Features

<i>Online Extra:</i><br>Social Media: Questions of Admissibility And Ethics
Social media evidence can be acquired both informally — through an attorney's own investigation or from the client — or more formally through the use of discovery and the rules of discovery. While each gives rise to practical and ethical issues, this section will focus on informal methods of acquisition.
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Genetic Labeling: Legal Uncertainty for Pharma Product Liability
The FDA's recent approval of 23andMe's direct-to-consumer genetic test to identify genes associated with 10 common diseases and disorders could result in a widespread expansion of patients armed with individualized health information. This expansion of genetic information in the hands of consumers potentially impacts regulatory and litigation issues for pharmaceutical companies.
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Do Mergers Increase Profitability?
<b><i>The Numbers Say Yes, But Not for the Reasons Many May Think</b></i><p>Conventional wisdom has it that mergers enhance profitability through increased revenues and reduced costs. However, the numbers contradict this view: post-merger revenues are lower relative to competitor firms than are the sum of the predecessor firms' revenues, and costs per lawyer increase markedly.
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Supreme Court Considers Sports Betting Law
The U.S. Supreme Court seemed ready to strike down — though not by a unanimous vote — the federal law that bans most states from licensing sports betting.
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Recognizing the Signs of Financial Distress
Diagnosing financial distress, and the ability to address the relevant issues, is a necessary role of board members and senior executives.
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Drafting Divorce Settlement Agreements
<b><i>Best Practices</i></b><p>This article addresses some deficiencies in reviewing separation or settlement agreements done in divorce cases, and recommends various clauses that practitioners may implement in their own practices.
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How to Avoid the Pitfalls of a Bad Sexual Harassment Policy
How can companies make sure they have sexual harassment policies in place to protect interests and employees? The authors talked to several attorneys about common pitfalls and the lay of the land in the corporate environment right now. Here are highlights from those conversations.
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In New York: Recovery of Accelerated Rents from a Commercial Lease Guarantor
With an effective rent-acceleration clause and good-guy guaranty, there is a little-used legal procedure that could allow the landlord to quickly pursue the guarantor for lost back and future rents: a motion for summary judgment in lieu of complaint.
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Physician Extenders or Liability Expanders?
For health care services to serve an influx of patients, so-called “physician extenders” now carry out functions previously performed by doctors. The aim of this article is to examine factors driving the growth in physician extenders, identify liability “hotspots” and offer tactics for health care providers to use in managing professional/medical liability risks.
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- 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 ›