<b>Media & Communications Corner</b>Securing Media Coverage in Key Publications
March 30, 2006
Over the next few months in our monthly column on media relations, Jaffe Associates' media relations team will take a closer look at several of the top publications for legal coverage. We will interview the editors and reporters who cover the news and bring you their perspective on what is important to them and the direction in which they think legal reporting is heading.<br>Our first article in the series looks at the Wall Street Journal Law Page. In January of this year, the WSJ greatly expanded its online coverage of legal issues with a new page dedicated to law-related content and launched a legal industry blog, the only one of its kind by a major daily. We sat down with <b>Ashby Jones</b>, the editor of the page, and <b>Peter Lattman</b>, a WSJ Online legal reporter and the primary writer for the blog, to learn more about the page and its content.
<b>Meyerowitz on Marketing:</b> Lawsuits Too Bad To Be True
March 30, 2006
Lawyers have long been the subject of jokes and put downs, but apocryphal anecdotes demeaning lawyers, the courts, or the legal system particularly irk Karen M. Balaban, a Harrisburg attorney and one of three chairs of the Pennsylvania Bar Association's Public Relations Implementation Task Force Committee. Lawyers, she believes, 'should not allow these urban legends to proliferate' to the detriment of lawyers and judges and the public's opinion of the profession. Instead, Balaban says, lawyers, who are trained to help adjudicators find the truth, 'should be more conscious about getting at the facts of the matter.' Balaban emphasizes that faux facts make all lawyers look bad, and asserts that lawyers should investigate and then, when they discover that some stories are false, should say, 'these things are not true.'
Online Compliance Training
March 29, 2006
Online training is a mainstay of compliance training today. Companies recognize that there is no longer a good excuse for failing to train all at-risk employees on the compliance and ethics risks they face. But for some, the next decision has become, do I make my own online training, or do I use training that is available on a turnkey basis? At first there is a superficial appeal to creating your own ' I can do it myself, maybe save a few dollars, and have exactly what I want. But like many first impressions in compliance, there are more challenges here than first meet the eye. Here is a checklist of things to consider in deciding whether to make your own training or to use an existing turnkey system.
Online: Investigate Product Safety on the Web
March 29, 2006
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of serious injury or death from more than 15,000 types of consumer products under the agency's jurisdiction. It works to ensure the safety of consumer products — such as toys, cribs, power tools, cigarette lighters, and household chemicals, and claims it has contributed significantly to the 30% decline in the rate of deaths and injuries associated with consumer products over the past 30 years. The site, <i>www.cpsc.gov</i>, offers information (in English and Spanish) that could help protect consumers and families from products that pose a fire, electrical, chemical, or mechanical hazard, or can injure children.
Child Abuse Deaths Prompt Massive Overhauls
February 28, 2006
Commissioner John B. Mattingly of New York City's Administration for Children's Services (ACS) recently issued a statement following the occasion of his 1-year anniversary at his post. Among the accomplishments trumpeted was the fact that his agency had "continued the historic decline in the number of New York City children living in foster care -- passing the 20,000 mark, the 19,000 mark, and the 18,000 mark, to the current census of nearly 17,300." Following publicity surrounding the recent deaths of several children in their homes after their families came under ACS's scrutiny -- some of them reunited with those families after initially having been taken away and others who arguably should have been separated from their families
Creating an Effective In-House Resource Guide
February 27, 2006
Living in the technology age, we are besieged by information: constant "breaking stories" on 24-hour news channels, e-mails at all hours to our handhelds, and phone calls to our cells. To remain competitive, companies have also followed the trend, providing reams of information and data to workers. As a result, employees now grapple with information overload and must evaluate and prioritize what information to read, disseminate and store, and what information to discard. This is a particularly significant problem for in-house counsel who must ensure that all employees have access to -- and know about -- information that is key to the operation of the company. More importantly, much of this information is meant to keep the company out of the courtroom and facing down litigation. So what's an in-house counsel to do?
Overmessaging
February 02, 2006
Dwelling on your "message" (or what you want to say) at the onset of any reporter's inquiry, or at any point during the reporting process to the exclusion of all of the other component parts of the reporter/source/communications professional interaction (deadlines, non-verbal cues, relationships, etc.), is sure to result in less than optimal coverage. This can only be described as "overmessaging" or "over-PRing" a situation.
Can a Remedies Opinion Be Given on an Equipment Lease?
February 02, 2006
We know what an equipment lease is. The Uniform Commercial Code defines it for us: "'Lease' means a transfer of the right to possession and use of goods for a period in return for consideration ... " UCC '2A-103(p). "Goods" include equipment. <i>Id.</i> '2A-103(n). If an agreement qualifies as a lease, then the "lease contract is effective and enforceable according to its terms between the parties, against purchasers of the goods and against creditors of the parties." UCC '2A-301. What could be clearer?
