TU NO ESTAS SOLO EN ESTE MUNDO. YOU ARE NOT ALONE SI TE HA GUSTADO UN ARTICULO, COMPARTELO

Monday, November 24, 2008

charles darwin: Blawg Review #187 -- Evolution Day Edition

Blawg Review #187 -- Evolution Day Edition

Today is Evolution Day, the anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's seminal work, On the Origin of Species, most commonly associated with the principle of "survival of the fittest." And with many law firms struggling to survive, Evolution Day provides an apt theme for Blawg Review #187, hosted at Josh Fruchter's Lawyer Casting.

Unlike Darwin's theory of evolution, you won't find any "missing links" in this Blawg Review, which offers tips from around the legal blogosphere on surviving in this economy. The advice runs the gamut, with obvious ideas such as remembering to focus on clients or registering to use LegalOnRamp if you're recently  unemployed. But there are also some suggestions that seem counter-intuitive such as why you shouldn't run out and set up a bankruptcy practice (since clients may not be able to pay your fees) or why firms should not lay off associates to save money, but rather, might consider investing in them.

All in all, in this economy, Blawg Review #187 should come as a natural selection for your reading. And you can also play a role in the next iteration, to be hosted at New York Personal Injury Attorney Blog, where Eric Turkewitz has already put out the casting call.

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Posted by Carolyn Elefant on November 24, 2008


CONSULTEN, OPINEN , ESCRIBAN LIBREMENTE
Saludos
Rodrigo González Fernández
Diplomado en RSE de la ONU
www.consultajuridicachile.blogspot.com
www.el-observatorio-politico.blogspot.com
www.lobbyingchile.blogspot.com
www.biocombustibles.blogspot.com
www.calentamientoglobalchile.blogspot.com
oficina: Renato Sánchez 3586 of. 10
Teléfono: OF .02-  8854223- CEL: 76850061
e-mail: rogofe47@mi.cl
Santiago- Chile
Soliciten nuestros cursos de capacitación  y consultoría en LIDERAZGO -  RESPONSABILIDAD SOCIAL EMPRESARIAL – LOBBY – BIOCOMBUSTIBLES  ,   y asesorías a nivel internacional y están disponibles  para OTEC Y OTIC en Chile

Lawyers Seeking Opportunities Overseas

Chile is a godd alternative

Lawyers Seeking Opportunities Overseas

In a waning economy, lawyers looking for new employment horizons might be advised to look across the horizon -- literally. Because as Legal Blog Watch's own John Bringardner writes in the New York Times, overseas markets are the new land of opportunity for lawyers.

Back in the gold rush days, law firms had a tough time selling lawyers on locales like Dubai, Abu Dhabi or Hong Kong. But now all that's changed, and recruiters are finding plenty of lawyers willing to travel halfway around the world for a job. Because of increased interest in overseas positions, firms can afford to be choosier about who they hire, and also stingier with their incentives. For example:

When Kirkland opened its Hong Kong office in 2006... it was hard to complete its hiring locally. American and British firms there were willing to make candidates the kind of fantastic offers they’d rarely see at home. “Two years ago I saw third-years asking to be made partners,” David Eich [a Kirland partner] says. “With the market crash we immediately felt the inflection of that. These days I see partners happy to take a salary adjustment for their circumstances.”

Still, going overseas isn't just a way to bide time while the economy recovers. Many lawyers are embracing the overseas alternative as an opportunity to build a practice at a time when there's not much going on at the office at home. Seems like a no-brainer to me.

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Posted by Carolyn Elefant on November 24, 2008


CONSULTEN, OPINEN , ESCRIBAN LIBREMENTE
Saludos
Rodrigo González Fernández
Diplomado en RSE de la ONU
www.consultajuridicachile.blogspot.com
www.el-observatorio-politico.blogspot.com
www.lobbyingchile.blogspot.com
www.biocombustibles.blogspot.com
www.calentamientoglobalchile.blogspot.com
oficina: Renato Sánchez 3586 of. 10
Teléfono: OF .02-  8854223- CEL: 76850061
e-mail: rogofe47@mi.cl
Santiago- Chile
Soliciten nuestros cursos de capacitación  y consultoría en LIDERAZGO -  RESPONSABILIDAD SOCIAL EMPRESARIAL – LOBBY – BIOCOMBUSTIBLES  ,   y asesorías a nivel internacional y están disponibles  para OTEC Y OTIC en Chile

Should Firms Cut Bonuses in Response to Clients?


Should Firms Cut Bonuses in Response to Clients?

Slashing associate bonuses isn't making law firm management popular with their subordinates, as the comments at this post at Above the Law make clear. But does it matter what associates think when clients are giving firms kudos for their parsimonious distribution of bonuses?

As today's American Lawyer reports, mega-firms like Cravath and Skadden are reigning in bonuses, either keeping them at the same levels as last year or reducing them by as much as half. And the reaction from clients has been positive; Cravath's head partner, Evan Chesler told American Lawyer that "I've got to tell you, and I don't want to name any names, but I have gotten calls from a half dozen clients this morning thanking me [about cutting bonuses]."

Though some might compliment law firms for taking clients' views into account, others in the blogosphere suggest that clients have no business telling law firms how to run their business. At the Litigation and Trial Blog, Max Kennerly explains that he'd never think to ask his blogging company, Lexblog what it pays its support people because it's none of his business:

LexBlog provides a service. I thought the fee was fair and reasonable and that I got a great service. So I paid the fee and got the service. If the salaries or working conditions LexBlog provide intentionally violate labor, employment or discrimination laws, then we've got a problem. Otherwise, I have better things to do than micromanage my service provider's business.

For Kennerly, the same analogy applies to clients. The reason that clients are complaining about associate bonuses isn't because they're trying to micromanage, but rather, they're questioning the value that the firm is providing. In fact, as Dan Hull suggests at What About Clients, clients should be celebrating, not balking about bonuses, because they provide incentive for firms to retain the cream of the crop. Like Kennerly, Hull agrees that the fact that clients are resenting bonuses is a symptom of greater dissatisfaction with the overall lack of value that many law firms provide.

As for Scott Greenfield, the formula for bonuses for criminal defense lawyers is fairly easy: You get zero, unless and until you prove yourself worthy. At which point, the bonus is more business and more clients.

What's your view? Should firms cut bonuses in response to pressure from clients?

Sphere: Related Content

Posted by Carolyn Elefant on November 24, 2008


CONSULTEN, OPINEN , ESCRIBAN LIBREMENTE
Saludos
Rodrigo González Fernández
Diplomado en RSE de la ONU
www.consultajuridicachile.blogspot.com
www.el-observatorio-politico.blogspot.com
www.lobbyingchile.blogspot.com
www.biocombustibles.blogspot.com
www.calentamientoglobalchile.blogspot.com
oficina: Renato Sánchez 3586 of. 10
Teléfono: OF .02-  8854223- CEL: 76850061
e-mail: rogofe47@mi.cl
Santiago- Chile
Soliciten nuestros cursos de capacitación  y consultoría en LIDERAZGO -  RESPONSABILIDAD SOCIAL EMPRESARIAL – LOBBY – BIOCOMBUSTIBLES  ,   y asesorías a nivel internacional y están disponibles  para OTEC Y OTIC en Chile

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Super-fast broadband, bit by bit

Super-fast broadband, bit by bit

Village (BBC)
The next broadband network may well go live one village at a time

The network that powers the next generation of broadband is going to be radically different from the one we currently have.

That is the view of Francesco Caio, one of the government's chief advisers on so-called next generation access and author of a major report into how the UK should roll out super-fast broadband.

He told delegates at the NextGen 08 conference in Manchester that the future would be a "patchwork" of community-based networks.

The challenge, he said, was to make sure that these networks all worked together.

"Building a network has traditionally been associated with big companies but there is going to be a major shift to local communities being the owners of their own networks and picking the service providers they want to go on it," he said.

In his report for the government he recommended that the Community Broadband Network, an umbrella organisation for some of the next-generation broadband projects already in existence in the UK, be appointed to establish standards to ensure such schemes worked together.

Innovative things

BT and Virgin Media are moving ahead with plans for superfast broadband that will deliver speeds of between 50Mbps (megabits per second) and 100Mbps.

But Virgin Media's network will only cover half of the homes in the country while BT has so far committed to an investment of £1.5bn in fibre, which would mean coverage for about 40% of the UK.

The Broadband Stakeholders' Group estimates that to lay a national network delivering fibre to every home would cost £29bn.

 If we rely on the private sector there will be quite substantial parts of the country that will never be reached by next-generation access 
Roger Darlington
Ofcom

"If BT can only invest £1.5bn that is going to be a drop in the ocean," said Malcolm Corbett, the head of the Community Broadband Network.

"There will be plenty of space for others to do innovative things and there are a lot of people developing projects of their own - and their reasons vary," he said.

Fibremoor

Currently there are around 15 grass-roots initiatives across the UK made up of local government and community groups all with the aim of building their own superfast broadband network, using a variety of technology including fibre and wireless.

Some are planning on laying their own fibre. Fibremoor, a community co-operative in Alston, Cumbria is aiming to make Alston one of the first villages in the UK to offer fibre to the home in 2009.

Others are based around local government efforts, such as a project in Manchester which will see a testbed network laid across the city that will benefit some of the poorest areas.

Sheep route (PA)
Rural networks could provide vital local information to the government

As well as being a place for operators such as BT to "play around" with next generation access, the pilot scheme has a more serious aim to reconnect some of Manchester's most deprived residents.

"Fifty per cent of our residents no longer have a landline and only one third use online services," said Dave Carter, the head of Manchester Digital Development Agency.

A fibre-based business district in Walsall was created when the local council became fed up with losing firms to its bigger neighbour Birmingham. It plans to spin off the network to benefit local residents.

In Kent, where 9,000 households still have no broadband access at all, the plan is to use an already well-established fibre network for schools to reach out to remote communities.

"I am a believer that communities can make a big difference," said Daniel Heery, who is heading up Fibremoor.

He plans to be entirely self-sufficient.

"We have someone living in the village who can lay the cable. It is not that difficult and the best thing is the community will own it rather than it going back into the pockets of Richard Branson or BT," he said.

Digital chasm

For residents it will mean more than just faster speeds. It will deliver state-of-the-art public services, with the NHS and the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) contributing funding.

The end result will mean at-home health monitoring for elderly or sick villagers, while local farmers will be able to input vital data about their sheep movements to the Defra website.

Antony Walker, head of the Broadband Stakeholder Group, is impressed by what is being done at a grassroot level.

BT headquarters (BBC)
BT may find itself more a contractor than network owner

"Once networks are deployed they are going to be there for a long time. The evidence is that, at least in the beginning, there will be patchwork of networks but there needs to be a significant level of co-ordination to ensue that, for consumers, it doesn't feel like a patchwork," Mr Walker said.

Roger Darlington, a member of Ofcom's consumer panel, believes such schemes are vital.

"If we rely on the private sector there will be quite substantial parts of the country that will never be reached by next-generation access," he said.

"Instead of the digital divide we have today we will have a digital chasm," he said.

BT admitted that it wasn't up to the job of fibring up the whole nation but called on local communities and government to work with it.

"We are not going to be everywhere anytime soon but local and regional governments and communities can help us decide what the right roll-out plans are for us over the coming years," said David Campbell, director of Next Generation Access at the BT broadband spin-off Openreach.

The development of community schemes could be an opportunity for BT, said Mr Caio. It may mean that, in some cases, BT is reduced to a contractor rather than the owner of networks, he said.

The government is expected to give its response to the Caio review of next generation broadband in the next few weeks.



CONSULTEN, OPINEN , ESCRIBAN LIBREMENTE
Saludos
Rodrigo González Fernández
Diplomado en RSE de la ONU
www.consultajuridicachile.blogspot.com
www.el-observatorio-politico.blogspot.com
www.lobbyingchile.blogspot.com
www.biocombustibles.blogspot.com
www.calentamientoglobalchile.blogspot.com
oficina: Renato Sánchez 3586 of. 10
Teléfono: OF .02-  8854223- CEL: 76850061
e-mail: rogofe47@mi.cl
Santiago- Chile
Soliciten nuestros cursos de capacitación  y consultoría en LIDERAZGO -  RESPONSABILIDAD SOCIAL EMPRESARIAL – LOBBY – BIOCOMBUSTIBLES  ,   y asesorías a nivel internacional y están disponibles  para OTEC Y OTIC en Chile

Monday, November 10, 2008

Associated Press LOBBY:

Associated Press
Home Depot spent $233K lobbying in 3Q
Associated Press 10.24.08, 8:47 AM ET

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WASHINGTON -

The Home Depot Inc.spent $233,250 in the third quarter to lobby on legislation aimed at stabilizing the foundering house market and other issues, according to a recent disclosure report.

The home improvement chain also lobbied the federal government on legislation involving identity theft, import tariffs, sales taxes, energy efficiency credits, labor issues and more, according to the report filed on Oct. 20 with the House clerk's office.

The Atlanta-based retailer has seen particularly hard hit by the slowing economy and housing market slump as consumers spend less money improving and renovating homes.

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed


CONSULTEN, OPINEN , ESCRIBAN LIBREMENTE
Saludos
Rodrigo González Fernández
Diplomado en RSE de la ONU
www.consultajuridicachile.blogspot.com
www.el-observatorio-politico.blogspot.com
www.lobbyingchile.blogspot.com
www.biocombustibles.blogspot.com
www.calentamientoglobalchile.blogspot.com
oficina: Renato Sánchez 3586 of. 10
Teléfono: OF .02-  8854223- CEL: 76850061
e-mail: rogofe47@mi.cl
Santiago- Chile
Soliciten nuestros cursos de capacitación  y consultoría en LIDERAZGO -  RESPONSABILIDAD SOCIAL EMPRESARIAL – LOBBY – BIOCOMBUSTIBLES  ,   y asesorías a nivel internacional y están disponibles  para OTEC Y OTIC en Chile

Thursday, November 06, 2008

Democrats Vow to Pursue an Aggressive Agenda

Democrats Vow to Pursue an Aggressive Agenda

Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi during a news conference on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.

Published: November 5, 2008

WASHINGTON — Flush with victory built on incursions in the South and West, Congressional Democratic leaders promised to use their new power to join President-elect Barack Obama in pursuing an aggressive agenda that puts top priority on the economy, health care, energy and ending the Iraq war.

Blog

The Caucus
The Caucus

The latest on the 2008 election results and on the presidential transition. Join the discussion.

Jeremy M. Lange for The New York Times

Kay Hagan greeting voters Tuesday in the Triad area of North Carolina. She unseated Senator Elizabeth Dole.

Caroline Yang for The New York Times

Al Franken, the former comedian, was in a close race for the United States Senate in Minnesota.

By reaching deep into traditionally Republican turf, the Democrats in Tuesday's elections expanded their majorities in both the House and the Senate. They picked up at least five Senate seats, in Colorado, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina and Virginia. And they picked up at least 19 House seats, with new Democrats coming from Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina and Virginia.

The full extent of the new Democratic majorities remained unknown, with tight Senate races still undecided in Alaska, Minnesota and Oregon and a runoff scheduled on Dec. 2 in Georgia. At least six House races remained too close to call.

Still, the promise of strong control of Congress also left Democratic leaders grappling with challenges of balancing a wider spectrum of views within their own party while confronting a diminished House Republican conference now decidedly more conservative.

The exuberance of Tuesday night's victories was also tempered by unease over the public's high expectations for a party in control of both Congress and the White House amid economic turmoil, two wars overseas and a yawning budget gap.

On the day after the election, leadership battles were breaking out across Capitol Hill as lawmakers contemplated the prospects of new power and opportunity. The quick start to the skirmishing signaled that some of the more bitter fights in the next Congress could be internal battles among Democrats.

For instance, Democratic aides said that RepresentativeHenry A. Waxman of California was expected to challenge Representative John D. Dingell of Michigan, the longest-serving House Democrat, for chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee. Energy issues are expected to be a major focus of the Obama administration.

And before the week is out, Democrats could try to oust Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, the independent who campaigned for Senator John McCain, from the chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who spoke with Mr. Obama by phone on Wednesday morning, said that they had made plans to discuss coordinated efforts for the transition and the new Congress, but that a more ambitious agenda would unfold next year.

"Our priorities have tracked the Obama campaign priorities for a very long time," Ms. Pelosi said at a news conference where she cited the economy, health care, energy and the Iraq war as topping the agenda.

She said Democrats were talking with the Bush White House about a potential $61 billion economic stimulus that could be approved in a lame-duck session.

But Ms. Pelosi said Democrats could open the 111th Congress in January with efforts to adopt measures blocked by President Bush, including ones to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program and embryonic stem cell research. She said Democrats had no choice but to chart a centrist course. "The country must be governed from the middle," she said. But Democrats on both sides of the Capitol were just beginning to digest the new faces in their expanded caucuses.

Those new members include Jim Himes, a Harvard- and Oxford-educated former Goldman Sachs banker turned affordable-housing advocate who ousted RepresentativeChristopher Shays of Connecticut, the only Republican House member in New England.

But even as Democrats tightened their grip on the traditionally liberal Northeast, roughly one-third of this year's gains in the House came in the West, including two seats in New Mexico and one each in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho and Nevada.

In Idaho, the Democrats scored an unlikely House victory when Walt Minnick, a self-described "gun-owning outdoorsman" who once worked in the administration of Richard M. Nixon defeated Bill Sali, a Republican incumbent.

Mr. Minnick, who emphasized his résumé as a businessman and longtime executive in the lumber industry, will join a Democratic conference long dominated by urban liberals and led by Ms. Pelosi, of San Francisco.

The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, and other Democrats pointed to their successes in the West as evidence that they were building an enduring majority. They said new lawmakers from the region would bring a pragmatic approach driven less by partisanship and more by common sense.

Representative Tom Udall, a Democrat who won a Republican-held Senate seat in New Mexico, said, "I feel like I am coming in as a Western problem-solver, as somebody who has had success working across the aisle on many issues in my home state." Mr. Udall's cousin Representative Mark Udall won the Senate race in Colorado.

Gov. Brian Schweitzer of Montana, a Democrat who won a second term on Tuesday, said the results showed that Republicans no longer had a guaranteed hold on the West. "When Democrats win in Idaho, that means that there is not a single place that's safe left anywhere," Mr. Schweitzer said.

New Mexico was a showcase of Democratic strength in this election, partly because of strong support from Hispanics, as the party won a Senate seat and two more House seats, turning the state's Congressional delegation thoroughly blue.

But even as Mr. Reid was crowing about gun-loving Democrats in the West, Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, was part of a separate conference call focusing on how many Democrats won by embracing progressive economic policies.

Mr. Brown said that he expected Republicans and more conservative Democrats to join an array of legislation related to alternative energy, trade, jobs and tax policy. "With a popular president leading," he said, "we are going to see all but the most closed-minded Republicans joining us."

The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, issued a statement on Wednesday offering Mr. Obama cooperation.

Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said he believed that the new House majority would coalesce on most major economic issues but that some disagreements were inevitable.

"Clearly we are a big-tent party, and when it comes to social issues there will be some different perspectives in the caucus," Mr. Van Hollen said.

Although Democrats fell short of their goal of a 60-vote Senate majority, which would have given them the power to break filibusters, Ms. Pelosi said it would be far easier to get Republican support for Democratic bills with Mr. Bush out of office. She said Republicans often blocked bills to protect the president.

House and Senate Democrats said they believed the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats could mesh in a way that Capitol Hill Democrats and the Carter and Clinton administrations could not. As senators, Mr. Obama and Vice President-electJoseph R. Biden Jr., built strong relationships on Capitol Hill.

President Jimmy Carter and President Bill Clinton, as former governors, were outsiders to Congress.

Republicans are already warning that Mr. Obama, a relatively junior lawmaker, will be outmaneuvered by more experienced operators on Capitol Hill, a proposition Democrats dismissed, noting that Mr. Obama would benefit from the counsel of Mr. Biden, a longtime senator from Delaware. "I think both sides realize we need one another and both sides realize that we better not blow this," said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York.


CONSULTEN, OPINEN , ESCRIBAN LIBREMENTE
Saludos
Rodrigo González Fernández
Diplomado en RSE de la ONU
www.consultajuridicachile.blogspot.com
www.el-observatorio-politico.blogspot.com
www.lobbyingchile.blogspot.com
www.biocombustibles.blogspot.com
www.calentamientoglobalchile.blogspot.com
oficina: Renato Sánchez 3586 of. 10
Teléfono: OF .02-  8854223- CEL: 76850061
e-mail: rogofe47@mi.cl
Santiago- Chile
Soliciten nuestros cursos de capacitación  y consultoría en LIDERAZGO -  RESPONSABILIDAD SOCIAL EMPRESARIAL – LOBBY – BIOCOMBUSTIBLES  ,   y asesorías a nivel internacional y están disponibles  para OTEC Y OTIC en Chile