Planning For The Inevitable
February 28, 2006
People who negotiate tech deals and draft contracts for legal or other services ' such as partnerships and the instruments that monitor them and give them teeth ' must remember one constant in today's ever-changing world: The technology we depend on every day often does not work. <br>As a result, the traditional wisdom, "failing to plan is planning to fail," has been transformed into a rule of thumb for the tech sector: "plan for failure." Firms that do not explicitly anticipate systems failure run the risk of being unprepared for a catastrophe
News Briefs
February 06, 2006
Highlights of the latest franchising news from around the country.
<b>Commentary:</b> 'Cloaking' Information and the Marketplace for Lateral Associates
February 03, 2006
Last spring ,i>The National Law Journal</i> reported that firms are taking steps to make it harder for headhunters to poach associates, primarily by removing information about associates from their Web sites ' information as basic as direct-dial numbers, e-mail addresses and biographical or practice-group data. More recently, <i>Law Firm, Inc.</i> reported that only four of the top 10 firms deserved an "A" for the completeness of associate information on their Web sites (see, www.lawfirminc.com/texts/0505/dls0505.html). The first question this raises is simply whether "cloaking" associate information has any effect; and the second, more interesting, question is whether firms' cloaking associates - but not partners - tells us anything about how the market for lateral associates differs in structure and function from the market for lateral partners.
Internet Access In Public Libraries
February 03, 2006
The law and communications advances ' and the boundaries of current technology ' sometimes combine to slow or otherwise impinge to some degree on commerce of all kinds, including e-commerce, and even the publicly accessed commerce of ideas in the at-large forum of discussion that forms such a solid and critical foundation for democracy.
New Privacy Laws Restricting Use Of Social Security Numbers
February 03, 2006
e-Commerce businesses must be particularly careful about how consumer information is collected and used, and whether such practices comply with the varying state laws ' especially considering that their Internet-based business more than likely reaches consumers in all 50 states.
NJ High Court Says Lawyers' Internet Listings Must Say They Were Paid For
February 03, 2006
As advertising gravitates more to the Internet, for lawyers as much as other service providers, the New Jersey Supreme Court's Committee on Attorney Advertising is doing its best to adapt its regulatory scheme to the medium. <br>This year alone, there have been four directives issued on what lawyers may and may not do on the Web, and the most recent puts new restrictions on lawyers' online listings to ensure that potential clients don't interpret them as official endorsements.
When Technology Doesn't Work
February 03, 2006
The traditional wisdom, "failing to plan is planning to fail," has been transformed into a rule of thumb for the tech sector: "plan for failure." Firms that do not explicitly anticipate systems failure run the risk of being unprepared for a catastrophe, just as Floridians must plan for hurricanes in August ' and New Orleans must now be prepared for potential dike breaches.
<b>Analysis:</b> Courts Still Not Sure How to Handle Internet
February 03, 2006
While the legal and jurisdictional implications are important, the Internet considerations highlight the complexity associated with the online world and geographic borders. For the majority of the court, the combination of the expert panel evidence and the decision by the French court to limit its restrictions to French users yielded the view that offline geographic borders can be applied to the Internet.
