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With $100 Mediators, Sometimes You Get What You Pay For
December 28, 2016
Where I practice, all Family Matters cases are required to attend mediation. This is a common practice, as I understand it, in most states. It has been my practice — unless the case has highly complex financial issues, or the attorney on the other side is truly unreasonable — to counsel against paying a private mediator. Instead, I suggest using the services of a court-appointed mediator for which each side pays an amount less than $100. This entitles my client to at least two mediations...
December 28, 2016
Where I practice, all Family Matters cases are required to attend mediation. This is a common practice, as I understand it, in most states. It has been my practice — unless the case has highly complex financial issues, or the attorney on the other side is truly unreasonable — to counsel against paying a private mediator. Instead, I suggest using the services of a court-appointed mediator for which each side pays an amount less than $100. This entitles my client to at least two mediations...
Guidelines for Mass Tort Aggregate Settlements in Texas
December 28, 2016
The ethical and legal requirements of aggregate settlements apply to attorneys on both sides of the deal. Although plaintiffs’ counsel is tasked with making proper disclosures and obtaining client consent, defense counsel is ethically obligated to ensure an aggregate settlement is valid and enforceable. Both sides of the Bar must educate themselves on the rules related to aggregate settlements. As mass tort litigation has replaced class actions in recent years, the topic of aggregate settlements...
December 28, 2016
The ethical and legal requirements of aggregate settlements apply to attorneys on both sides of the deal. Although plaintiffs’ counsel is tasked with making proper disclosures and obtaining client consent, defense counsel is ethically obligated to ensure an aggregate settlement is valid and enforceable. Both sides of the Bar must educate themselves on the rules related to aggregate settlements. As mass tort litigation has replaced class actions in recent years, the topic of aggregate settlements...
Rational Judges, Not Extraneous Factors in Decisions
December 28, 2016
The graph tells a dramatic story of irrationality, presented in the 2011 paper Extraneous factors in judicial decisions....
December 28, 2016
The graph tells a dramatic story of irrationality, presented in the 2011 paper Extraneous factors in judicial decisions....
How AI Can Bring on a Second Industrial Revolution
December 27, 2016
"The actual path of a raindrop as it goes down the valley is unpredictable, but the general direction is inevitable," says digital visionary Kevin Kelly — and technology is much the same, driven by patterns that are surprising but inevitable. Over the next 20 years, he says, our penchant for making things smarter and smarter will have a profound impact on nearly everything we do. Kelly explores three trends in AI we need to understand in order to embrace it and steer its development. "The most...
December 27, 2016
"The actual path of a raindrop as it goes down the valley is unpredictable, but the general direction is inevitable," says digital visionary Kevin Kelly — and technology is much the same, driven by patterns that are surprising but inevitable. Over the next 20 years, he says, our penchant for making things smarter and smarter will have a profound impact on nearly everything we do. Kelly explores three trends in AI we need to understand in order to embrace it and steer its development. "The most...
Multi-District Litigation in Texas
December 27, 2016
One of the least debated and noticed provisions of House Bill 4 of the 78th Legislature in 2003 was Section 3.01, which authorized the Texas Supreme Court to adopt rules relating to Multi-District Litigation (“MDL”). Venue rights are inherently constitutional; therefore the act limited the MDL authority to pretrial matters. Beyond that limitation, the legislature left a blank canvas for the Supreme Court to adopt rules to further its mandate. Based on review by the Supreme Court’s Task...
December 27, 2016
One of the least debated and noticed provisions of House Bill 4 of the 78th Legislature in 2003 was Section 3.01, which authorized the Texas Supreme Court to adopt rules relating to Multi-District Litigation (“MDL”). Venue rights are inherently constitutional; therefore the act limited the MDL authority to pretrial matters. Beyond that limitation, the legislature left a blank canvas for the Supreme Court to adopt rules to further its mandate. Based on review by the Supreme Court’s Task...
The Value of Using Visuals
December 27, 2016
Over at Attorney at Work, Susan Kostal catalogues the reasons why lawyers should think about improving their documents with visuals, like photos, graphs, and videos. Most people can read 200 words per minute. But we can take in visual information 60,000 times faster than we can absorb text. Do the math. Our eyes are drawn to photographs, colors, even graphically pleasing type treatments. It is refreshing. New visuals on evergreen content make it new to your audience. This gives your content...
December 27, 2016
Over at Attorney at Work, Susan Kostal catalogues the reasons why lawyers should think about improving their documents with visuals, like photos, graphs, and videos. Most people can read 200 words per minute. But we can take in visual information 60,000 times faster than we can absorb text. Do the math. Our eyes are drawn to photographs, colors, even graphically pleasing type treatments. It is refreshing. New visuals on evergreen content make it new to your audience. This gives your content...
Taylor Wessing Joins With France’s Predictice to Calculate Litigation Outcomes
December 26, 2016
Today seems to be a very French day for legal tech news. Here is a second story about French legal tech in the shape of Predictice, which is a French start-up working in the field of litigation analytics and case outcome prediction. Predictice has teamed up with the Paris office of UK law firm, Taylor Wessing, to explore what the legal tech company’s software can do, which has several aspects to it, such as intelligent search of case law and the utilisation of machine learning. However, probably...
December 26, 2016
Today seems to be a very French day for legal tech news. Here is a second story about French legal tech in the shape of Predictice, which is a French start-up working in the field of litigation analytics and case outcome prediction. Predictice has teamed up with the Paris office of UK law firm, Taylor Wessing, to explore what the legal tech company’s software can do, which has several aspects to it, such as intelligent search of case law and the utilisation of machine learning. However, probably...
Tesla Ahead of Google, Uber, Ford in Autonomous Car Race
December 26, 2016
There was, in hindsight, a clear element of risk to Tesla Motors Inc.’s decision to install Autopilot hardware in every car coming off the production line since October 2014. It paid a price, with federal regulators probing the deadly crash of a Model S while in driver-assist mode and critics slamming Tesla for rolling the technology out too soon. But there was also a reward. The company has collected more than 1.3 billion miles of data from Autopilot-equipped vehicles operating under diverse...
December 26, 2016
There was, in hindsight, a clear element of risk to Tesla Motors Inc.’s decision to install Autopilot hardware in every car coming off the production line since October 2014. It paid a price, with federal regulators probing the deadly crash of a Model S while in driver-assist mode and critics slamming Tesla for rolling the technology out too soon. But there was also a reward. The company has collected more than 1.3 billion miles of data from Autopilot-equipped vehicles operating under diverse...
The Death of the Billable Hour Has Been Greatly Exaggerated
December 26, 2016
The billable hour is very much alive and well according to a new study by legal consultant The Blickstein Group Inc. which conducted a survey of more than 100 law department representations and found that the billable hour is still the most prevalent billing arrangement compared to alternative fee arrangements ("AFAs"). Corporate Counsel has more details. The Billable Hour Just Won't Die, Report Finds While alternative fee arrangements are gaining popularity, data recently collected...
December 26, 2016
The billable hour is very much alive and well according to a new study by legal consultant The Blickstein Group Inc. which conducted a survey of more than 100 law department representations and found that the billable hour is still the most prevalent billing arrangement compared to alternative fee arrangements ("AFAs"). Corporate Counsel has more details. The Billable Hour Just Won't Die, Report Finds While alternative fee arrangements are gaining popularity, data recently collected...
Fewer Friends, Better Marriages: The Modern American Social Network
December 24, 2016
In A Book About Love, I wrote about research showing that the social networks of Americans have been shrinking for decades. Miller McPherson, a sociologist at the University of Arizona and Duke University, has helped document the decline. In 1985, 26.1 percent of respondents reported discussing important matters with a “comember of a group,” such as a church congregant. In 2004, McPherson found that the percentage had fallen to 11.8. In 1985, 18.5 percent of subjects had important conversations...
December 24, 2016
In A Book About Love, I wrote about research showing that the social networks of Americans have been shrinking for decades. Miller McPherson, a sociologist at the University of Arizona and Duke University, has helped document the decline. In 1985, 26.1 percent of respondents reported discussing important matters with a “comember of a group,” such as a church congregant. In 2004, McPherson found that the percentage had fallen to 11.8. In 1985, 18.5 percent of subjects had important conversations...
