LAWYERSCHILE EL MUNDO INTERNACIONAL DEL ABOGADO

Rodrigo González Fernández y un grupo de egresados de la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad la Republica en Chile ha decidido poner al alcance de todo el mundo de la profesion legal importantes materias en Ingles para ir practicando el trabajo en materia de Tratados internacionales y que nuestra profesión estará en primera linea. Invitamos a todos a opinar, debatir, participar activamente.Es el primer blog legal en inglés de latinoamerica.

Friday, June 19, 2009

Law Firms Need to Keep an Eye on Lawyers Performing Pro Bono Work

Where a law firm allows an associate to handle a matter pro bono through a legal aid organization, does the firm retain an obligation to supervise the associate? Yes, said Acting Supreme Court Justice Ellen Gesmer in a domestic relations dispute where advice provided to a pro bono client by a Skadden staff attorney was so rife with errors that it justified voiding the ensuing settlement stipulation. The New York Law Journal covers the story.

Lisa Poursine, a staff attorney for Skadden volunteered through the firm's pro bono program to handle a case for inMotion, a non-profit legal group that assists low-income women in matrimonial, family and immigration law cases. Poursine inaccurately advised the client that she her divorce would go smoothly if the client signed a settlement agreement which made it more difficult for the client to relocate to another state as she hoped. Even worse, the settlement agreement forced the client to waive her rights to future claims for equitable distribution. The Poursine explained to the client that without the settlement agreement, the case would be constested and that Poursine lacked the experience or resources to handle a contested matter.

The client sought to vacate the settlement agreement, testifying that Poursine never explained the equitable distribution waiver provisions or that the settlement would make it more difficult for the client to relocate. The Judge found that Poursine's advice was inaccurate and confusing, and resulted from lack of "appropriate training and supervision." Accordingly, she vacated the settlement.

Skadden says that it accords the same standard of care to pro bono clients as paying clients and now has an adequate system in place to assure that lawyers handling pro bono matters are properly supervised. Even so, this case is likely to make law firms with displaced associates think twice about dispatching them to legal aid organizations if the firm must retain a supervisory role.

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Posted by Carolyn Elefant on June 19, 2009

Fuente:
Difundan libremente este artículo
CONSULTEN, OPINEN , ESCRIBAN .
Saludos
Rodrigo González Fernández
Diplomado en "Responsabilidad Social Empresarial" de la ONU
Diplomado en "Gestión del Conocimiento" de la ONU

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GAO: Coast Guard Judges Fair to Mariners

The U.S. General Accounting Office this week released the findings of its review of the U.S. Coast Guard's administrative law judge program. The GAO concludes that the ALJs are able to decide cases independently and free of undue influence from Coast Guard officials. It further finds that the ALJ program contains adequate protections to ensure the fairness of the process for mariners, such as the right to a hearing and to be represented.

The Coast Guard's ALJ program came under attack in 2007, when news reports and hearings before a U.S. House subcommittee raised concerns about whether the ALJs were able to decide cases independently. In response to those concerns, Congress asked the GAO to review the program. Two of the key issues Congress asked the GAO to look into were whether the ALJs have "decisional independence" and to what extent the ALJ program provides protections for mariners.

The mariners involved in these cases are merchant mariners working on commercial vessels at sea. To be employed as a merchant mariner, Coast Guard-issued credentials are required. If the Coast Guard believes that a mariner has failed to adhere to requirements for safety and security at sea, it initiates proceedings to suspect the mariner's credential. (Need an example? Think Exxon Valdez, the largest oil spill in U.S. history, where the skipper was found to have consumed alcohol and left the bridge.) If the mariner denies the charges, the matter goes to a hearing before an ALJ, where the Coast Guard has the burden of proving the charge.

The GAO found that the system "contains elements designed to foster the decisional independence of its judges." In particular, the GAO noted that all personnel actions involving ALJs must be conducted in accordance with independent Office of Personnel Management regulations and that personnel actions against an ALJ may be taken only through an independent agency, the Merit Systems Protection Board.

The GAO also concluded that the system contains adequate protections for mariners. In addition to providing mariners the right to a hearing and to be represented, the GAO found, the Coast Guard follows procedures designed to give mariners fair notice of the charges against them and the ALJs were following procedures regarding the elements to be addressed in their decisions.

Not surprisingly, few of these cases ever make it to a hearing before an ALJ. Of the 1,675 cases the GAO studied, only 3 percent resulted in an ALJ's issuance of a decision and order. The bulk of the cases, 62 percent, were resolved with settlement agreements.

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Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on June 19, 2009

Biglaw Continues Its Slow Creep Towards Blogs

The number of AmLaw 200 law firms with blogs more than doubled since 2007, but they still make up less than half of the nation's largest firms. This week, LexBlog released its periodic State of the AmLaw Blogosphere report. It found that 82 of these firms now have blogs. That is an increase of 110 percent over the first report in 2007, when 39 firms had blogs. In the last six months, the number of AmLaw 200 blogs has risen just 15 percent.

Interestingly, those 82 biglaw firms are responsible for 227 blogs, showing that at least some of them have multiple blogs. Of those 227, 186 are firm branded, meaning that the blog is somehow identified as a product of the firm. The "non-branded" blogs are written by individuals who work at these firms but write the blogs on their own.

Not all these biglaw blogs are active. LexBlog describes a blog from Morris Manning & Martin that deals with the law surrounding open source software as dormant. To me, it appears dead. The link for the blog leads to an Italian-language blog about online gambling. This might suggest that even as some large law firms take small steps towards blogging, others are stepping away.

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Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on June 19, 2009 at 03:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

1.92 Million Reasons Not to Download Music

Stunned. That is my reaction to the news that a Minnesota jury has ordered a 32-year-old woman to pay $1.92 million to the music industry for downloading music. That is $80,000 per song for each of the 24 songs she is said to have downloaded.

The woman's reaction: "Good luck trying to get it from me. ... It's like squeezing blood from a turnip."

This was the second trial for the woman, Jammie Thomas-Rasset, in the first downloading case to go to trial. Two years ago, a jury ordered Thomas-Rasset to pay $222,000 for downloading the songs -- $9,250 per song. The judge declared a mistrial and Thomas-Rasset opted for a second go-around.

The woman's lawyer, Kiwi Camara, told reporters that when he first heard the verdict, he was "angry about it." He had felt confident that any liability finding would be for the statutory minimum amount of $750 per song.

There remains the possibility that the parties will still reach a settlement. A spokesperson for the music industry said after the verdict, "Since day one we have been willing to settle this case ... and we remain willing to do so." The music industry has made its point with this verdict and has nothing further to gain by chasing after money it will never recover. As for Thomas-Rasset, she should be looking for a way to put this nightmare behind her. Let's hope both sides find a reasonable way to bring this case to an end.

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Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on June 19, 2009

The Right Kind of Health Care Reform

The Right Kind of Health Care Reform

We are facing some of the most sweeping changes health care has seen in decades. Reform is needed, but increasing government control over one-sixth of the economy and over important personal and private decisions would harm American taxpayers, health care providers and patients. Cato just launched a new Web site, Healthcare.Cato.org, which provides in-depth analyses of health care issues and reform initiatives that increase consumer choice and energize competition.

President Obama's proposals will inexorably lead to a government takeover of the system. According to health care expert Michael D. Tanner, this "reform" effort will give government greater control over more and more of our health care decisions. The plan will compel Americans to purchase health insurance, control its content and determine whether Americans receive certain medical services.

According to Tanner, the plan "would not initially create a government-run, single-payer system such as in Canada or Britain. Private insurance would still exist, at least for a time, but it would be reduced to little more than a public utility, operating much like, for example, the electric company, with the government regulating and controlling every aspect of its operation."

What will it cost taxpayers?

Tanner explains, "Obamacare will be expensive. The Congressional Budget Office's initial scoring of Ted Kennedy's health-care bill shows it would cost at least $1 trillion over the next ten years."

The CBO study also found that the plan would result in roughly 23 million people losing the insurance they currently have. The actuarial firm Lewin Associates estimates as many as 118.5 million would shift from private to public coverage, resulting in a nearly 60 percent reduction in the number of Americans with private insurance.

Fuente:cato
Difundan libremente este artículo
CONSULTEN, OPINEN , ESCRIBAN .
Saludos
Rodrigo González Fernández
Diplomado en "Responsabilidad Social Empresarial" de la ONU
Diplomado en "Gestión del Conocimiento" de la ONU

Market Solutions

Market Solutions

There are market-based solutions to the problems besetting the current health care system. In a Policy Analysis, John H. Cochrane explains how "free markets can solve this problem, and provide life-long, portable health security, while enhancing consumer choice and competition."

The key, he says, is "Health-status insurance." He writes:

If you are diagnosed with a long-term, expensive condition, a health-status insurance policy will give you the resources to pay higher medical insurance premiums. Health-status insurance covers the risk of premium reclassification, just as medical insurance covers the risk of medical expenses.

With health-status insurance, you can always obtain medical insurance, no matter how sick you get, with no change in out-of-pocket costs. With health-status insurance, medical insurers would be allowed to charge sick people more than healthy people, and to compete intensely for all customers. People would have complete freedom to change jobs, move, or change medical insurers. Rigorous competition would allow us to obtain better medical care at lower cost.

Cato health policy analyst Michael F. Cannon says that one way to fix the health care system is to make consumers care about cost:

More than 200 million Americans have public or employer-controlled coverage, and all are essentially purchasing it with someone else's money. And that's the problem: Americans demand more coverage than they would if they were spending their own money. In fact, we demand as much coverage as Canadians, for whom health care is supposed to be free. Both American and Canadian patients pay only about 14 cents for every dollar of medical care they consume.

…If we want to increase access to health care, our first priority must be to contain costs. Nothing would help more than 200 million cost-conscious consumers.

Letting Americans own their health care dollars is the right thing to do. And as it happens, it would also cover a lot of the uninsured.

For an extensive analysis on the health care system, Tanner and Cannon explain more market-based solutions in their book, Healthy Competition: What's Holding Back Health Care and How to Free It.

Twitter Fuels Revolution in Iran

Twitter has officially moved way beyond what you ate for breakfast: The Anderson Cooper 360 blog reported yesterday that "the State Department is working with Twitter and other social networking sites to ensure Iranians are able to continue to communicate to each other and the outside world....For example, senior officials say the State Department asked Twitter to refrain for going down for periodic scheduled maintenance at this critical time to ensure the site continues to operate. Bureau's and offices across the State Department, they say, are paying very close attention to Twitter and other sites to get information on the situation in Iran." ReadWriteWeb calls the news from CNN "a great scoop, given that the network faced heavy criticism for being slow to prioritize news from Iran this weekend while Twitter was on fire with updates." You can follow the Iranian election Twitter stream here, though The Blog Herald reports that "unconfirmed reports are coming in (via Twitter of course) that Iran is filtering out said hashtag, so you might want to try some other ones as well." Mashable has a full guide to following the Iran election using Twitter and other social media.

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Sarah Palin vs. David Letterman

In case you didn't know, Sarah Palin and David Letterman are fighting. Conservative bloggers and personalities are in an uproar over David Letterman's jokes about Sarah Palin's daughter getting 'knocked up' at a Yankee ballgame and a reference to Sarah Palin's 'slutty flight attendant look' in his nightly Top 10 list. And they're especially mad that "the daughter who actually attended the Yankees game with Palin was 14-year-old Willow"--because, inappropriate! --even though "Letterman explained that he meant the joke to refer to 18-year-old Bristol," says The Plank. Still, "That's right," Hot Air says in outrage. "A state governor went to a baseball game with her underage daughter, and a national talk show host made a joke about the girl being sexually assaulted by one of the players." The Frisky has a breakdown of each joke in question.

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