Blog Archives
Checkmate: Early Moves Define Negotiation
May 27, 2015
The Litigation Section of the State Bar of Texas recently published Don Philbin’s article entitled “Checkmate: Early Moves Define Negotiation Outcomes” in its newsletter. In his article, the Chair of the Texas Bar’sADR Section discusses the insight predictive analytics can provide to negotiators. According to Mr. Philbin, negotiations typically follow predictable social conventions and, much like chess, the first few moves are likely to set the board. In addition, advanced analytics suggest: Anchoring...
May 27, 2015
The Litigation Section of the State Bar of Texas recently published Don Philbin’s article entitled “Checkmate: Early Moves Define Negotiation Outcomes” in its newsletter. In his article, the Chair of the Texas Bar’sADR Section discusses the insight predictive analytics can provide to negotiators. According to Mr. Philbin, negotiations typically follow predictable social conventions and, much like chess, the first few moves are likely to set the board. In addition, advanced analytics suggest: Anchoring...
What Hiring Partners Think About New Lawyers
May 26, 2015
According to a study funded by LexisNexis, hiring partners have these views on new lawyers: 96% believe that newly graduated law students lack practical skills related to litigation and transactional practice. 66% deem writing and drafting skills highly important with emphasis on motions, briefs and pleadings Newer attorneys spend 40% – 60% of their time conducting legal research 88% of hiring partners think proficiency using “paid for” research services is highly important Students...
May 26, 2015
According to a study funded by LexisNexis, hiring partners have these views on new lawyers: 96% believe that newly graduated law students lack practical skills related to litigation and transactional practice. 66% deem writing and drafting skills highly important with emphasis on motions, briefs and pleadings Newer attorneys spend 40% – 60% of their time conducting legal research 88% of hiring partners think proficiency using “paid for” research services is highly important Students...
Ryznar: “The Odd Couple: The Estate Tax and Family Law”
May 26, 2015
Margaret Ryznar has posted The Odd Couple: The Estate Tax and Family Law, Louisiana Law Review (forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Although the estate tax is dynamic and frequently the center of tax policy debates, the right to inherit in the United States and many other countries is well-established. In the United States, inheritance rights are deeply rooted in the law. There also have been many economic arguments offered to support inheritance rights, often hinged on the positive incentives...
May 26, 2015
Margaret Ryznar has posted The Odd Couple: The Estate Tax and Family Law, Louisiana Law Review (forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Although the estate tax is dynamic and frequently the center of tax policy debates, the right to inherit in the United States and many other countries is well-established. In the United States, inheritance rights are deeply rooted in the law. There also have been many economic arguments offered to support inheritance rights, often hinged on the positive incentives...
Does Full Settlement Offer Moot Plaintiff’s Claim?
May 26, 2015
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether a case is moot when the plaintiff receives an offer of complete relief on his claim. At issue in the would-be class action is whether a complete settlement offer, made before the class is certified, moots individual as well as class claims, according to the cert petition (PDF) filed on behalf of the Campbell-Ewald Co. The SCOTUSblog case page is here. The cert petition says the case involves a claim under the Telephone Consumer Protection...
May 26, 2015
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether a case is moot when the plaintiff receives an offer of complete relief on his claim. At issue in the would-be class action is whether a complete settlement offer, made before the class is certified, moots individual as well as class claims, according to the cert petition (PDF) filed on behalf of the Campbell-Ewald Co. The SCOTUSblog case page is here. The cert petition says the case involves a claim under the Telephone Consumer Protection...
Could Facebook Become a Model for Legal Citations?
May 25, 2015
Think a moment of how Facebook works. Members of the social media network can make a post or share an article, reply to it, share it again, comment on it, etc. Who can see the post and those subsequent annotations depends on permissions set by the poster: specific friends, all friends and the public. Those comments and shares can be seen as a sort of commentary. Barker sees the Facebook model working in the world of legal citation indexes in a few different ways. Collaborative annotations...
May 25, 2015
Think a moment of how Facebook works. Members of the social media network can make a post or share an article, reply to it, share it again, comment on it, etc. Who can see the post and those subsequent annotations depends on permissions set by the poster: specific friends, all friends and the public. Those comments and shares can be seen as a sort of commentary. Barker sees the Facebook model working in the world of legal citation indexes in a few different ways. Collaborative annotations...
Dentons Invests in New Tech Through NextLaw Labs
May 25, 2015
Dentons is to invest in and test new technology from around the world under a newly-launched venture called NextLaw Labs. NextLaw Labs, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dentons, will focus on developing and investing in new products, services and fledgling technology companies, with the ambitious goal to “transform the practice of law.” The plan is for NextLaw Labs to develop a suite of technologies using Dentons lawyers as a global testing ground for new products. Dentons is set to become...
May 25, 2015
Dentons is to invest in and test new technology from around the world under a newly-launched venture called NextLaw Labs. NextLaw Labs, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dentons, will focus on developing and investing in new products, services and fledgling technology companies, with the ambitious goal to “transform the practice of law.” The plan is for NextLaw Labs to develop a suite of technologies using Dentons lawyers as a global testing ground for new products. Dentons is set to become...
The Great Disruption: How Machine Intelligence Will Transform the Role of Lawyers in the Delivery of Legal Services
May 25, 2015
Law is an information technology—a code that regulates social life. In our age, the machinery of information technology is growing exponentially in power, not only in hardware, but also in the software capacity of the programs that run on computers. As a result, the legal profession faces a great disruption. Information technology has already had a huge impact on traditional journalism, causing revenues to fall by about a third and employment to decrease by about 17,000 people in the last eight...
May 25, 2015
Law is an information technology—a code that regulates social life. In our age, the machinery of information technology is growing exponentially in power, not only in hardware, but also in the software capacity of the programs that run on computers. As a result, the legal profession faces a great disruption. Information technology has already had a huge impact on traditional journalism, causing revenues to fall by about a third and employment to decrease by about 17,000 people in the last eight...
Software Eats the Legal Profession
May 24, 2015
Marc Andreessen quipped in 2011: “Software is eating the world”. The legal profession is not immune from this development. Law has a high information component. In a large sense, law is information or as Bill Palin, the young lawyer who won the ABA’s Legal Hackathon at last year’s ABA Annual Meeting, says, Law is Code. We are already seeing how Andreesen’s prediction is working its way through the legal profession. We are still at the beginning of the beginning of these developments,...
May 24, 2015
Marc Andreessen quipped in 2011: “Software is eating the world”. The legal profession is not immune from this development. Law has a high information component. In a large sense, law is information or as Bill Palin, the young lawyer who won the ABA’s Legal Hackathon at last year’s ABA Annual Meeting, says, Law is Code. We are already seeing how Andreesen’s prediction is working its way through the legal profession. We are still at the beginning of the beginning of these developments,...
Networking When You Hate Talking to Strangers
May 24, 2015
The power of serendipity is hot in business circles. Silicon Valley campuses have been constructed to foster more “random collisions.” One key to creativity, many thinkers say, is unexpected interactions. “Create spaces where you’re wandering around and exposing yourself to new people,” John Hagel of Deloitte’s Center for the Edge told me in an interview. And venture capitalist Anthony Tjan and his colleagues conducted an expansive survey of entrepreneurs that revealed a quarter of them...
May 24, 2015
The power of serendipity is hot in business circles. Silicon Valley campuses have been constructed to foster more “random collisions.” One key to creativity, many thinkers say, is unexpected interactions. “Create spaces where you’re wandering around and exposing yourself to new people,” John Hagel of Deloitte’s Center for the Edge told me in an interview. And venture capitalist Anthony Tjan and his colleagues conducted an expansive survey of entrepreneurs that revealed a quarter of them...
What Will Lawyers Be Doing In 5 To 10 Years?
May 24, 2015
For lawyers, on the other hand, it’s much tougher to predict how things will be in another five to 10 years. On Friday, the speakers who took to the stage for the final day of Lawyernomics tried to look into the crystal ball and talk about where the legal profession is heading and how it might look in the not-so-distant future. (The ABA Journal is a media co-sponsor of the conference.) * * * That’s assuming lawyers will still be lawyers by the time 2030 rolls around. F. Daniel Siciliano,...
May 24, 2015
For lawyers, on the other hand, it’s much tougher to predict how things will be in another five to 10 years. On Friday, the speakers who took to the stage for the final day of Lawyernomics tried to look into the crystal ball and talk about where the legal profession is heading and how it might look in the not-so-distant future. (The ABA Journal is a media co-sponsor of the conference.) * * * That’s assuming lawyers will still be lawyers by the time 2030 rolls around. F. Daniel Siciliano,...
