's Challenge
As you approach your clients during the upcoming holidays and new year, think creatively. This Q&A with Aon COO Audrey Rubin provides more than a dozen examples of ways to add value and build stronger relationships with our clients. The <i>MLF</i> team challenges you to undertake one or two of these in your next go-to-market strategies.
Features

Store Closing Lease Rejection in 'Shiekh Shoes'
Store closing or liquidation sales are a routine part of Chapter 11 cases involving retail debtors. These sales are consistently authorized by bankruptcy courts, despite lease provisions purporting to forbid them.
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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 ›
- 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 ›
- 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 ›