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25 Years Later, PACER, Electronic Filing Continue to Change Courts
December 21, 2013
Twenty-five years ago, computers were hurtling America into the Information Age. From 1987 to 1989, the nation’s PC sales tripled, as consumers gained unprecedented power to process words, crunch numbers and print documents at home. The World Wide Web was still being invented, but early adopters were discovering personal email. In federal courts, the revolution also was getting under way. Documents were still kept on paper, and law firm couriers lined up daily in clerk’s offices, waiting to pore...
December 21, 2013
Twenty-five years ago, computers were hurtling America into the Information Age. From 1987 to 1989, the nation’s PC sales tripled, as consumers gained unprecedented power to process words, crunch numbers and print documents at home. The World Wide Web was still being invented, but early adopters were discovering personal email. In federal courts, the revolution also was getting under way. Documents were still kept on paper, and law firm couriers lined up daily in clerk’s offices, waiting to pore...
Goldman Sets Strict Limits on Hours. Will Law Firms Follow?
December 21, 2013
I hate to be an alarmist, but I think capitalism is under attack. The reason: Goldman Sachs is going soft, setting limits on how much people can work. I'm not kidding you. Mighty Goldman Sachs has become a veritable nanny-bank. It's not just suggesting bankers work less, it's forcing them to do so. Here's how one analyst described the new system to New York magazine: Unless they receive a special waiver, [junior bankers] aren't supposed to set foot inside Goldman's offices for a period of 36 hours...
December 21, 2013
I hate to be an alarmist, but I think capitalism is under attack. The reason: Goldman Sachs is going soft, setting limits on how much people can work. I'm not kidding you. Mighty Goldman Sachs has become a veritable nanny-bank. It's not just suggesting bankers work less, it's forcing them to do so. Here's how one analyst described the new system to New York magazine: Unless they receive a special waiver, [junior bankers] aren't supposed to set foot inside Goldman's offices for a period of 36 hours...
Clayton Christensen Explains How Disruption Will Occur in Higher Education
December 21, 2013
Clayton Christensen is the Harvard Business School professor who wrote The Innovator's Dilemma, the seminal book on why successful businesses so rarely stay on top over the long term. Although focused on the tech industry -- where product cycles are very short -- Christensen's framework has a much wider application, including legacy industrial enterprises and countries. In 2011, Christensen published a book called The Innovative University, which applied the Innovator's Dilemma framework to higher...
December 21, 2013
Clayton Christensen is the Harvard Business School professor who wrote The Innovator's Dilemma, the seminal book on why successful businesses so rarely stay on top over the long term. Although focused on the tech industry -- where product cycles are very short -- Christensen's framework has a much wider application, including legacy industrial enterprises and countries. In 2011, Christensen published a book called The Innovative University, which applied the Innovator's Dilemma framework to higher...
President Obama Urges Students to Learn to Code
December 21, 2013
“Don’t just buy a new video game. Make one!” President Barack Obama urged on a YouTube video uploaded on the non-profit group Code.org’s website in honor Computer Science Education Week from December 9 to 15. “No one’s born a computer scientist. But with a little hard work, and some math and science, just about anyone can become one,” said Obama. Indeed, we’ve recently reported on initiatives for inmates at prisons to learn the skill, as well as NBA star Chris Bosh’s quest...
December 21, 2013
“Don’t just buy a new video game. Make one!” President Barack Obama urged on a YouTube video uploaded on the non-profit group Code.org’s website in honor Computer Science Education Week from December 9 to 15. “No one’s born a computer scientist. But with a little hard work, and some math and science, just about anyone can become one,” said Obama. Indeed, we’ve recently reported on initiatives for inmates at prisons to learn the skill, as well as NBA star Chris Bosh’s quest...
No Shades of Grey in the Commoditization of Law
December 20, 2013
Corporate law departments are increasingly separating new matters into one of two buckets of legal work: routine/basic and higher value/risk. There is a clear division: black and white—no shades of gray. “Maybe you shouldn’t say that routine work is being commoditized,” said a lawyer-friend with a frown. “Attorneys can be a bit sensitive.” But once she read the Business Dictionary’s definition of commoditization, she was convinced that although the word commoditization might seem...
December 20, 2013
Corporate law departments are increasingly separating new matters into one of two buckets of legal work: routine/basic and higher value/risk. There is a clear division: black and white—no shades of gray. “Maybe you shouldn’t say that routine work is being commoditized,” said a lawyer-friend with a frown. “Attorneys can be a bit sensitive.” But once she read the Business Dictionary’s definition of commoditization, she was convinced that although the word commoditization might seem...
Sheila Heen Providing Expert Advice in the NYT
December 20, 2013
Sheila Heen, co-author of Difficult Conversations: How To Discuss What Matters Most, is providing expert advice in a series of columns on family and other kinds of conflicts. Here’s one of my favorite passages from this week’s column — she’s explaining some of the reasons people experience conflict so differently: Emotional math. Everyone gets frustrated, resentful, disappointed, or even enraged with others on occasion. It may come out as shouting, sarcasm, snippiness, or simply a put-upon...
December 20, 2013
Sheila Heen, co-author of Difficult Conversations: How To Discuss What Matters Most, is providing expert advice in a series of columns on family and other kinds of conflicts. Here’s one of my favorite passages from this week’s column — she’s explaining some of the reasons people experience conflict so differently: Emotional math. Everyone gets frustrated, resentful, disappointed, or even enraged with others on occasion. It may come out as shouting, sarcasm, snippiness, or simply a put-upon...
ACC Looks into the Future of General Counsel
December 20, 2013
If the general counsel of the future could communicate with the general counsel of the present, what would they have to say about...
December 20, 2013
If the general counsel of the future could communicate with the general counsel of the present, what would they have to say about...
Highly Recommended Exchange of Views About Left/Right and Top/Bottom Brain
December 20, 2013
Here's an exchange between Iain McGilchrist, author of The Master and His Emissary, and Wayne Miller, coauthor of the new Top Brain, Bottom Brain. Dr. McGilchrist was kind enough to post the exchange on his Web site. if you are interested in the brain, you will want to read this short conversation. It begins: Kosslyn and Miller are researchers I admire. They are quite right to take issue with what they call dated and crude ideas of hemisphere difference. So do I. ‘Dated’ and ‘crude’...
December 20, 2013
Here's an exchange between Iain McGilchrist, author of The Master and His Emissary, and Wayne Miller, coauthor of the new Top Brain, Bottom Brain. Dr. McGilchrist was kind enough to post the exchange on his Web site. if you are interested in the brain, you will want to read this short conversation. It begins: Kosslyn and Miller are researchers I admire. They are quite right to take issue with what they call dated and crude ideas of hemisphere difference. So do I. ‘Dated’ and ‘crude’...
S.D. Texas Compels Wireless Telephone Franchise Dispute to Arbitration
December 20, 2013
The Southern District of Texas has compelled a contract dispute over the operation of a number of wireless telephone stores...
December 20, 2013
The Southern District of Texas has compelled a contract dispute over the operation of a number of wireless telephone stores...
The Rise of Alternative Fee Arrangements
December 19, 2013
Alternative fee arrangements (AFAs) have been debated and used to some extent for decades but have become much more prevalent within the past five years. Earlier use of AFAs saw law firms grant larger institutional clients a volume discount or a smaller firm take a case on contingency. Both of these examples illustrate a mechanism for a client or a corporate legal department to avoid paying the lawyer or law firm’s hourly billing rate. The presence and prevalence of AFAs in the legal marketplace...
December 19, 2013
Alternative fee arrangements (AFAs) have been debated and used to some extent for decades but have become much more prevalent within the past five years. Earlier use of AFAs saw law firms grant larger institutional clients a volume discount or a smaller firm take a case on contingency. Both of these examples illustrate a mechanism for a client or a corporate legal department to avoid paying the lawyer or law firm’s hourly billing rate. The presence and prevalence of AFAs in the legal marketplace...
