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The Marriage Is Over, but the Jewelry Is Mine
February 25, 2018
Diane Lloyde Roth met, and married, her Prince Charming. He turned into a frog. Prince Charming No. 2: Frog. Prince Charming No. 3: Frog. After Ms. Roth’s third divorce, she sold a Harry Winston band that Frog No. 3 had bought her and purchased three thumb-size gold and diamond frog pins. She wears them crawling up her blouse in a column toward her neck. “My mother always told me I would have to kiss a lot of frogs,” she said. “Instead, I married them. So this was an inexpensive way to a new beginning.”
February 25, 2018
Diane Lloyde Roth met, and married, her Prince Charming. He turned into a frog. Prince Charming No. 2: Frog. Prince Charming No. 3: Frog. After Ms. Roth’s third divorce, she sold a Harry Winston band that Frog No. 3 had bought her and purchased three thumb-size gold and diamond frog pins. She wears them crawling up her blouse in a column toward her neck. “My mother always told me I would have to kiss a lot of frogs,” she said. “Instead, I married them. So this was an inexpensive way to a new beginning.”
Summer Associate Hiring Declines Largest Firms
February 24, 2018
The data is in from this fall's OCI hiring season and it shows that at the nation's largest firms (employing more than 700 attorneys), summer associate hiring is down for the first time since 2012. Of course time will tell whether this is temporary, relatively meaningless setback in terms of the overall strength of the legal job market or instead whether it portends a bigger problem yet to come. The American Lawyer has more details: Summer Associate Hiring Slowed at Largest Firms Law firms...
February 24, 2018
The data is in from this fall's OCI hiring season and it shows that at the nation's largest firms (employing more than 700 attorneys), summer associate hiring is down for the first time since 2012. Of course time will tell whether this is temporary, relatively meaningless setback in terms of the overall strength of the legal job market or instead whether it portends a bigger problem yet to come. The American Lawyer has more details: Summer Associate Hiring Slowed at Largest Firms Law firms...
Here Come the Quantum Computers
February 24, 2018
If you thought super-computers like Watson were revolutionizing the workplace (and law practice in particular), you ain't seen nothing yet. Read this short piece from today's New York Times on "quantum computers" and their predicted impact on both education and the workplace. There's also a video below that explains quantum computing for the uninitiated. But first, here's a salient quote from the NYT article: [IBM’s C.E.O. Ginni Rometty says]: “Every job will require some...
February 24, 2018
If you thought super-computers like Watson were revolutionizing the workplace (and law practice in particular), you ain't seen nothing yet. Read this short piece from today's New York Times on "quantum computers" and their predicted impact on both education and the workplace. There's also a video below that explains quantum computing for the uninitiated. But first, here's a salient quote from the NYT article: [IBM’s C.E.O. Ginni Rometty says]: “Every job will require some...
Smart Contracts
February 23, 2018
Gabriel Jaccard (University of Geneva, Faculty of Law, Department of Private International Law) has posted Smart Contracts and the Role of Law on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This paper gives an overview on smart contracts and assess their legal relevance. The first part, explains the notion of smart contract and provides simple examples of it. In the second part, we propose a legal analysis of smart contract. First, we explore how smart contracts can be relevant in the eyes of the law. Then...
February 23, 2018
Gabriel Jaccard (University of Geneva, Faculty of Law, Department of Private International Law) has posted Smart Contracts and the Role of Law on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This paper gives an overview on smart contracts and assess their legal relevance. The first part, explains the notion of smart contract and provides simple examples of it. In the second part, we propose a legal analysis of smart contract. First, we explore how smart contracts can be relevant in the eyes of the law. Then...
Tax Law Brings Big Tax Changes For Alimony Payers
February 23, 2018
Under the freshly passed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), taxpayers supporting their ex-spouse via alimony payments will no longer be allowed to deduct those expenses. The spouse receiving alimony, on the other hand, is no longer required to report the support payments as ordinary income. Under prior law, a higher-earning ex-spouse paying alimony to a lower-income ex-spouse was able to take an ordinary tax deduction while the payee spouse had taxable ordinary income. David George, a California CPA,...
February 23, 2018
Under the freshly passed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), taxpayers supporting their ex-spouse via alimony payments will no longer be allowed to deduct those expenses. The spouse receiving alimony, on the other hand, is no longer required to report the support payments as ordinary income. Under prior law, a higher-earning ex-spouse paying alimony to a lower-income ex-spouse was able to take an ordinary tax deduction while the payee spouse had taxable ordinary income. David George, a California CPA,...
Top 10 Claims Trends That Will Affect 2018
February 22, 2018
2017 will be remembered as the landmark year for digital transformation of claims processing within the property/casualty insurance industry. After all, it was the year we saw the use of drones for home roof inspections, auto appraisals via photos, customer video chat and bots used in claims processing. While many of these solutions have been topics of discussion in the industry for quite some time, insurers began to implement them in earnest through new technology during 2017. Here’s a deeper...
February 22, 2018
2017 will be remembered as the landmark year for digital transformation of claims processing within the property/casualty insurance industry. After all, it was the year we saw the use of drones for home roof inspections, auto appraisals via photos, customer video chat and bots used in claims processing. While many of these solutions have been topics of discussion in the industry for quite some time, insurers began to implement them in earnest through new technology during 2017. Here’s a deeper...
Robot Lawyers in 2018? Fantasy, Reality and the Bright Future of Legal Technology
February 22, 2018
Amid these 'smart' toolsets, lawyers will not disappear, but they will do better work in the months and years to come, and they will do it faster and more efficiently. In spite of what you may have heard, robots will not be infiltrating the legal profession any time soon. Artificial intelligence (AI) and related technologies like machine learning and natural language processing have attracted rapturous attention over the last year and indeed hold tremendous promise. In fact, many organizations that...
February 22, 2018
Amid these 'smart' toolsets, lawyers will not disappear, but they will do better work in the months and years to come, and they will do it faster and more efficiently. In spite of what you may have heard, robots will not be infiltrating the legal profession any time soon. Artificial intelligence (AI) and related technologies like machine learning and natural language processing have attracted rapturous attention over the last year and indeed hold tremendous promise. In fact, many organizations that...
Combating Professional Error in Bankruptcy Analysis Through the Design and Use of Decision Trees in Clinical Pedagogy
February 21, 2018
The evolution of legal education has been punctuated by dynamic change, but its focus has always been teaching analytical...
February 21, 2018
The evolution of legal education has been punctuated by dynamic change, but its focus has always been teaching analytical...
IMF Bentham Sells US Litigation Finance Portfolio
February 20, 2018
Sale of the majority of its US investment portfolio to its US Fund enables company to retain substantial upside exposure to the cases while substantially de-risking its balance sheet. NEW YORK (February 5, 2018) – IMF Bentham (ASX:IMF), the parent company of Bentham IMF (Bentham), announces today that it has just completed another progressive move in its funding and investment management strategy by selling the majority of its US investment portfolio to its US Fund. This innovative capital...
February 20, 2018
Sale of the majority of its US investment portfolio to its US Fund enables company to retain substantial upside exposure to the cases while substantially de-risking its balance sheet. NEW YORK (February 5, 2018) – IMF Bentham (ASX:IMF), the parent company of Bentham IMF (Bentham), announces today that it has just completed another progressive move in its funding and investment management strategy by selling the majority of its US investment portfolio to its US Fund. This innovative capital...
Stepmothers: The Cause Of So Many Estate Fights
February 20, 2018
The summary sheet at Michael Hackard’s law firm detailing disputed probate as well as estate and trust cases revealed a not-so-surprising trend: about half of the firm’s disputed estate cases involved litigation between step-children and their step-mothers. While this is not necessarily a bulwark to the evil step-mother paradigm, it is certainly an indication of the relative frequency of conflicts between step-mothers and their deceased spouse’s kids. Though this phenomenon does affect step-fathers,...
February 20, 2018
The summary sheet at Michael Hackard’s law firm detailing disputed probate as well as estate and trust cases revealed a not-so-surprising trend: about half of the firm’s disputed estate cases involved litigation between step-children and their step-mothers. While this is not necessarily a bulwark to the evil step-mother paradigm, it is certainly an indication of the relative frequency of conflicts between step-mothers and their deceased spouse’s kids. Though this phenomenon does affect step-fathers,...
