Counseling the Counselors
September 02, 2015
A variety of potential liability theories ' such as professional malpractice and breach of fiduciary duty claims ' may be pursued against in-house counsel by the corporation, its shareholders, and members of the public, as well as by governmental authorities. Here's what you need to know.
Tackle Billing Now to Avoid a Year-End Surprise
September 02, 2015
Attorneys rarely think about billings and collections in the summer or early fall. Instead, those are topics often left to the year-end collections push. By waiting, however, attorneys lose money, assume risks and otherwise miss important red flags for potential problems that can be avoided or resolved.
Buyout Funding and Death Benefits
September 02, 2015
Professional service organizations traditionally have elected a pass thru entity status (S Corp., LLC, LLP, partnership) in order to reduce double taxation at the principal's level. Similar additional taxation may occur with C Corps. and accumulated earnings tax as well as other confiscatory grabs. These issues create an impediment for the current accumulation of funds to satisfy a principal's buyout in future years.
The Evolution Between Outside and Inside Counsel
September 02, 2015
In this article, we bring the views and opinions from the client's perspective into focus on issues involving pricing, service, marketing, strategy, differentiation and more.
<b><i>At the Intersection</i></b>: 'Manterruption' Continued
September 02, 2015
Last month, we discussed the widespread tendency of men to interrupt women in settings where the power stakes were high ("manterruption") and their tendency to appropriate women's comments and ideas as their own ("bropropriation"). We conclude with some additional thoughts.
FATCA's Due Diligence Expansion
September 02, 2015
In 2010, Congress enacted the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) in order to target U.S. taxpayers using offshore accounts to hide monies overseas. Although Congress' purpose and intent in passing FATCA was met, it has been achieved at a cost of imposing heavy burdens on those already compliant.
Data Sharing in the Cloud
September 02, 2015
Storing and sharing data "in the cloud" has become, in many instances, a business necessity. The practical and economic advantages of cloud computing are clear ' it eliminates the need to send client data via traditional, costly methods, and is significantly less expensive than building and maintaining the same data storage capacity in-house.
Recent Challenges To the FTC's Data Regulation Authority
September 02, 2015
Early on in 2015, pundits were already predicting that the extent and number of data breaches from 2014 would severely pale in comparison to those that would occur in 2015. Inevitably, people across the country, victims, media, members of government, and even litigious-minded attorneys, are scrambling to determine what legal recourse exists to not only retroactively seek retribution, but also proactively enforce data security methods ' a task that is still at its nascent stages of development.
Information Is Changing Law Firm Models
August 02, 2015
The standard law firm model that has been in effect for the better part of the last 20 years is becoming less viable, and the way law firms are run is undergoing a subtle, yet significant change, driven largely by information.
