Defining Reasonable Care for the Protection of Personal Data
March 01, 2020
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court enlivened the Thanksgiving holidays of privacy lawyers in 2018 with its decision in Dittman v. UPMC, which held that an employer has a legal duty to exercise reasonable care to safeguard employees' personal information. While the scope of the decision technically was confined to the employer-employee relationship, the court's reasoning implies that such a duty of reasonable care may arise in any scenario where one party engages in the collection of personal information.
Navigating APT Intrusions
March 01, 2020
Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) intrusions are sophisticated cyber-attacks carried out by well-funded and organized cyber-criminals. The attacks are designed to establish persistence using various tactics, techniques and procedures that are intended to avoid detection and mimic authorized activity in the environment, known as "living off the land."
Law Firms Adopt a Legal Operations Perspective
March 01, 2020
Law Firms Are Following the Lead of Their Corporate Clients In Implementing Legal Operations Methodologies
By understanding legal operations approach, law firms can gain a better appreciation of client needs, share the client's vision and contribute to client satisfaction, while creating a competitive advantage for the firm.
Lateral Hiring: 7 Reasons Why Law Firms Fail
March 01, 2020
Firms routinely report that hiring lateral partners is a difficult process with a low success rate. Why do they struggle with lateral hiring? More importantly, what can they do to improve their results?
The Threat of Ransomware 2.0 for Law Practices
February 01, 2020
During the past few months, there has been a significant paradigm shift in the cybersecurity world. Threat actors from Russia, in particular, have significantly enhanced their capabilities to target individual businesses and Managed Service Providers (MSPs) or IT companies. It is critical that lawyers, their firms and the companies they serve be aware of these threats and take the appropriate measures to proactively secure their own — and their clients' — sensitive and private information.
Linking Partner Pay to Strategic Firm Objectives
February 01, 2020
Pay for performance is not a new concept in this country. The ideas and concepts underlying a graduated pay scale based on contribution and merit are deeply ingrained in our society. However, in general law firms have been slower to adopt pay for performance systems. What law firms need now, and this article describes, is an approach to partner compensation that closely links a partners pay to their ability to contribute to the achievement of the firm's strategic objectives.
Driving Law Firm Profits Through Data Analytics
February 01, 2020
"Data Analytics" have become more than just buzzwords and are an integral part of well informed decision making. The following best practices have the ability to bring your firm's data management up to speed with competitors in the law industry, while turning what might be an underutilized resource into a working asset that drives revenue.
Data Breaches: Adding a New Layer to the Risk of Legal Malpractice
February 01, 2020
Those in the legal profession are not immune to a data breach. What's more, ethical obligations put lawyers and law firms at even greater risk for significant business, financial and reputational harm should they experience a cyberattack. Attorneys have both an ethical and legal duty to take reasonable steps to protect their clients' personal sensitive data against a cyberattack, or face serious ramifications.
Strategies to Avoid or Reduce Billing Rate Discounts
February 01, 2020
For a large portion of engagements, discounts are not necessary to win the work. In fact, discounts come at a price. Both parties assume a degree of risk when margins are thinned. This article presents several techniques that you can use to re-direct discussions away from discounts and help to minimize their financial impact.
