Data analytics, the same data mining and interpretive analysis used for decades in other professions, is bringing change to the core business side of the legal profession ' and in the process, revealing great potential for increased efficiency, cost-savings and new ways of managing risk.
When the United States passed the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in 1977, it made a long-term investment, arguably at the cost of near-term competitiveness, in the ability of the U.S. economy to raise corporate and ethical best practices globally. With a number of reforms now underway in Brazil, Russia, India and China (the high-growth, high-risk BRIC countries), it appears the investment is paying dividends.
The FCC failed again in its attempt to regulate broadband Internet service providers. On January 14, a unanimous three-judge panel of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals decided that the FCC lacked the legal authority to write certain rules governing the management of data on the Internet ' popularly known as the "network neutrality" rules. The decision could leave companies such as Netflix Inc. and Amazon, Inc. facing higher charges for the fastest service.
As recently as five years ago, law partners charging $1,000 an hour were outliers. Today, four-figure hourly rates for in-demand partners at the most prestigious firms don't raise eyebrows ' and a few top earners are closing in on $2,000 an hour.
In November, a European court ruling forced an American Internet service provider to remove content from servers located in the U.S. and block the transfer of content to European and Asian users. This ruling resulted from the Internet search results of an Englishman who asserted that his French Internet privacy rights make it illegal to distribute Internet images of an individual in a private space without that person's permission.
Many battles have been fought in courtrooms across the United States over the unauthorized Internet sharing of copyrighted books, music, movies and television shows. These include disputes over increasingly more sophisticated software products and websites that appear designed to respond to the latest court rulings over the scope of the DMCA "safe harbor" protections and the elements required to establish secondary copyright infringement liability.
Secondary liability can be imposed on an ISP or distributor of a product used to commit infringement based upon claims of contributory infringement, inducement infringement or vicarious infringement. The contributory and inducement claims both focus on a defendant's contribution to the infringement and require that the defendant knows that direct infringement is occurring. These related claims, which provide independent ways to attack secondary infringement, differ in important respects.
As the ACA continues to be implemented, franchisors and franchisees must be vigilant in understanding whether they are subject to the ACA's mandates, penalties and tax credits. The franchising industry must be sufficiently informed and prepared to manage the uncertainty surrounding both compliance requirements and costs.
Big data is ubiquitous these days, but still largely untapped in legal circles. Litigators can take a page out of a sports team's playbook and use the patterns and trends found in data to make more informed decisions about case staffing, spend management, case strategy and probable outcomes.
