Ringtones Breed Tension Within Music Industry
November 01, 2005
By 2004, mastertones were the hot new thing. They had replaced polyphonic ringtones (multipitched tunes), which had replaced monophonic ringtones. Mastertones were compressed snippets of studio-recorded music. In order to offer them to the public, ringtone content aggregators needed to obtain both publishing clearance and permission from those who held the rights to the recordings. That meant negotiating with record companies.
Ill Wind: Selected Insurance Issues After Hurricane Katrina
November 01, 2005
By virtually any measure, Hurricane Katrina ranks as one of the worst natural disasters in American history. It will surely be months if not years before the full toll of the storm and its aftermath, including long-term effects on the Gulf Coast, are known. It is equally sure that Hurricane Katrina will spawn an array of disputes concerning insurance coverage for losses or damage caused by the storm. Indeed, barely 2 weeks after the hurricane hit land, at least two major insurance coverage lawsuits, one in Mississippi and one in Louisiana, had already been filed.
Letters of Intent to Lease: Valuable for Landlords and Tenants
November 01, 2005
Landlords and tenants occasionally ask whether they should bother to negotiate and execute a letter of intent to lease. Many wonder whether it might be more efficient to launch right into negotiating the lease itself. The investment in negotiating a letter of intent to lease will almost always pay quick dividends for landlords and tenants. The dividends may be in the form of an early discovery of a lack of agreement on an important issue that will allow the parties either to resolve it quickly or decide to terminate further negotiations and part ways. The more details sorted out during the letter of intent phase, the greater the likelihood of a smoother and successful consummation of the lease. Finding the proper balance of detail to include at the letter of intent phase is often a function of the nature and size of the transaction and the sophistication and leverage of the parties involved. This article is intended to help landlords and tenants consider what they may want to include in their letters of intent to lease.
Discount Stock Options As Deferred Compensation
October 31, 2005
Recent legislation has heralded a dramatic shift in the United States federal income tax treatment of nonqualified deferred compensation arrangements. One of the potentially more far-reaching aspects of the legislation is its effect on individuals who receive certain non-statutory stock options for their services. This article focuses on the circumstances under which the Act treats compensatory stock op-tions as nonqualified deferred compensation for federal income tax purposes, the consequences of such treatment, and the resulting practical considerations in dealing with the treatment of certain stock options as nonqualified deferred compensation.
Board Tech Committees Mean Business
October 31, 2005
In today's information-driven society, businesses rely heavily on technology and knowledge. Because of that, just as corporate boards have long relied on committees to focus on such key areas as audit and finance, many have come to establish a tech committee as well. But does the average corporate board member understand today's technology well enough to serve competently on a tech committee? Indeed, should directors even try to provide guidance on technology issues, when the state of the art changes from day to day?
The Best Little Warehouse in Missouri
October 31, 2005
At least two large law firms have now decided to implement Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) packages (in both cases, software from SAP AG), and are now in some stage of implementation. Anyone who reads the business press is aware that ERP implementations can lead to catastrophic results, as happened not long ago when a well known chocolate company found itself unable to fulfill orders following an ERP implementation. There are also many accounts of companies, especially manufacturing companies, successfully implementing ERPs, with attendant benefits. Clearly, ERPs present a risk/benefit choice for the businesses implementing them. The question I address here is whether the benefits of ERP outweigh the costs and risks for law firms.
CD: PR and Marketing on the National and Global Level
October 28, 2005
PR and Marketing on the National and Global Level Directories, Journalists and Campaigns With over 100 US law firms with operations in London, and many of the AmLaw 100 have offices dotting the globe, there will be no slow down of law firms that continue to follow clients into national and global markets. This creates a fiercely competitive market for local firms against national and global law firms that are well-resourced and make substantial investments in their'
Improving Information Flow with LegalKEY Practice Support Solutions
October 27, 2005
One of the oldest full-service national law firms in the United States, Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, has now installed one of the newest conflict management systems available. With the addition of several new offices over the past few years, the firm has grown to more than 425 lawyers in 10 locations with further growth on the horizon. <br>In order to deal with the rapid growth of the firm, it was necessary for us to implement a system that would meet our future needs, maintain and improve the functionality of the firm, as well as fulfill all of our requirements. After researching the market, we chose Hummingbird's LegalKEY Practice Support Solutions, including LegalKEY Records Manage-ment and LegalKEY Conflicts Management. The conversion to LegalKEY combined disparate records sources into a single database, allowing the firm to work as one entity with synchronized firm-wide records management, paper and digital retention policies and a streamlined conflicts management system.
