Have you delegated your firm's management function? Has that created a "black hole" for violating the RPC?

Have you delegated your firm's management function? Has that created a "black hole" for violating the RPC?

Another rule change being considered by The State Bar of California is Rule 5.1 concerning the responsibilities of supervising lawyers.  The rule provides that partners and other lawyers with managerial authority in a law firm must make reasonable efforts to ensure that the firm has in effect measures giving reasonable assurances that all lawyers in the firm conform to the Rules of Professional Conduct.

Further, the rule provides that a “... lawyer shall be responsible for another lawyer’s violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct if: (1) the lawyer orders or, with knowledge of the specific conduct, ratifies the conduct involved; or (2) the lawyer is a partner or has comparable managerial authority in the law firm in which the other lawyer practices, or has direct supervisory authority over the other lawyer, and knows of the conduct at a time when its consequences can be avoided or mitigated but fails to take reasonable remedial action.”

“Comment
Paragraph (b) is intended to apply to lawyers who have supervisory authority over the work of other lawyers in a firm. Paragraph (c) is intended to impose personal responsibility on a lawyer for the acts of another lawyer in the law firm....[2] Paragraph (a) requires lawyers with managerial authority within a law firm to make reasonable efforts to establish internal policies and procedures designed to ... ensure that inexperienced lawyers are properly supervised.”

Questions:
1.    Are you sure you really want to be a partner with such heavy responsibility? In “eat what you kill” law firms, most of the lawyers fail to pay attention to management issues. They tend to be focused only on rainmaking and their own billable hours. This leaves a lot of room for error by others ... and personal responsibility for the “rainmaker.”

2.    How does you firm allocate new work? Who makes the assignments? What is the basis for the assignments, skill, availability, favoritism?

3.    How does your firm ensure that skills are maintained? How does your firm ensure that skills are improved? What kind of education efforts are conducted by you or your firm?

Your answers can determine whether you grow or whether you wither on the vine as competitors improve their position.

Have you delegated your firm's management function? Has that created a "black hole" for violating the RPC?

Another rule change being considered by The State Bar of California is Rule 5.1 concerning the responsibilities of supervising lawyers.  The rule provides that partners and other lawyers with managerial authority in a law firm must make reasonable efforts to ensure that the firm has in effect measures giving reasonable assurances that all lawyers in the firm conform to the Rules of Professional Conduct.

Further, the rule provides that a “... lawyer shall be responsible for another lawyer’s violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct if: (1) the lawyer orders or, with knowledge of the specific conduct, ratifies the conduct involved; or (2) the lawyer is a partner or has comparable managerial authority in the law firm in which the other lawyer practices, or has direct supervisory authority over the other lawyer, and knows of the conduct at a time when its consequences can be avoided or mitigated but fails to take reasonable remedial action.”

“Comment
Paragraph (b) is intended to apply to lawyers who have supervisory authority over the work of other lawyers in a firm. Paragraph (c) is intended to impose personal responsibility on a lawyer for the acts of another lawyer in the law firm....[2] Paragraph (a) requires lawyers with managerial authority within a law firm to make reasonable efforts to establish internal policies and procedures designed to ... ensure that inexperienced lawyers are properly supervised.”

Questions:
1.    Are you sure you really want to be a partner with such heavy responsibility? In “eat what you kill” law firms, most of the lawyers fail to pay attention to management issues. They tend to be focused only on rainmaking and their own billable hours. This leaves a lot of room for error by others ... and personal responsibility for the “rainmaker.”

2.    How does you firm allocate new work? Who makes the assignments? What is the basis for the assignments, skill, availability, favoritism?

3.    How does your firm ensure that skills are maintained? How does your firm ensure that skills are improved? What kind of education efforts are conducted by you or your firm?

Your answers can determine whether you grow or whether you wither on the vine as competitors improve their position.
RODRIGO GONZALEZ FERNADEZ
CONSULTAJURIDICAchile.BLOGSPOT.COM
RENATO SANCHEZ3586 DEP 10
TELEF. 2451168
SANTIAGO,CHILE

 

Name:

Can a lawyer today be "competent" and not technologically proficient?

The State Bar of California is revising is rules of professional conduct, the catalyst being the massive revisions recently made by the American Bar Association.

One of these rules, Rule 1.1 (formerly 3-110), pertains to the definition of “competence.”  There is no reference in the definition to technology. 

Years ago, a comment to the American Bar Association’s  Model Rules of Professional Conduct said that lawyers' competency included a judgment as to whether his/her skills with technology met the standards in effect in the geographic or practice area standards of her/his community … in other words, the lawyer had to have "average" technology skills when compared to others, could not be a technology ludite.  In later versions of the rule, the ABA dropped reference to technology competence.

I don’t know whether any State’s rules of professional conduct includes reference to technology. But, it seems to me that in this day and age they should.

RODRIGO GONZALEZ FERNADEZ

LAWYERSCHILE.BLOGSPOT.COM
CONSULTAJURIDICACHILE.BLOGSPOT.COM
RENATO SANCHEZ3586 DEP 10
TELEF. 2451168
SANTIAGO,CHILE

More Outsourcing

More Outsourcing

Another announcement of a major law firm going to India, this time in a very big way. Not just for legal services, but for staff functions.  Lawyers normally want these functions right "next door" where they can get the information they request immediately ("instant gratification").

More and more, however, technology is permitting the placement of these staff functions where they can be performed well, but more inexpensively. Thus, lawyers can be in the center of things, be where the clients and courts are, and have their support be elsewhere, in less expensive "digs."  Sounds more and more like the "virtual assistant."
RODRIGO GONZALEZ FERNADEZ

LAWYERSCHILE.BLOGSPOT.COM
CONSULTAJURIDICACHILE.BLOGSPOT.COM
RENATO SANCHEZ3586 DEP 10
TELEF. 2451168
SANTIAGO,CHILE

 

Law Firm Associate Leadership Summit

Law Firm Associate Leadership Summit

Stephanie West Allen (www.idealawg.com) and I will be speaking at the ACI Law Firm Associate Leadership Summit in Virginia next month.  Stephanie will be speaking on business development issues on Wednesday and I will lead a discussion and exercise on developing a personal brand and developing leadership skills required for partnership.

The Summit is designed for senior associates who are looking for direction in developing business development and leadership skills as they prepare for partnership.  The course is designed for associates from firms who may not have sophisticated professional development programs in-house.

For more information:   

    - ACI Law Firm Associate Leadership Summit Web Site
    - Ideablawg's post on the Summit (with discount code!)
    - Brochure (PDF)

Posted by mark beese on October 02, 2006 at 02:52 AM in Events | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

RODRIGO GONZALEZ FERNADEZ
CONSULTAJURIDICACHILE.BLOGSPOT.COM
RENATO SANCHEZ3586 DEP 10
TELEF. 2451168
SANTIAGO,CHILE

Healthy Leadership

Healthy Leadership

Peter McLaughlin, author of Catchfire, and a well-known speaker on executive performance, penned an article on CEO wellness in the most recent edition of Chief Executive Magazine.  Here's an excerpt:

"Most CEOs agreed (and the research certainly backs this up) that exercise improves their mood and light food such as salads at lunch enhances their afternoon energy level.

In order to maintain a healthy lifestyle, follow these best practices:

• Eat breakfast. Most have cereal and fruit or poached eggs, a light omelet, whole wheat toast and coffee (or tea for Elson).
• Eat a light lunch. Salads are number one, some with grilled chicken, tuna or salmon on top. High protein, low fat lunches make for a brisk afternoon and help avoid the “3 o’clock slump.”
• A piece of fruit in the afternoon provides fuel to the end of the day. Lara Merriken argues for her Lära- Bars, which I find to be an excellent source of energy in the late afternoon.
• Some, à la Winston Churchill, take short naps, or at least breaks from the action, especially in the mid afternoon. (I think this is the most important “recovery period” next to sleep you can have.)
• Fish is a staple in the diet of these CEOs, as are fresh veggies. Many agree that a glass of wine is a healthy, fun accompaniment to a light dinner.
• As far as exercise, multitasking seems to make it easier to accomplish their fitness goals. Many combine aerobic exercise with watching sports, the news, or their favorite television show. Most, as you might have guessed, have some exercise equipment at home or at the office. MacDonald says that he needs goals for his exercise. He is always “training for triathalons or long biking events … something to shoot for.”

CEOs are on the whole much more attuned to the value of sleep, though not all are able to regularly attain the required amount. Since MacDonald’s change to a new lifestyle, he sleeps seven to eight hours every night as opposed to the four or five he used to get. “It’s all in the rhythm,” he repeats. A higher priority had been placed on “real vacations” to complement their “working vacations” and a conscious attempt made to achieve more balance in their lives."

-  Fit To Be CEO, Peter McLaughlin, Chief Executive Magazine. (link to entire article)

Peter is an insightful speaker, coach and consultant. He is based in Denver, Colorado, but serves clients across the globe.  He has some good articles on his website: http://www.petermclaughlin.com.

RODRIGO GONZALEZ FERNADEZ

lawyerschile.blogspot.com
CONSULTAJURIDICA.BLOGSPOT.COM
RENATO SANCHEZ3586 DEP 10
TELEF. 2451168
SANTIAGO,CHILE

E-lawyering: Practicing Law in the Digital Age fron Larry Bodine Blog

 

larry bodine

E-lawyering: Practicing Law in the Digital Age

Edward Rholl, Moderator of the E-Lawyering Discussion Board for the InternetBar.org interviewed yours truly about the future of the business of lawyering, particularly as it is carried out online. Rholl is President of Transformative Law seminars, an online educational provider.  Among the topics you'll hear about in this 45 minute podcast are the importance of understanding the changing marketplace; how to use blogs, the firm website and educational offerings to expand your reach, position your practice and develop a following in cyberspace; and how to position your firm or practice around the market instead of just marketing at people.

During the conversation, Ed and I discuss the amazing potential of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for firms of all sizes. I provide specific examples of law firms and lawyers who are truly benefiting from the use of ICT and specific pointers for lawyers who want to get into the act but don't know where to start.

RSS/Podcast URL: http://cyberweek.internetbar.org/fall2006/rss.xml

Play MP3 audio in your browser or download to your desktop (be patient, it's a big file).

RODRIGO GONZALEZ FERNADEZ
CONSULTAJURIDICA.CHILE.BLOGSPOT.COM
RENATO SANCHEZ3586 DEP 10
TELEF. 2451168
SANTIAGO,CHILE

from legalblñog watch

Legal Blog Watch

Watch What You Post ... Does David Lat of Above the Law have reason to be concerned after the announcement of an $11 million dollar plaintiffs' verdict (USA Today, 10/12/06) rendered against a Louisiana woman who posted messages on the Internet accusing her of being a "crook," a "con artist" and a "fraud"? According to the article: Legal analysts say the Sept. 19 award by a jury in Broward County, Fla. - first reported Friday by the Daily Business Review - represents the largest such judgment over postings on an Internet blog or message board. Lyrissa Lidsky, a University of Florida law professor who specializes in free-speech issues, calls the award "astonishing." Of course, being labeled a "hottie" is a far cry from being called a "con artist," so Lat is probably safe. Still, he criticizes the outcome: Eleven-point-three million? Most wrongful-death awards that are smaller than that. And it's not like Scheff is some movie star who can no longer command $10 million a picture because someone called her a child molester on a blog. She's just a small business owner whose ex-client said some negative things about her on a random website. Jeez. Posted by Carolyn Elefant on October

 

FROM LEGAL BLOG WATCH

Legal Blog Watch Corporate Disclosures via Blogs? Might blogs replace teleconferences and press releases as the preferred medium for corporate financial disclosures? The chief executive of Sun Microsystems, Jonathan I. Schwartz, believes they should. He wrote the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission on Sept. 25 asking him to recognize blogs as appropriate vehicles for public disclosures under the SEC's fair disclosure rule, Regulation FD. On his own blog, Schwartz reprinted the letter,  in which he asked SEC Chairman Christopher Cox "to look to the Internet to achieve the Commission's objectives of greater investor access to information." Noting that Sun's Web site receives an average of a million hits a day, Schwartz wrote, "This Web site is a tremendous vehicle for the broad delivery of timely and robus t information about our company." In an accompanying post explaining his reasons for making the request, Schwartz said: Unfortunately, Reg FD doesn't recognize the internet, or a blog, as the exclusive vehicle through which the public can be fairly informed. In order to be deemed compliant, if we have material news to disclose, we have to hold an anachronistic telephonic conference call, or issue an equivalently anachronistic press release, so that the (not so anachronistic) Wall Street Journal can disseminate the news. I would argue that none of those routes are as accessible to the general public as a this blog, or Sun's web site. Our blogs don't require a subscription, or even registration, and are available to anyone, across the globe, with an internet connection. Simultaneously. Sun GC Michael Dillon, who helped compose the letter to Cox, wrote on his blog that transparency is part of Sun's "corporate DNA." Unfortunately, to date there hasn't been any specific regulatory guidance from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as to how a company can use the Internet alone (via webcasts, blogs or website postings) and conform with Reg FD. As a result, Jonathan and I have some interesting discussions and he gets some advice that I'm sure he feels is, at times, overly conservative. The Associated Press reports that an SEC spokesperson said that its regulations contemplate "Web-based disclosure, and that's why the rule does not proscribe any particular method of dissemination - so long as it is broad and nonexclusionary." Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on October 11, 2006 at 01:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) YouTube Acquires Deep Pockets Is it purely a coincidence that just six days after blogger Ernie the Attorney posted his performance of his Katrina song on YouTube, Google swept in and bought the company for a cool $1.65 billion? Perhaps. But one matter seems certain. The megadeal could have lawyers paying attention to the Web video site more closely than ever before. As reporter Ben Charny writes at MarketWatch, "the transaction may trigger an avalanche of lawsuits by copyright holders whose videos were posted to YouTube without permission." Those lawsuits are likely to come not from major media companies but from individuals attracted to Google's deep pockets. Boston IP lawyer Lee Bromberg tells MarketWatch it's the "little guys" who are likely to file the most suits. He notes that Google and YouTube signed licensing deals with several major media conglomerates just hours before announcing the acquisition. "Everything gets subsumed by a licensing deal," Bromberg told MarketWat ch. "There would be a release for any prior claim, as well as an agreement as to what use could going forward." But "striking a deal with a major label is no prophylactic against lawsuits," says The Register, echoing entrepreneur Mark Cuban's sentiment that the deal is "moronic." Cuban's argument is simple. Much of YouTube's content is copyright clips, and the company has built its business on the back of someone else's creative works. The upshot, says The Register, is that "Google has overnight achieved world domination in one, possibly illegal, and poorly monetised market." But it will always have Ernie. Or will it? Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on October 11, 2006 at 01:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) All Posner, All the Time Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School and former clerk to 7th Circuit Judge Richard A. Posner, has created Project Posner, a searchable database containing all of Posner's judicial opinions. Why? We'll let Wu explain: While Posner's books and popular writings are easily available to the public, his opinions are difficult or expensive for the public to access, let alone search. This site, for the first time, collects almost all of his opinions in a single searchable and easily readable database. For lawyers and those interested in law, Posner's opinions have a particular substantive value. One thing that distinguishes the opinions is the effort to try and get at why a given law actually exists, and an effort to try and make sense of the law. That can make them more useful than most case reports. In addition, the opinions often develop the American general and state common law. Posner is among the judges who feels free to take the rule of Erie as more suggestion than injunction. If substance and jurisprudence don't grab you, there is one other reason to read Posner's opinions, Wu says: "Some of the opinions are funny." [Thanks to Lawgarithms for the link.] Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on October 11, 2006 at 01:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) Now You Saw It, Now You Don't Lawyers are known for suing over unsafe products, but when one lawyer's quest for a safer power saw took him to the design board instead of the courtroom, he found his efforts cut off by tool industry giants. In a report yesterday, Bloomberg News regulatory columnist Cindy Skrzycki relates the buzz saw of opposition encountered by Stephen F. Gass, an Oregon patent lawyer and woodworking hobbyist. Gass invented a device, SawStop, designed to stop a table-saw blade if it hits human flesh, possibly preventing an estimated 55,000 table-saw injuries every year. So convinced was he of his invention's value that he quit his job at a law firm, raised capital and started his own company. Skrzycki tells what happened next: "Now, seven years later, Gass says he was unprepared for the buzz saw of opposition he ran into from companies such as Black & Decker Corp., Robert Bosch Tool Corp. and Ryobi Technologies Inc. 'Our thought was the manufacturers would license it,' he said. 'We thought it was inevitable.' "Instead, not a single manufacturer has signed a contract with him. An Underwriters Laboratories Inc. subcommittee, with some of the saw manufacturers on the panel, voted in early 2003 not to approve his invention." When the industry spurned him, Gass turned to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. When that got him nowhere, he did what any self-respecting patent lawyer would do -- he filed some 50 patents related to the technology. That got the industry's attention, which started pushing for its own technology and its own voluntary standards, and that brought the issue back to the CPSC. Unfortunately, Skrzycki reports, it now appears to be stalled there. As for Gass, he is developing his own line of saws and has served as an expert witness in one lawsuit against a manufacturer. Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on October 11, 2006 at 01:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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