1099-MISCgivings: Reporting Taxable Awards & Settlements
August 01, 2003
The Federal tax code and corresponding regulations require a lawyer to send a 1099-MISC form to certain individuals (and non-incorporated business entities) who receive disbursements from the lawyer's trust fund for legal awards and settlements. Writing on behalf of a law firm, an accounting firm reader has asked about the proper way to report such disbursements.
The Ethics of Billing by the Hour for 'Recycled' Work
August 01, 2003
One of the most difficult attorney billing issues is how a lawyer may receive fair compensation for the "intellectual property" value of work products reused for a later client. An attorney who has spent substantial time developing interrogatories, jury charges, legal memoranda or other such documents for one client naturally will want to "recycle" the same materials when they are relevant to later clients. But on what, if any, basis can the lawyer legitimately bill for this recycled work?
Key Considerations in Choosing a Survey
August 01, 2003
Part One of this article offered a general overview and comparison of the major surveys currently available for US law firms (Altman Weil's "The Survey of Law Firm Economics"; Hoffman Alvary's "The Flash Report on Law Firm Economics"; and Pricewaterhouse Coopers' "The Law Firm Statistical Survey"). Part Two offers advice on how to select a survey.
Significant Changes for EEO-1 Form
August 01, 2003
The EEOC has proposed significant changes in the way EEO-1 forms are to be completed, including revisions to the scope of the race/ethnicity categories and in the definition of job categories.
Writing Insights
August 01, 2003
<i>Put the argument into a concrete shape, into an imagesome hard phrase, sound and solid as a ball, which they can see and handle and carry home with them and the cause is half won.</i>-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Supreme Court Hands Arbitrators the Keys to the Class Action
August 01, 2003
A plurality of the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that an arbitrator must decide whether class action arbitration in a consumer action is authorized. <i>Green Tree Financial Corp. v. Bazzle</i>, 123 S.Ct. 2402, (June 23, 2003). Four Justices concluded that whether or not the contracts forbid class arbitration is a disputed issue of contract interpretation and that such a dispute must be decided by an arbitrator. Justice Stevens concurred in the judgment.
A New York Perspective on Workplace 'Spam'
August 01, 2003
When employees lose their jobs, bitterness may breed revenge - revenge that goes well beyond the pilfering of pens on the way out. Disgruntled former employees have been known to defame the company to its clients, offer inside information to competitors, and initiate frivolous litigation, all at great cost to their former employers. But there is another problem that may be on the rise: spam, the Internet's version of junk mail.
