I’m a trial lawyer for injured people and businesses at The Beasley Firm. Founded in 1958, we have recovered over $2 billion for our clients through hundreds of verdicts and settlements in excess of $1 million. We’re listed in Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers in America, U.S. News’s Top Lawyers, [...]
Don’t Make Your Contracts Apply “Throughout the Universe”
The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog points us to a WSJ story on the absurd language used in copyright contracts these days: Decked out in sequined black and gold dresses, Anne Harrison and the other women in her Bulgarian folk-singing group were lined up to try out for NBC's "America's Got Talent" TV show when they noticed peculiar wording in the release papers they were asked to sign. Any of their actions that day last February, the contract said, could be "edited, in all media, throughout the universe, in perpetuity." She and the other singers, many of whom are librarians in ... Continue Reading
Wachtell, Bank of America, and The Limits of Advocacy
I have no problem criticizing Bank of America for deceptive conduct or blaming Wachtell for the failure of a legal stategy, but there's nothing obviously wrong with this: Eric Roth, a litigation partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, apparently was telling the Bank of America Corp. leadership one story about how difficult it would be to escape from the merger with Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc., while singing quite a different tune to the federal government. E-mails from Roth and in-house lawyers at the bank were among documents released last week from the House Committee on Oversight and Government ... Continue Reading
Why It’s Hard For BigLaw Associates To Start Rainmaking
Two days ago, Ashby Jones at the WSJ Law Blog approvingly cited these remarks in Legal Week by Alex Novarese: [W]hat surprised me was that there appeared to be a consistent anxiety regarding the pressures or expectations of winning business. On one hand, associates want early access to clients; indeed, they resent law firms that don't give them that access. But the idea of bringing in clients doesn't seem to be one that drives young lawyers, at least those at large commercial law firms. In some cases an ambivalence about partnership appears to be strongly connected with the belief that the ... Continue Reading
If You’re “Not Certain” You’ll Be Joined To An Existing Lawsuit, Tell Your Insurance Carrier About It Anyway
Really, you should: The New York Court of Appeals held Pepper Hamilton had a duty to disclose in advance to the insurers the firm's potential involvement in litigation concerning fraudulent loan securitization activities by its client, Student Finance Corp., according to a New York Law Journal article reprinted in New York Lawyer (reg. req.). The court applied Pennsylvania law in the case, which the parties agreed was controlling. ... But the undisclosed, foreseeable risk of a SFC-related claim against Pepper Hamilton and partner W. Roderick Gagné, even though they had not been involved in SFC's wrongdoing, violated a "prior knowledge" ... Continue Reading
The Ethics of Internal Corporate Investigations by In-House Counsel
At Legal Ethics Blog, Professor Andrew Perlman posts a hypothetical: I was recently a panelist at the Association of Corporate Counsel's annual conference, and someone in the audience posed an interesting hypothetical. Imagine that in-house counsel is conducting an internal investigation and speaks with an employee whose conduct may have been unlawful. Let me interrupt to point out that the above hypothetical is one of the classical examples used to teach professional responsibility to law students. Employees are frequently confused about the role of the company's lawyers in internal investigations, and frequently do not understand that the lawyer there represents ... Continue Reading
Quinn Emmanuel v. Lucius Seneca and Sun Tzu On Checking Email 24/7
Yesterday, after posting a link to a productivity guide recommending email be checked twice daily, I saw this leaked email from a big name at a litigation powerhouse: Now more than ever there are many talented lawyers and law firms competing for our business. Doing really good legal work is not enough. Clients expect that and well they should given what we charge for our services You must all realize that we are in a service business. In this day and age of faxes, emails, internet, etc. clients expect you to be accessible 24\7. Of course, that is something of ... Continue Reading
Marc Andreessen’s Guide to Personal Productivity
Marc Andreessen, one of the more successful entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley, has an interesting post in which he lays out his productivity tips. A sample: Don't keep a schedule. Keep three and only three lists: a Todo List, a Watch List, and a Later List. Each night before you go to bed, prepare a 3x5 index card with a short list of 3 to 5 things that you will do the next day. Structured Procrastination. Do email exactly twice a day -- say, once first thing in the morning, and once at the end of the workday. Don't answer the ... Continue Reading
A Game Theory Model of Medical Malpractice Settlements and Insurance Bad Faith
In a comment on Overlawyered, Ted Frank points to his draft paper (with Marie Gryphon), Negotiating in the Shadow of 'Bad Faith' Refusal to Settle: A Game Theory Model of Medical Malpractice Pre-Trial Settlements and Insurance Limits: Recent empirical studies of Texas data by Hyman et al, Zeiler et al, and Silver et al suggest that insurance limits affect settlements of medical malpractice cases. Writing separately, Silver argues that insurance limits act as a de facto cap on malpractice payouts, that plaintiffs are being underpaid as a result, and that therefore legislative caps on damages are unnecessary. But this hypothesis is ... Continue Reading
Academic Abstention Should Not Be a Blank Check for Arbitrary and Capricious Conduct by Universities
Via Atrios, we have Stanley Fish's recent NYTimes column, The Rise and Fall of Academic Abstention: As recently as 1979, legal academics Virginia Nordin and Harry Edwards were able to say that “historically American courts have adhered fairly consistently to the doctrine of academic abstention in order to avoid excessive judicial oversight of academic institutions” (Higher Education and the Law). Academic abstention is the doctrine (never formally promulgated) that courts should defer to colleges and universities when it comes to matters like promotions, curricula, admission policies, grading, tenure, etc. The reasoning is that courts lack the competence to monitor academic ... Continue Reading
Supreme Court To Review Enron “Honest Services” Mail Fraud Conviction
SCOTUSBlog reports: The Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to rule on claims that “searing media attacks” on longtime Enron executive Jeffrey K. Skilling tainted his criminal trial and conviction on various fraud charges. The case of Skilling v. U.S. (08-1394) also raises an issue on the scope of the federal law punishing the failure to provide “honest services” as a corporate executive. In his petition to the Supreme Court, Skilling argued, In closing argument, the government declared that Skilling and Lay committed honest-services fraud because they violated a duty to Enron’s “employees”—a duty the government described as “a duty of good ... Continue Reading
