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For Paid Legal Research, WestlawNext is Most Popular, ABA Survey Says
September 7, 2013
Legal professionals have lots of options for fee-based legal research services these days, but the most popular among them all is WestlawNext, according to the latest ABA Legal Technology Survey Report. Of all lawyers who use fee-based online legal research services, 28 percent say the one they use most often is WestlawNext. And as if that wasn’t market share enough for Thomson Reuters, lawyers’ second choice is Westlaw, the “classic” version of the service that predated the 2010 launch...
September 7, 2013
Legal professionals have lots of options for fee-based legal research services these days, but the most popular among them all is WestlawNext, according to the latest ABA Legal Technology Survey Report. Of all lawyers who use fee-based online legal research services, 28 percent say the one they use most often is WestlawNext. And as if that wasn’t market share enough for Thomson Reuters, lawyers’ second choice is Westlaw, the “classic” version of the service that predated the 2010 launch...
Martindale-Hubbell, Internet Brands to Deliver Marketing Services for Lawyers
September 7, 2013
LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell and Internet Brands today announced a joint venture to market legal services. MH offers marketing...
September 7, 2013
LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell and Internet Brands today announced a joint venture to market legal services. MH offers marketing...
Mass. Moves to Require Technology Competence for Lawyers
September 7, 2013
For a geek like me, it was big news last August when the American Bar Association’s House of Delegates voted to amend the Model Rules of Professional Conduct to make clear that lawyers have a duty to be competent in technology. Specifically, the ABA voted to amend the comment to Model Rule 1.1, governing lawyer competence, to say that, in addition to keeping abreast of changes in the law and its practice, a lawyer should keep abreast of “the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology.”...
September 7, 2013
For a geek like me, it was big news last August when the American Bar Association’s House of Delegates voted to amend the Model Rules of Professional Conduct to make clear that lawyers have a duty to be competent in technology. Specifically, the ABA voted to amend the comment to Model Rule 1.1, governing lawyer competence, to say that, in addition to keeping abreast of changes in the law and its practice, a lawyer should keep abreast of “the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology.”...
Baker No Longer No. 1; Chairman Sees Flat Market for Legal Services
September 6, 2013
Baker & McKenzie’s global chairman Eduardo Leite tells the Am Law Daily he believes the firm's revenues next fiscal year will grow by 3 percent to 5 percent. He believes the market for legal services will be flat, and law firms won't grow unless they move into new markets or take market share from other firms. Baker & McKenzie has opened several offices since last May, in Casablanca, Johannesburg, Peru, Korea and the United Arab Emirates. “Competition [in North America] is huge and many...
September 6, 2013
Baker & McKenzie’s global chairman Eduardo Leite tells the Am Law Daily he believes the firm's revenues next fiscal year will grow by 3 percent to 5 percent. He believes the market for legal services will be flat, and law firms won't grow unless they move into new markets or take market share from other firms. Baker & McKenzie has opened several offices since last May, in Casablanca, Johannesburg, Peru, Korea and the United Arab Emirates. “Competition [in North America] is huge and many...
Are Lawyers From Top Schools a Lot Happier About Their Career Choice? Statistically the Answer is No
September 6, 2013
Lawyers who graduated from elite law schools are only slightly happier about their career choice than their counterparts from lesser-ranked schools, according to a study of law grads who began their careers in 2000. Legal education critics have advanced the idea that students attend non-elite law schools because of optimism bias—they think they will get high-paying jobs to pay off their education loans, according to a summary of the findings at SSRN. When their optimism proves unjustified,...
September 6, 2013
Lawyers who graduated from elite law schools are only slightly happier about their career choice than their counterparts from lesser-ranked schools, according to a study of law grads who began their careers in 2000. Legal education critics have advanced the idea that students attend non-elite law schools because of optimism bias—they think they will get high-paying jobs to pay off their education loans, according to a summary of the findings at SSRN. When their optimism proves unjustified,...
A Fundamental Enforcement Cost Advantage of the Negligence Rule over Regulation
September 6, 2013
Regulation and the negligence rule are both designed to obtain compliance with desired standards of behavior, but they differ in a primary respect: compliance with regulation is ordinarily assessed independently of the occurrence of harm, whereas compliance with the negligence rule is evaluated only if harm occurs. It is shown in a stylized model that because the use of the negligence rule is triggered by harm, the rule enjoys an intrinsic enforcement cost advantage over regulation. Moreover, this...
September 6, 2013
Regulation and the negligence rule are both designed to obtain compliance with desired standards of behavior, but they differ in a primary respect: compliance with regulation is ordinarily assessed independently of the occurrence of harm, whereas compliance with the negligence rule is evaluated only if harm occurs. It is shown in a stylized model that because the use of the negligence rule is triggered by harm, the rule enjoys an intrinsic enforcement cost advantage over regulation. Moreover, this...
‘Neural Dust,’ Implanted In Brain, May Let Minds Meld With Machines
September 6, 2013
Earlier this month, five researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, put out a paper discussing the possible development of mind-reading "neural dust," which could be implanted directly into the human brain to allow people to interact with machines. The paper is what the MIT Technology Review calls a theoretical study: The idea is "littered with challenges beyond the state-of-the-art." But according to the Berkeley team, this neural dust sprinkled into an individual's brain...
September 6, 2013
Earlier this month, five researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, put out a paper discussing the possible development of mind-reading "neural dust," which could be implanted directly into the human brain to allow people to interact with machines. The paper is what the MIT Technology Review calls a theoretical study: The idea is "littered with challenges beyond the state-of-the-art." But according to the Berkeley team, this neural dust sprinkled into an individual's brain...
Lawyers’ Talks With Law Firm GC May Be Shielded
September 6, 2013
Communications between a law firm's attorneys and its in-house counsel regarding a client's potential malpractice claims against the firm may be protected by the attorney-client privilege, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled on Thursday. The unanimous decision, which sets several criteria for when the privilege shields talks with a firm's general counsel, is a win for law firms in that it rejected a position taken by several courts around the country—that a law firm doesn't enjoy attorney-client...
September 6, 2013
Communications between a law firm's attorneys and its in-house counsel regarding a client's potential malpractice claims against the firm may be protected by the attorney-client privilege, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled on Thursday. The unanimous decision, which sets several criteria for when the privilege shields talks with a firm's general counsel, is a win for law firms in that it rejected a position taken by several courts around the country—that a law firm doesn't enjoy attorney-client...
Professional Development for Far-Flung In-House Teams
September 5, 2013
If your legal department has lawyers spread out across several states or countries, implementing a continuing education program becomes more complicated. When there are just a few in-house lawyers per office to support the regional business in Sao Paolo, Sacramento, or Shanghai, legal-skills workshops may neither be feasible nor economical. Since decentralization of in-house lawyers is more and more common with the expanding reach of multinational companies, this has become a common challenge. For...
September 5, 2013
If your legal department has lawyers spread out across several states or countries, implementing a continuing education program becomes more complicated. When there are just a few in-house lawyers per office to support the regional business in Sao Paolo, Sacramento, or Shanghai, legal-skills workshops may neither be feasible nor economical. Since decentralization of in-house lawyers is more and more common with the expanding reach of multinational companies, this has become a common challenge. For...
Case-by-Case Adjudication and the Path of the Law
September 5, 2013
This paper presents a model of judging, illustrating how case law evolves when two types of judges with different policy preferences decide cases narrowly. The model shows that case law is unlikely to reflect the midpoint of the judges’ ideal points. The result challenges the conventional wisdom suggesting that balancing ideologically extreme judges will likely yield moderate laws. The model suggests that a centrist executive faced with a sitting extreme left-wing judge should appoint a moderate...
September 5, 2013
This paper presents a model of judging, illustrating how case law evolves when two types of judges with different policy preferences decide cases narrowly. The model shows that case law is unlikely to reflect the midpoint of the judges’ ideal points. The result challenges the conventional wisdom suggesting that balancing ideologically extreme judges will likely yield moderate laws. The model suggests that a centrist executive faced with a sitting extreme left-wing judge should appoint a moderate...
