Features
Your Law Firm Web Site
A law firm Web site is an interactive experience ' one that takes place between someone in need of information and someone in the position to provide that information.The total experience a client or prospective client has while visiting a Web site reflects on your firm. A bad experience forms a bad association. A good experience creates a good one.
Features
Getting Published: The Foundation for Business Development
Business development in the legal community is a science, but it requires the creativity of an artist. That artistry can be demonstrated most powerfully through the written word, a tool of great lawyers for centuries. Encapsulating an interesting case or complex transaction into 500 or 1000 words for the benefit of colleagues and the business community at large is the single best way to demonstrate expertise on a macro scale. It is at the very core of client generation.
Features
<b>Corner Office</b>: Are Gray-Haired Partners Expendable?
Gray-haired, older, or as I shall refer to them, senior partners, as a class, represent a challenge that most managing partners find vexing. Many firms have avoided addressing this very complex issue either because of the emotional reaction it invokes, or because they just don't see it as a real problem yet. Others have adopted the apparently simple solution of setting a mandatory retirement age at which the partner is expected to stop practicing and head for a retirement community.
Features
How to Reduce Your Exposure to Lawsuits
Employers go to great lengths and expense to reduce their potential exposure to employment-related claims. Most employers implement policies to address the myriad and growing federal, state, and local employment laws; regularly conduct employee EEO training; hire qualified human resources professionals and in-house attorneys with expertise in employment law; and regularly seek advice and assistance from outside counsel concerning these prophylactic measures. The purpose of this article is to apprise readers of a fast, simple, and inexpensive way to reduce their exposure to certain types of employment-related claims through the inclusion of an express waiver ('Waiver') in an employment application or other document signed by applicants or employees. The Waiver contractually reduces to six (6) months the time period within which certain types of employment-related claims must be filed and waives any statute of limitations to the contrary, thereby significantly reducing the number of timely-filed claims and, consequently, the employer's potential exposure.
Features
'But I Have Insurance to Cover that Claim!'
As many of you know, there are various insurance policies available to protect against employment-related claims. Although some policies, such as employment practices liability (EPL) policies, cover a variety of claims, many cover only specific claims to the exclusion of all others. A recent decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit highlights some of the interesting issues that can arise in resolving employment claims covered by an insurance policy.
Features
FLSA Collective Action Litigation
When the dust settles from the current round of discussions on increasing the federal minimum wage, the lowest paid of the country's non-exempt employees may or may not be earning an additional dollar or two per hour. Either way, the debate will have drawn the country's ' and the plaintiffs' bars' ' attention toward the lowest paid of our country's workers, and the climate will be right for those attorneys to begin focusing not only on how much non-exempt employees are being paid per hour, but also on whether these workers are being paid in a manner that is consistent with every intricate (and often contrary-to-common-sense) twist and turn of federal and state law.
Bragging Rights
For years, I've been bragging about our Law Journal Newsletters, and I often get the same response: 'But isn't all that information right on the Web? Why not just Google it?' The answer: Yes and No.
Features
A Rational Basis for Setting Hourly Rates
For the past 20 years, law firms have annually increased their hourly rates on the basis of various ad hoc criteria ' what the market will bear, matching the competition, cost-plus, maintaining profit margins ' that neither firm members nor clients find satisfactory. Alternative pricing methods (fixed fees, percentage of the deal, etc.) have long been advocated as a solution to hourly billing discontents, but in practice, for a large majority of firms they remain limited in application. Firms whose clients expect fees to be charged on an hourly rate basis therefore require a rational means of constructing an hourly rate schedule that is transparent and acceptable to clients as well as defensible within the firm.
Features
Musical Chairs for Firms' Public Faces
It all started when communications director Peter Columbus left O'Melveny & Myers for a position at Kaye Scholer this fall. To fill the opening at O'Melveny, John Buchanan left his job at Heller Ehrman. To fill that slot at Heller, Patrick Bustamante left his post at DLA Piper. 'Clearly there's a domino effect,' Buchanan said.
Features
A Committee Approach to the Bottom Line
Managing a small, medium or large law firm can be a daunting task, especially when piled on top of legal practice responsibilities. The combination of time, tasks, politics and personalities can seem overwhelming as firm managers strive to consider: 'What values are most important to clients?' as part of an overall firm management approach.<br>The key to overcoming these pressures and competing effectively is a strategy of innovation and differentiation.
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