Blog Archives
Scaling Trust: Marketing in a New Key
February 28, 2016
The very wealthy have had trusted advisors for ages, in the form of wealth managers, concierge doctors or personal shoppers. This business model worked for them because the very wealthy could spend enough to justify the significant time and effort it required to get to know those people deeply enough to become trusted advisors. The rest of us simply could not access this kind of expertise and advice. But that’s all changing now. With the advent of Big Data, sophisticated analytics, social...
February 28, 2016
The very wealthy have had trusted advisors for ages, in the form of wealth managers, concierge doctors or personal shoppers. This business model worked for them because the very wealthy could spend enough to justify the significant time and effort it required to get to know those people deeply enough to become trusted advisors. The rest of us simply could not access this kind of expertise and advice. But that’s all changing now. With the advent of Big Data, sophisticated analytics, social...
Incredible 3D Printer Can Make Bone, Cartilage, and Muscle
February 28, 2016
A team of biomedical researchers at Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine has just completed an invention 10 years in the making. It's a 3D printer that can craft relatively simple tissues like cartilage into large complex shapes—like an infant's ear. Using cartridges that are brimming with biodegradable plastic and human cells bound up in gel, this new kind of 3D printer builds complex chunks of growing muscle, cartilage, and even bone. When implanted into animals, these simple fabricated...
February 28, 2016
A team of biomedical researchers at Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine has just completed an invention 10 years in the making. It's a 3D printer that can craft relatively simple tissues like cartilage into large complex shapes—like an infant's ear. Using cartridges that are brimming with biodegradable plastic and human cells bound up in gel, this new kind of 3D printer builds complex chunks of growing muscle, cartilage, and even bone. When implanted into animals, these simple fabricated...
IBM Buying Truven for $2.6 Billion to Amass More Health Data
February 27, 2016
IBM has agreed to buy Truven Health Analytics for $2.6 billion, its fourth acquisition in less than a year aimed at expanding in the business of combing through health-related data. The shares rose the most in three years. More than more than 8,500 hospitals, insurers and government agencies use Truven to manage and analyze the reams of data generated by the health industry. Veritas Capital, a New York-based private equity firm, bought Truven in 2012 for $1.3 billion, according to company filings....
February 27, 2016
IBM has agreed to buy Truven Health Analytics for $2.6 billion, its fourth acquisition in less than a year aimed at expanding in the business of combing through health-related data. The shares rose the most in three years. More than more than 8,500 hospitals, insurers and government agencies use Truven to manage and analyze the reams of data generated by the health industry. Veritas Capital, a New York-based private equity firm, bought Truven in 2012 for $1.3 billion, according to company filings....
Tech Will Force Lawyers to Do More for Those Billable Hours
February 27, 2016
SILICON VALLEY ENTREPRENEURS and venture capitalists have deployed digital tech to change the ways we live, eat, and shop. They’ve aggressively moved into crucial industries like healthcare and finance. But the practice of law is one area of expertise that has remained stubbornly resistant to disruption. “We’re really at the beginning of a phase where technology is going to begin coming, where’s it’s really having a significant impact,” says Justin Hectus, the director of information...
February 27, 2016
SILICON VALLEY ENTREPRENEURS and venture capitalists have deployed digital tech to change the ways we live, eat, and shop. They’ve aggressively moved into crucial industries like healthcare and finance. But the practice of law is one area of expertise that has remained stubbornly resistant to disruption. “We’re really at the beginning of a phase where technology is going to begin coming, where’s it’s really having a significant impact,” says Justin Hectus, the director of information...
Technology Has Created More Jobs Than it Has Destroyed
February 27, 2016
In the 1800s it was the Luddites smashing weaving machines. These days retail staff worry about automatic checkouts. Sooner or later taxi drivers will be fretting over self-driving cars. The battle between man and machines goes back centuries. Are they taking our jobs? Or are they merely easing our workload? A study by economists at the consultancy Deloitte seeks to shed new light on the relationship between jobs and the rise of technology by trawling through census data for England and Wales...
February 27, 2016
In the 1800s it was the Luddites smashing weaving machines. These days retail staff worry about automatic checkouts. Sooner or later taxi drivers will be fretting over self-driving cars. The battle between man and machines goes back centuries. Are they taking our jobs? Or are they merely easing our workload? A study by economists at the consultancy Deloitte seeks to shed new light on the relationship between jobs and the rise of technology by trawling through census data for England and Wales...
Second Circuit Upholds Apple E-book Settlement
February 26, 2016
A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld Apple Inc's $450 million settlement of claims that it harmed consumers by conspiring with five publishers to raise e-book prices. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan rejected a challenge by e-books purchaser John Bradley to the fairness, reasonableness and adequacy of Apple's class-action antitrust settlement with consumers and 33 state attorneys general. U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan had approved the settlement in November...
February 26, 2016
A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld Apple Inc's $450 million settlement of claims that it harmed consumers by conspiring with five publishers to raise e-book prices. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan rejected a challenge by e-books purchaser John Bradley to the fairness, reasonableness and adequacy of Apple's class-action antitrust settlement with consumers and 33 state attorneys general. U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan had approved the settlement in November...
Sanctions for ‘Intentionally Misleading Conduct’ in Settlement Negotiations
February 26, 2016
A Seattle judge has fined two lawyers $32,000 for failing to tell opposing counsel that the county risk manager never approved a proposed $250,000 settlement, even as deal language was being negotiated. Judge Beth Andrus of King County imposed the sanction last Wednesday on lawyers Richard Jolley and Stewart Estes, the Tacoma News Tribune reports. Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist had hired the two lawyers to defend a false arrest lawsuit filed by Lynn Dalsing of Longbranch. A mediator...
February 26, 2016
A Seattle judge has fined two lawyers $32,000 for failing to tell opposing counsel that the county risk manager never approved a proposed $250,000 settlement, even as deal language was being negotiated. Judge Beth Andrus of King County imposed the sanction last Wednesday on lawyers Richard Jolley and Stewart Estes, the Tacoma News Tribune reports. Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist had hired the two lawyers to defend a false arrest lawsuit filed by Lynn Dalsing of Longbranch. A mediator...
Making Certain the Settlement You Intend Is the Settlement You Get
February 26, 2016
A written settlement is arguably the most important document in modern litigation. As fewer and fewer cases go the distance to trial, quite often the execution of a written settlement agreement, rather than a jury verdict, is the event that signals the end of the dispute. After devoting months—perhaps years—toward a resolution of a case, it is vital that litigators approach the negotiation and finalization of settlements with the same caution and prudence they gave to the underlying dispute....
February 26, 2016
A written settlement is arguably the most important document in modern litigation. As fewer and fewer cases go the distance to trial, quite often the execution of a written settlement agreement, rather than a jury verdict, is the event that signals the end of the dispute. After devoting months—perhaps years—toward a resolution of a case, it is vital that litigators approach the negotiation and finalization of settlements with the same caution and prudence they gave to the underlying dispute....
Rod Phelan: A Lawyer for Lawyers
February 25, 2016
In the twilight of his career, Phelan says the practice of law has changed dramatically in recent years. “Fees, profits and income are up. Trials are down. Competition for business is up,” he says. “Electronic data is a burden in multiple ways; it may be the single biggest reason trials are down. ‘Work hard and do good work’ is no longer enough. ‘Good work comes to good lawyers’ is no longer the mantra. “Our profession is now a business,” he says. “We are managed, tracked...
February 25, 2016
In the twilight of his career, Phelan says the practice of law has changed dramatically in recent years. “Fees, profits and income are up. Trials are down. Competition for business is up,” he says. “Electronic data is a burden in multiple ways; it may be the single biggest reason trials are down. ‘Work hard and do good work’ is no longer enough. ‘Good work comes to good lawyers’ is no longer the mantra. “Our profession is now a business,” he says. “We are managed, tracked...
Political Risk and Investment Arbitration: An Empirical Study
February 25, 2016
Investment arbitrations should not happen too often, because they are costly processes for both parties. Yet they regularly happen. Why? We investigate the hypothesis that investment arbitrations are used as a means of last resort, after dissuasion has failed, and that dissuasion is most likely to fail in situations were significant political risk materializes. Investment arbitration should thus tend to target countries in which certain types of political risk has materialized. In order to test this...
February 25, 2016
Investment arbitrations should not happen too often, because they are costly processes for both parties. Yet they regularly happen. Why? We investigate the hypothesis that investment arbitrations are used as a means of last resort, after dissuasion has failed, and that dissuasion is most likely to fail in situations were significant political risk materializes. Investment arbitration should thus tend to target countries in which certain types of political risk has materialized. In order to test this...
