Columns & Departments
Movers & Shakers
A Collection of Moves in the Cybersecurity and Privacy Practice Areas
Features
Associates May Have Closer Eye On How They Are Billed Out
Hourly rates can be a moving target as clients negotiate down firms' published rates, but in a low-demand era where lawyers need every dollar they can bring in, it seems associates are the ones troubled lately with how rates are set.
Features
Too Many Lawyers? Report Faults Firms For Resisting Layoffs
Should law firm leaders be firing more lawyers? That seems to be the takeaway of a report released last month by the legal consultancy Altman Weil.
Features
Lessons from My Dad
The author learned a great many lessons from his late father. In this article, he mentions several things that have helped him considerably throughout his professional marketing career, and that he frequently passes along to others at various stages of their professional development.
Features
Embracing Culture As A Path to Survival
A strong, powerful and constructive culture has a significant impact on a business's ability to differentiate, to offer top-shelf client service, to attract and retain talent at all levels and to reach new levels of profitability. Regardless of how technology continues to help the legal industry reinvent itself from a mature industry to a young and thriving industry, culture and people will remain a key driver of any firm's long-term success.
Features
The Coming Tsunami in the Legal Profession
There have been four waves of change over the last 50 years. We are now entering the fifth wave and this one will be a tsunami. The lawyers who do not recognize the trends will not be able to enter a new era and survive. The fifth wave will turn partnership leverage, compensation systems and the business model upside down. There is not much time to make the incremental changes that will support sustained profitability in law firms.
Features
The Dirty Little Secret of Law Firm Billing
<I>The Wall Street Journal's</I> recent front-page headline on billing rates tells only part of the story. "Legal Fees Cross New Mark: $1,500 an Hour," the Feb. 9 article announced before listing partner hourly rates at several big firms. But that's only part of the story.
Features
<b><i>Leadership:</i></b> Leveraging Charismatic Leadership to Facilitate Change in Big Law
Despite appearing to accept that rapid and ongoing market change is here to stay, firms, and their leaders, have responded with change efforts that can largely be described as limited and reactive short-term solutions. Why?
Features
Professional Development: Building Excitement Around Business Development
Ask lawyers what they find EXCITING about selling (it is okay to use the "sales" word) and most will say winning, followed closely by developing new relationships. On the flipside, they fear rejection and failure. Add risk aversion and low resilience to the mix and business development can feel daunting.
Features
Millennials Approaching Partnership: Now What?
Since debuting in law firms nearly a decade ago, the latest generation of lawyers has raised more than a few eyebrows. Workplace flexibility, firm culture integration, meaningful training with takeaways and clearly defined billable hour goal options were not nearly as mainstream before the arrival of the Millennials.
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MOST POPULAR STORIES
- Protecting Innovation in the Cyber World from Patent TrollsWith trillions of dollars to keep watch over, the last thing we need is the distraction of costly litigation brought on by patent assertion entities (PAEs or "patent trolls"), companies that don't make any products but instead seek royalties by asserting their patents against those who do make products.Read More ›
- Risks of “Baseball Arbitration” in Resolving Real Estate Disputes“Baseball arbitration” refers to the process used in Major League Baseball in which if an eligible player's representative and the club ownership cannot reach a compensation agreement through negotiation, each party enters a final submission and during a formal hearing each side — player and management — presents its case and then the designated panel of arbitrators chooses one of the salary bids with no other result being allowed. This method has become increasingly popular even beyond the sport of baseball.Read More ›
- Private Equity Valuation: A Significant DecisionInsiders (and others) in the private equity business are accustomed to seeing a good deal of discussion ' academic and trade ' on the question of the appropriate methods of valuing private equity positions and securities which are otherwise illiquid. An interesting recent decision in the Southern District has been brought to our attention. The case is <i>In Re Allied Capital Corp.</i>, CCH Fed. SEC L. Rep. 92411 (US DC, S.D.N.Y., Apr. 25, 2003). Judge Lynch's decision is well written, the Judge reviewing a motion to dismiss by a business development company, Allied Capital, against a strike suit claiming that Allied's method of valuing its portfolio failed adequately to account for i) conditions at the companies themselves and ii) market conditions. The complaint appears to be, as is often the case, slap dash, content to point out that Allied revalued some of its positions, marking them down for a variety of reasons, and the stock price went down - all this, in the view of plaintiff's counsel, amounting to violations of Rule 10b-5.Read More ›
- The DOJ's Corporate Enforcement Policy: One Year LaterThe DOJ's Criminal Division issued three declinations since the issuance of the revised CEP a year ago. Review of these cases gives insight into DOJ's implementation of the new policy in practice.Read More ›
- The DOJ Goes Phishing: The Rise of False Claims Act Cybersecurity LitigationWhile the DOJ Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative is still in its early stages and cybersecurity regulations are evolving, whistleblower plaintiffs have already begun leveraging the FCA to pursue alleged noncompliance with government cybersecurity requirements.Read More ›