Is Half a Summer Associate Better Than None?
June 28, 2006
In a February <i>A&FP</i> article titled 'Associate Overcompensation?' I ventured the opinion that competition for the most promising new associates was perhaps needlessly intense, given that law firms aren't very good at identifying which law school graduates actually will turn into excellent lawyers. The following interesting report seems to invite essentially the same question with regard to law student summer associates.
Executive Compensation: It's Hot and About to Get Hotter
June 28, 2006
With the Enron (Lay/Skilling) trial having concluded and the business community eagerly anticipating more reports recommending SOX ' 404 relief for smaller companies, executive compensation issues seem far removed, except for the occasional (or not so occasional) headline. Don't be lulled, however, into a false sense of security. Executive compensation is about to take center stage as THE latest 'corporate governance' topic.
Europe's Reaction Against the SOX Anonymous Whistleblowing Rule
June 28, 2006
Watching the reaction of European data protection authorities to the anonymous whistleblower requirement set forth in ' 304 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) has been like watching an ongoing heavyweight prize fight. In one corner, representing the U.S. and its recent history of corporate frauds, stands the SOX champion determined to use all means to prevent future frauds. In the other corner, representing Europe's 20th-century history, which unfortunately includes use of anonymous 'informants' to 'denounce' and silence or kill opponents of repressive regimes in Germany, France and elsewhere, stands the European Union (EU) data protection champion resolved to protect what Europeans view as the fundamental human right of privacy. The SOX and EU champions have exchanged blows, neither has given up much ground, and the match appears to be headed into the late rounds. The audience of multinational corporations required to comply with both SOX and EU data protection laws can only watch, do their best to implement anonymous whistleblower mechanisms in compliance with both SOX and EU privacy law, and wait until the contest is ultimately decided.
Branches, Boutiques And Client Conflicts
June 28, 2006
As analyzed in several <i>A&FP</i> articles, a major strategic goal of many law firms is to attain and maintain dominance for specific practice areas in a legal market. One downside of dominance in a practice area, however, is that a firm may increasingly need to turn away work in other practice areas due to client conflicts.<br>From the following excerpts of recent news analyses from <i>A&FP</i>'s ALM affiliates, it seems reasonable to conjecture that conflict-related attorney movements between firms help maintain a healthy level of competition in legal services that excessive dominance might otherwise undermine.
Some Old Lessons For New Enterprises
June 28, 2006
e-Commerce firms have aggressively marketed themselves as the new kids on the block. They eagerly discard old ways of doing business, confident that their way of doing business ' online ' is better. It's an e-commerce article of faith that everyone can work more efficiently if he or she would only eliminate outdated practices that don't take advantage of the conveniences available online.<br>But maybe some supposedly 'old' laws and ways of doing business have survived ' for decades and centuries ' for reasons other than that the Internet had not yet been invented. Sometimes, the tried and true is sufficient for what's needed. The old way may work more reliably, and perhaps even better than, the new path offered by e-commerce.
eBay Inc., et al. v. MercExchange LLC
June 28, 2006
The Supreme Court's May 15 decision in eBay Inc., et al. v. MercExchange LLC (eBay) is already a landmark in patent law. The unanimous Court rejected the general rule, previously applied by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, that a permanent injunction will issue against patent infringement absent exceptional circumstances. Instead, the Supreme Court held that, consistent with the 'long tradition of equity practice,' a patent holder must satisfy a four-prong test.
Internet Privacy: Do You Know Who's Collecting Information About You?
June 15, 2006
While savvy users of the Internet may be aware of the multitude of ways that personal information can be monitored and collected on the Web, most users are likely oblivious to the information trail they leave behind. How many readers of this publication, a population plainly concerned with privacy issues, have read the privacy policies of their favorite Web sites? If you have not, you may be surprised to learn about the amount of information collected by even the most popular and mainstream sites. For example, when a user requests and views a Web page from Yahoo!, that request is logged on Yahoo!'s servers with information including the IP address of the computer that requested the page. Even if information is not purposely collected, just about everything a person does on the Web is stored somewhere for at least some period of time.
China's Great Leap In-House
June 12, 2006
These days China is full of Silicon Valley wannabes, but Alibaba.com, headquartered in Hangzhou, is way ahead of the pack. In a headline-grabbing deal last August, the company acquired Yahoo Inc.'s China business (it now operates the Yahoo brand in China), plus a $1 billion investment from the venerable Internet company. Now a $4 billion privately held concern, Alibaba.com is best known for its business auction site (www.alibaba.com, which the company claims is the leading Web site for business-to-business trade in the world) and Taobao.com (www.taobao.com), a consumer auction site that's giving eBay.com a run for its money in China. (Alibaba.com is in English, Taobao.com is in Chinese.)
