Successful Wind-Down and Exit Management
November 27, 2007
Professionals are often asked to assist in the wind-down and liquidation of a company by the company's legal counsel. The requesting attorney, who may have a history with the company, knows the company is in trouble and may even expect a bankruptcy filing will come relatively soon. This in-depth article describes how to hire a wind-down specialist and what to expect.
Online Sweepstakes And Contests As Promotional Devices
November 26, 2007
Online sweepstakes and contests are well known devices that traditional and e-commerce firms and related operations frequently use to promote their products and services. While these tools of the online-promotions and online-marketing trade offer the promise of a cost-efficient way to target interested consumers and create a great deal of buzz, they are hardly trouble-free, and a myriad of traps await the unwary. The attorneys general of several states closely regulate and monitor sweepstakes and contests, and failure to conduct promotional and marketing campaigns properly can result in enforcement actions and consumer lawsuits, so be sure to operate a sure thing instead of taking a gamble.
When Legal Spam Isn't Spam
November 26, 2007
Demands for consumer 'extra effort' from Web merchants or service providers could become very common after a mid-2007 federal court ruling ' <i>Douglas v. Talk America, Inc.</i> In that case, a federal appeals court considered what it labeled an 'issue ' of some significance, (which) potentially affects the relationship of numerous service providers with millions of customers: ' whether to enforce a modified contract with a customer where the customer claims that the only notice of the changed terms consisted of posting the revised contract on the provider's Web site.'
A Primer on Foreign Language e-Discovery
November 26, 2007
While e-discovery may be Greek to many, it is those documents written in Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Russian that cause much of the trouble. These 'multi-byte' languages have exponentially more characters than the 26 letters and few other punctuation marks that Latin languages like English, Spanish, French and German need. In fact, the number of Chinese characters included in the Kangxi dictionary is over 47,000 (though only 3,000-4,000 are reportedly necessary for full literacy). The impact on e-discovery is significant considering the increased sophistication necessary for case evaluation.
Online Sweepstakes and Contests As Promotional Devices
November 26, 2007
Online sweepstakes and contests are frequent devices used to promote companies and their products and services. While these tools of the online promotions and marketing trade offer the promise of a cost-efficient way to target interested consumers and create a great deal of buzz, they are hardly trouble-free and myriad traps await the unwary. The Attorney Generals of several states closely regulate and monitor sweepstakes and contests and failure to conduct the campaign properly can result in regulatory enforcement actions and consumer lawsuits.
WV Supreme Court Invokes Learned Intermediary Doctrine
October 31, 2007
Last year, pharmaceutical companies reportedly spent $4.5 billion on direct advertising to consumers, or about 400 times more than they spent 20 years ago. Drug company spending on advertising to consumers is increasing twice as fast as spending on promotions to physicians or on the research and development of new drugs. Given this exponential growth in direct-to-consumer advertising, it is hardly surprising that prescription drug makers' traditional immunity from consumer 'failure-to-warn' claims has increasingly come under assault.
ALI Changed Expert Testimony Standard, But Should States Follow It?
October 31, 2007
The authors are both members of the American Law Institutes (ALI), an institution that's been around since 1923. Membership is made up of judges, practicing attorneys and legal scholars from both the United States and the international legal community. The ALI employs a deliberative process to gain insights into its various members' understanding and opinions of the law, then it drafts and publishes Restatements of the Law, model codes, and legal studies to promote, as the ALI Web site home page states, 'the clarification and simplification of the law and its better adaptation to social needs, to secure the better administration of justice, and to encourage and carry on scholarly and scientific legal work.' In this article, they take issue with a recent ALI Tentative Draft on the expert testimony standard.
