Third Circuit Cuts Substantive Consolidation Risk
October 03, 2005
Lenders won a victory on Aug. 15 when the Third Circuit limited the equitable remedy of substantive consolidation in the Owens Corning reorganization case. <i>In re Owens Corning</i>, ____ F.3d ___, 2005 U.S. App. LEXIS 17150*1 (3d Cir. 2005), amended by 2005 U.S. App. LEXIS 18043 (3d Cir. Aug. 23, 2005); further amended Sept. 2, 2005, <i>petitions for reh'g en banc filed</i> Aug. 29, 2005. Reversing the district court, the court held that "affiliated [debtor and non-debtor] entities" could not be "substantively" consolidated on the facts of the case before it. According to the court, the debtor and its allies sought substantive consolidation, a "last-resort remedy," in order to "deprive one group of creditors [ie, the unsecured lenders] of their rights while providing a windfall to other creditors." Id. at *5-*6. The future claimants' representative and a creditors' committee filed petitions for rehearing <i>en banc</i> on Aug. 29. Answers to those petitions were due to be filed by Sept. 12.
Developing Effective Information Security Programs
September 20, 2005
For many years, financial institutions and other entities that collect personal information focused on privacy as an emerging legal doctrine presenting compliance challenges and an array of business implications. These issues, while still important and subject to ongoing debate and tinkering, have become, for many financial institutions, an automatic component of ongoing business activities. Now, with all of the attention focused on security of customer information driven by the recent flood of news stories concerning security breaches in numerous industries, privacy's ugly stepchild — the security of consumer information — has moved to the forefront of concern, both for financial institutions and the various entities that regulate and oversee them. News stories reporting security breaches are an almost daily occurrence. New legislation is being introduced almost constantly, at both the state and national level. While financial institutions already face a raft of security-related compliance obligations, including the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and others, financial institutions and their important business partners have been a focus of many of the most highly publicized breaches.
Delivering Actionable Information To Front-line Lawyers
September 06, 2005
Accounting and other enterprise systems amass information that is, almost by definition, not actionable by front-line lawyers. Volume of data is inherently at odds with actionability, and a good enterprise system must accommodate volume. It must account for every circumstance, every variable, every iteration. Much of this volume is chaff to lawyers. To be useful, the wheat must be winnowed out and presented to the pricing and staffing decision makers themselves (<i>ie</i>, not just to green eyeshade types deep in the firm).
Up From Report Writers: How BI Excels
September 06, 2005
So what's all this excitement about Business Intelligence? You already have a pretty good report writer built right into your time-and-billing system. Your vendor provides over 50 pre-designed reports, each with selection options. Moreover, you have someone on staff that knows Crystal Report Writer. Isn't this all you need? <br>No, it's not. Today's law firm managers need more powerful and flexible access to financial information than canned or even custom-programmed report writers can deliver.
Basics Revisited: Attributes of Intelligent Decision Support
September 06, 2005
With a multiplicity of advanced decision support tools now available to law firm managers, it's important not to lose sight of key criteria for appraising all such systems. To facilitate effective decision-making, the designers and implementers of any reporting or BI system should aspire to these attributes: decision usefulness, relevance, reliability, timeliness and understandability.
Where Are the Gaps In Professional Development?
September 06, 2005
The legal profession is experiencing a renewed interest in professional development at many levels, as we predicted would occur when the situation changed from a buyers' to a sellers' market in the pursuit of talent. Not only are firms and their clients seeing an increase in work with a better economy, but also the change in the demographic picture as the large cohort of baby boomer senior lawyers start to transition out is significantly influencing the demand and requirements for professional development. More is happening on the training front; however, important gaps between what is being offered and what lawyers need in terms of skill and fulfilling of client needs are still evident.
Keeping Tabs On Internet Identity
September 01, 2005
No technology issue concerns -- or should concern -- individuals, e-commerce and government regulators more than Internet identity theft. The statistics are staggering. In the last year, LexisNexis reported that unauthorized people apparently took personal information on more than 30,000 Americans from its database -- by stealing logins and passwords of legitimate customers. Another data broker, ChoicePoint Inc., reported a possible theft of similar data from as many as 145,000 people through individuals claiming to have legitimate and legal use for the data they purchased from ChoicePoint. But those numbers look small (except, of course, to the affected individuals) when compared with the identity-theft problem acknowledged by Bank of America -- involving about 1.2 million federal employees.
Hummingbird Enterprise's Unexpected Gem: BI
August 31, 2005
This article nicely complements last month's A&FP special edition on "Putting Business Intelligence to Work." Not only does Warren Knowles introduce another interesting software product, but he also explains clearly how the firm's BI software has come to have multiple points of contact with the firm's other application software systems.
New UBT Rules for Legal Work in NYC
August 31, 2005
New York City's 2006 Executive Budget, recently passed by the NY State Legislature (S5568/A8434), significantly changes the NYC Unincorporated Business Tax (UBT) rules. Assuming the law is signed by the governor, as expected, law firms working in NYC will need to adjust to changes in three areas.
