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Harnessing the Beast: Litigation Readiness for Big Data
December 27, 2013
Today, almost all business communications are created and stored electronically, and subject to legal discovery regardless of format. This wholesale shift means that traditional paper-based litigation practices and discovery have disappeared and electronic data discovery is here to stay. Through pioneering work to systematically parse and aggregate massive volumes of information, Big Data analytics have provided corporations with greater insight into case dynamics without attorney review of each...
December 27, 2013
Today, almost all business communications are created and stored electronically, and subject to legal discovery regardless of format. This wholesale shift means that traditional paper-based litigation practices and discovery have disappeared and electronic data discovery is here to stay. Through pioneering work to systematically parse and aggregate massive volumes of information, Big Data analytics have provided corporations with greater insight into case dynamics without attorney review of each...
Arbitral Autonomy
December 27, 2013
Ali Khan, Professor of Law at Washburn University School of Law, has published an interesting article entitled, Arbitral Autonomy, Louisiana Law Review, Vol. 74, No. 2, 2013. In his paper, Professor Khan discusses the need to minimize court challenges to arbitration in order to successfully achieve arbitral autonomy. Here is the abstract: This Article presents concrete proposals to amend the current arbitration law for minimizing court intervention into arbitration proceedings and enforcement...
December 27, 2013
Ali Khan, Professor of Law at Washburn University School of Law, has published an interesting article entitled, Arbitral Autonomy, Louisiana Law Review, Vol. 74, No. 2, 2013. In his paper, Professor Khan discusses the need to minimize court challenges to arbitration in order to successfully achieve arbitral autonomy. Here is the abstract: This Article presents concrete proposals to amend the current arbitration law for minimizing court intervention into arbitration proceedings and enforcement...
Arbitration Clause Applies to Legal Malpractice Claim
December 27, 2013
Maine law firm Bernstein, Shur, Sawyer & Nelson’s contract requiring a former client to arbitrate all claims applies to malpractice claims, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has ruled. In Bezio v. Draeger, the court on Monday affirmed U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Torresen’s July 2013 dismissal of the case. According to court records, Douglas Bezio hired Bernstein Shur to defend him in an action brought by the Maine Office of Securities. His contract with the firm held...
December 27, 2013
Maine law firm Bernstein, Shur, Sawyer & Nelson’s contract requiring a former client to arbitrate all claims applies to malpractice claims, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has ruled. In Bezio v. Draeger, the court on Monday affirmed U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Torresen’s July 2013 dismissal of the case. According to court records, Douglas Bezio hired Bernstein Shur to defend him in an action brought by the Maine Office of Securities. His contract with the firm held...
Journal of Online Access to Law
December 26, 2013
Today brought the launch of the Journal of Open Access to Law, an open-access, peer-reviewed academic journal devoted to promoting...
December 26, 2013
Today brought the launch of the Journal of Open Access to Law, an open-access, peer-reviewed academic journal devoted to promoting...
In Walmart Fee Fight, Ninth Circuit Balks at ‘Non-Appealable’ Arbitration
December 26, 2013
Two Bay Area plaintiff lawyers have won an arbitration battle but lost a bitter $28 million fee war. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Tuesday that Carolyn Burton and Robert Mills may challenge the allocation of legal fees in multidistrict litigation against Walmart, even though they had previously agreed to "non-appealable" arbitration. "Permitting parties to contractually eliminate all judicial review of arbitration awards would not only run counter to the text" of the Federal...
December 26, 2013
Two Bay Area plaintiff lawyers have won an arbitration battle but lost a bitter $28 million fee war. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Tuesday that Carolyn Burton and Robert Mills may challenge the allocation of legal fees in multidistrict litigation against Walmart, even though they had previously agreed to "non-appealable" arbitration. "Permitting parties to contractually eliminate all judicial review of arbitration awards would not only run counter to the text" of the Federal...
Citi Survey Finds Law Firm Leader Optimism on the Rise
December 26, 2013
As 2013 comes to a close, law firm managing partners are more optimistic about the year ahead than they were at the end of the third quarter, according to a recent survey conducted by Citi Private Bank's Law Firm Group. The bank's quarterly Law Watch Managing Partner Confidence Index—which plots responses from a series of questions on a 200-point index, with 100 representing a neutral opinion and 200 representing absolute confidence—found overall confidence for 2014 at 109, six points higher than...
December 26, 2013
As 2013 comes to a close, law firm managing partners are more optimistic about the year ahead than they were at the end of the third quarter, according to a recent survey conducted by Citi Private Bank's Law Firm Group. The bank's quarterly Law Watch Managing Partner Confidence Index—which plots responses from a series of questions on a 200-point index, with 100 representing a neutral opinion and 200 representing absolute confidence—found overall confidence for 2014 at 109, six points higher than...
Fifth Circuit Holds Class Arbitration Waivers Do Not Violate the NLRA
December 26, 2013
The Fifth Circuit has ruled that employers may require workers to resolve employment disputes through individual arbitration. In D.R. Horton, Inc. v. N.L.R.B., No. 12-60031 (5th Cir. December 3, 2013), a superintendent for home builder D.R. Horton, Michael Cuda, signed a mutual arbitration agreement (Agreement) that barred class action or collective claims as a condition of his continued employment. Two years after Cuda’s employment at D.R. Horton ended, he sought to initiate class arbitration proceedings...
December 26, 2013
The Fifth Circuit has ruled that employers may require workers to resolve employment disputes through individual arbitration. In D.R. Horton, Inc. v. N.L.R.B., No. 12-60031 (5th Cir. December 3, 2013), a superintendent for home builder D.R. Horton, Michael Cuda, signed a mutual arbitration agreement (Agreement) that barred class action or collective claims as a condition of his continued employment. Two years after Cuda’s employment at D.R. Horton ended, he sought to initiate class arbitration proceedings...
In God We Trust: All Others Bring Data
December 26, 2013
"In God we trust, all others bring data." These are the words of William Edwards Deming -- a renowned American statistician, professor, author, lecturer and consultant. In Japan, from 1950 onward he taught top business managers how to improve many aspects of their business through the application of statistical methods. Deming's statistical, data-based methodologies are a familiar concept in this day and age, so one would think they apply to foreign-exchange benchmarks and rates as well. So...
December 26, 2013
"In God we trust, all others bring data." These are the words of William Edwards Deming -- a renowned American statistician, professor, author, lecturer and consultant. In Japan, from 1950 onward he taught top business managers how to improve many aspects of their business through the application of statistical methods. Deming's statistical, data-based methodologies are a familiar concept in this day and age, so one would think they apply to foreign-exchange benchmarks and rates as well. So...
Cool Technologies From 2013 and for 2014 to Check Out
December 24, 2013
I used to make a year-end list of technologies to investigate. Now I make a list of lists and check it throughout the new year. Here’s a start to my list. Technolawyer’s NewsWire readers selected theirtop 25 products of 2013 last week. Noteworthy items include: Connected Data Transporter, which was debuted at the ABA Techshow in April; Fijitsu’s ScanSnap SV600 and iX500 scanners; and the Livescribe Inc.’s Livescribe 3 Smartpen. But read through the entire list, don’t stop...
December 24, 2013
I used to make a year-end list of technologies to investigate. Now I make a list of lists and check it throughout the new year. Here’s a start to my list. Technolawyer’s NewsWire readers selected theirtop 25 products of 2013 last week. Noteworthy items include: Connected Data Transporter, which was debuted at the ABA Techshow in April; Fijitsu’s ScanSnap SV600 and iX500 scanners; and the Livescribe Inc.’s Livescribe 3 Smartpen. But read through the entire list, don’t stop...
Entitle Books: Netflix Meets the Public Library
December 23, 2013
Book of the month club is back! It’s like Netflix meets the public library—a new e-book subscription service called Entitle was...
December 23, 2013
Book of the month club is back! It’s like Netflix meets the public library—a new e-book subscription service called Entitle was...
