Features
Proof and Defense of Causation in Failure-to-Warn Claims
In litigating failure-to-warn claims, the focus often is on duty (whether the manufacturer should have included a warning) and adequacy issues. In most cases, there is little attention paid to proof that the lack of a warning, or an inadequate warning, caused the accident. This article focuses on strategies for proving and defending the causation element of failure-to-warn.
Features
Privacy Ruling Reverberates in Case Against Facebook
Plaintiffs suing Facebook over its alleged practice of scanning direct messages are invoking a recent ruling from U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh clearing the way for a similar case against Yahoo Inc.
Unfinished Business Claims
This two-part article describes recent developments with respect to unfinished business claims, discusses the implications that those cases may have on law firm partnerships, and provides some suggestions as to what law firms may do to avoid unfinished business claim litigation.
Features
Obstruction of (Contemplated) Justice
Obstruction of justice is seeing increased use, and could prove to be a powerful tool in the federal prosecutor's toolbox. Reflective of its growing attention, as discussed further below, it is the subject of a pending U.S. Supreme Court case that will examine just how broadly this statute may reach.
Features
Collecting Social Security Numbers
In the first half of 2014, at least 96 significant data breaches were reported, compromising more than 2.2 million records. Of these breaches, at least 46 involved records that may have contained Social Security Numbers (SSNs). What the affected businesses may not know is that the mere collection of SSNs may have put them in violation of state laws, in addition to the liability they may now face for having failed to protect the SSN information.
Features
Gaps in Coverage After <i>Farmers Mutual </i>
Recently, the New Jersey Supreme Court addressed the question of the role of a state insurance guaranty fund within a pro rata allocation scheme. The court's opinion has called into question New Jersey's approach to allocation more generally.
Features
Changing the Law Firm Business Model
Lawyers must understand the process by which they deliver a legal solution. That means they understand every task in the process and who should be performing those tasks, whether it is a partner, an associate, a paralegal, or another professional.
Keep It Under Control
Client questions about litigation management are always the same: How likely are we to win? How long will it take? How much will it cost? The answers vary from case to case, but metrics exist to answer the questions and to enhance litigation management.
Features
Supreme Court Misses Chance to Address Difficult Privacy Question
When technology changes the nature of what has been thought of as private, should the response be to continue to recognize that privacy, or to rethink what is private?
Features
Cost Savings As a Risk Management Strategy
Since the active use of the term <i>risk management</i>, perhaps sometime in the 1980s, I have thought of the confluence of <i>risk</i> and <i>management</i> as an oxymoron.
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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 ›