Law.com Subscribers SAVE 30%
Call 855-808-4530 or email [email protected] to receive your discount on a new subscription.
Adopting Information Governance in Small and Midsized Firms
The recent focus on information governance (IG) in the legal industry has usually been related to pre-litigation data and information management for clients. The objective of these IG efforts is to prevent the high costs of e-discovery after a litigation has started by implementing pre-litigation policies to regulate a client's data by knowing what data the client owns, where it is, who owns it and how long it should be retained. Concurrently, the law firm itself is undergoing a change in the way it handles its own and its clients' data. The law firm records management industry has been evolving to an information governance framework. The records function within the firm has traditionally been more of a back-end function, with the idea that everything was created in paper, made into an official record, indexed and hopefully regulated by retention schedules.
“But information governance is now making records management one cog in the whole wheel. We're shifting into things like matter lifecycle management, information security, information mobility, matter mobility, especially in law firms, with the transition of attorneys from one firm to another,” says Brianne Aul, senior manager of firmwide records at Reed Smith and steering committee member of the Law Firm Information Governance Symposium. Some of the other elements that make up the IG framework, according to the symposium, are IT systems administration, information governance awareness, firm intellectual property, document preservation, retention/disposition, client information requests, and records and information management.
Effective Information Governance
Major Differences In UK, U.S. Copyright Laws
This article highlights how copyright law in the United Kingdom differs from U.S. copyright law, and points out differences that may be crucial to entertainment and media businesses familiar with U.S law that are interested in operating in the United Kingdom or under UK law. The article also briefly addresses contrasts in UK and U.S. trademark law.
The Article 8 Opt In
The Article 8 opt-in election adds an additional layer of complexity to the already labyrinthine rules governing perfection of security interests under the UCC. A lender that is unaware of the nuances created by the opt in (may find its security interest vulnerable to being primed by another party that has taken steps to perfect in a superior manner under the circumstances.
Strategy vs. Tactics: Two Sides of a Difficult Coin
With each successive large-scale cyber attack, it is slowly becoming clear that ransomware attacks are targeting the critical infrastructure of the most powerful country on the planet. Understanding the strategy, and tactics of our opponents, as well as the strategy and the tactics we implement as a response are vital to victory.
Legal Possession: What Does It Mean?
Possession of real property is a matter of physical fact. Having the right or legal entitlement to possession is not "possession," possession is "the fact of having or holding property in one's power." That power means having physical dominion and control over the property.
The Stranger to the Deed Rule
In 1987, a unanimous Court of Appeals reaffirmed the vitality of the "stranger to the deed" rule, which holds that if a grantor executes a deed to a grantee purporting to create an easement in a third party, the easement is invalid. Daniello v. Wagner, decided by the Second Department on November 29th, makes it clear that not all grantors (or their lawyers) have received the Court of Appeals' message, suggesting that the rule needs re-examination.