FROM LEGAL BLOG WARCH

Legal Blog Watch

Are Companies Really Firing Law Firms? Law.com affiliate blogger Rees Morrison takes up the question Are In-House Counsel Really Dumping Law Firms Abruptly? (Legal Times, 3/27/07). His response: It's hard to tell. Morrison says that there are many reasons that companies part ways with counsel. Sometimes law firms and law departments grow apart, key partners develop different practices or in-house counsel take over the work. Of course, sometimes firms are fired for blunders, such as high cost, poor communication and incompetence. In one instance, a company stopped using a firm that would not complete a company's diversity survey. The trouble with surveys that report on law firm firings is that "they have done a lousy job obtaining reliable numbers and percentages. " They don't show if a company actually fired a firm, or just thought about doing it. And surveys don't show if it's smaller firms that were let go, either because their billings were small or they were just brought in for a single transaction. Morrison concludes: It's no surprise that law departments decide, based on a single dramatic mistake or a series of avoidable missteps, to fire a firm. But despite the gaggle of surveys that have pronounced on this subject, the number of firms that a given law department fires each year is probably a small fraction of all of its law firm relationships. We need better surveys and clearer thinking for us to understand the actual incidence of abrupt terminations of law firms and the performance- or capability-related causes of those firings. In my view, whether the surveys are right or wrong is irrelevant. The fact that companies do fire firms, even if it's a far smaller percentage than reported, or think about doing so shows that there's still dissatisfaction with how firms are performing. If I were a partner at a large firm, I wouldn't be spending my time analyzing these surveys; I'd be surveying my own clients and finding out what I could do to better serve them. Posted by Carolyn Elefant on March 29, 2007 at 03:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) RIAA Faces Some Pushback For a while, it seemed that the RIAA's strategy of suing large numbers of people who'd allegedly downloaded music illegally was working. Rather than spend money to fight the suits, many found it more financially favorable to settle. But this week, RIAA has received some resistance in two matters. In one, it eventually decided to back down. First, Al Nye the Lawyer Guy reports here that the University of Maine has told the RIAA to "take a hike" in response to the group's demand that the school turn over names of students who allegedly downloaded copyrighted materials.  And this post at Legal Pad tips us off to a powerful letter that a Visalia, Calif., solo "slung against the record-industry goliath," causing it to back down. The post includes choice excerpts from the letter, such as: Your clients take the position that my middle-aged, conservative clients should speculate regarding the identity of persons your clients claim used their AOL account to download pornographic-lyric gangsta rap tracks as predicate to possible case resolution. In an age of Wintel-virus created bot-farms, spoofs, and easily cracked WEP encrypted wireless home networks (among other easy hacks), the only tech-savvy response to such a request is, ‘You've got to be kidding.’” After receiving the letter, RIAA dismissed the lawsuit, though there's no word on whether the client will continue to pursue the attorneys' fees sought from RIAA in the letter. Posted by Carolyn Elefant on March 29, 2007 at 03:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) What a Difference a Day Makes... We all know the saying "what a difference a day makes." As Eugene Volokh describes in this post, a day made a huge difference for a defendant convicted of statutory rape because the court adopted the statutory rule for computing the victim's birthday (i.e., the actual day) instead of the common law rule, i.e., the day before the actual birthday. In the case Volokh describes, a defendant engaged in nonconsensual sex with a victim the day before her 16th birthday. Under the common law rule, the victim would have been deemed to have turned 16 that day, thus enabling the defendant to defeat the statutory rape charges. Instead, the court held that Pennsylvania law, which provides that a person does not turn 16 until her birthday, would apply, which meant that the victim was under age on the date of the assault, thereby making him guilty of statutory sexual assault. Volokh doesn't dispute the conclusion, per se, but rather the rhetoric that accompanies it. He writes: But I don't quite see how all this rhetoric about "pervert[ing] justice," "maximum protection to children 16 and under," and "the greatest attainment of protection of society against child sexual predators" fits with the case in which the debate is about one day. Hooks would have not been punished under the indecent-assault-under-16 law if the incident had happened one day later; everyone agrees with that. The law would not have treated the 16-year-old as being in need of protection against consensual sex (nonconsensual sex is a different matter, but he was charged on that separately, and partly convicted and partly acquitted). How would there be any material loss of "protection of society against child sexual predators" if the court interpreted the law as allowing the 16-year-old-minus-1-day as being capable of consenting just as the 16-year-old is capable? Where would be the "perversion of justice" in such a holding? One could argue that there may be perversion of justice in changing a rule to a defendant's detriment, when the defendant could have reasonably relied on it (highly unlikely here, but possible in my hypothetical about the lovers who let out their sexual frustrations in doing legal research about when they can lawfully have sex). But -- again focusing on the statutory rape charge at the heart of the case, and not on the charges that required a showing of lack of consent -- it's hard to see perversion of justice in sticking with an old rule that would set the age of consent one day earlier than the majority thinks reasonable. Mike Cernovich of Crime and Federalism also comments on the case. From Cernovich's perspective, the defendant was essentially convicted on a technicality. He writes: This principle is illustrated nicely in a case from Pennsylvania. A man was convicted of statutory rape for having consensual sex with someone who, in just a few hours, was legally able to consent to sex. Convicted on a technicality. I certainly support statutory rape laws. Children should not have their youths misspent by adults. But convicting someone for conduct that, in just a few hours would be legal, is silly and unjust. Yet the court nonetheless affirms the conviction. As for me, I continue to marvel at the unusual facts underlying this case. What are the chances of a defendant assaulting someone the day before she turns 16 (is it 1/365, all other things being equal)? Can you think of any other lawsuits that involves unusual or coincidental facts that you wouldn't otherwise expect? Posted by Carolyn Elefant on March 29, 2007 at 03:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) Should the Florida Bar Regulate Taste? Chuck Newton, of Spare Room Tycoon, posts on the Florida Bar's latest effort to regulate taste by prohibiting divorce attorney Steve Miller from running a straight talking ad urging clients to contact his firm if they need help "getting rid of the vermin [you] call a spouse. Here's where Newton comes out on the issue: The point of the matter for me is this. I do not like the spot. (I do not like it Sam I Am, I do not like when lawyers that act like hams). But, I do not like Judge Judy, Murry, or Jerry Springer (when it was on). I flip around the channels at lunch, and if I see one more trashy girl going ballistic over which one of the many men who might be the father of her child, awaiting the paternity test, (and, I am not just talking about Anna Nicole Smith), I think I might just off myself. It is not what motivates me. But it does to some people. Some people, like me, are turned off by this type of TV spot. Some people gravitate toward the hyperbole. Further, some people desperately need the services, at the price, this lawyer is offering. Nobody has demonstrated he is doing a bad job for his clients. Nobody is accusing him of not doing what he says he will do. No client is filing a grievance asking him to stop the ad. Only the Bar-tenders are not happy. I also posted about Miller here, at my home site, MyShingle. I agree with Newton; I can't discern any consumer-protection reason for the bar's ban. Moreover, to the extent that the Florida Bar believes that consumers may be mislead by the ad, it can fight back YouTube, the same tool used to post Miller's site online. But the bar doesn't have to prohibit the ads entirely. Posted by Carolyn Elefant on March 29, 2007 at 03:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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FRON LEGAL BLOG WATCH

Legal Blog Watch

Can Justice Department Official Monica Goodling Take the Fifth? Monica Goodling, a Justice Department official, invoked the Fifth Amendment when called to testify under oath before a Senate panel investigating the December 2006 purge of eight U.S. Attorneys. But bloggers aren't remaining silent about Goodling's decision. As this account from the New York Times (3/26/07) reports: Monica Goodling, the Justice Department’s White House liaison, who helped coordinate the dismissals, asserted her Fifth Amendment protection against compelled self-incrimination in a letter that her lawyer sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee. In the letter, Ms. Goodling’s lawyer, John M. Dowd, questioned the fairness of the panel and cited the possibility that she might be a witness in a criminal inquiry, although there is currently no known criminal investigation into the dismissals. Some bloggers either don't buy or understand Goodling's approach. At Above the Law, David Lat asks: We're going to play unfrozen caveman legal commentator, and ask: Based on what we currently know about the U.S. Attorney firings, how could Goodling's testimony expose her to criminal liability, to place her in a position to invoke the Fifth Amendment? What are we missing here? Orin Kerr says this: I'm not sure I follow the rationale here. The Fifth Amendment privilege is available if the witness has reasonable ground to believe that her testimony will be used against her to prove an element of a crime. Brown v. Walker, 161 U.S. 591, 598 (1896). What crime might Goodling have committed? I'm also puzzled by the comparison to the Libby case. Libby was prosecuted and convicted because he lied under oath, not because he admitted to criminal activity. Is Goodling taking the Fifth because if she testifies under oath she would lie and face perjury charges rather than tell the truth? If so, that's not a valid basis for the privilege. See, e.g,, United States v. Seewald, 450 F.2d 1159 (2d Cir. 1971). Or perhaps she is taking the Fifth because she lied before, and her testifying truthfully this time will reveal her earlier lies? UPDATE: According to the first page of the letter Goodling's counsel sent to the Senate, the rationale for taking the Fifth seems to be that Congress isn't being very open-minded and Democrats don't trust the Bush Administration. That's a new one; I don't think I've ever come across that one before. (Maybe there is more on the other pages of the letter not yet available?)   ANOTHER UPDATE: A few courts have discussed the theoretical possibility that there is some kind of "perjury trap" defense that might apply when a witness is hauled before a tribunal just to see if the witness can be tricked into comitting perjury. Courts have hinted that setting such a perjury trap might violate the Due Process clause. However, I don't think any court has ever actually found a perjury trap; courts invariably find a government interest that allows the testimony, and generally do not need to reach whether such a defense exists. See, e.g., Wheel v. Robinson, 34 F.3d 60, 67-68 (2d Cir. 1994). Perhaps that's what Goodling's lawyer has in mind?   YET ANOTHER UPDATE: The link to the letter now includes the entire letter, which in turn relies heavily on Ohio v Reiner. I don't see how Reiner is helpful. That case just says that a person can both claim that they are innocent of any offense and yet also claim the Fifth Amendment privilege. Well of course; a person can say whataver they want about their culpability without changing whether they have a privilege. But the Fifth Amendment issue is whether a person has substantial reason to fear that their truthful testimony will help lead to them being prosecuted. Goodling's letter doesn't give a legally valid reason for that fear, at least as far as I can tell. On the other hand, White Collar Crime blog reminds us: Now if this had taken place in a corporation that was under investigation, legal counsel for the corporation would be calling the parties in and asking the employees to answer questions. Either internal or external counsel would be investigating to determine if there was wrongdoing involved in the activities.  In all likelihood the individual would have no attorney-client privilege in a world where deferred prosecution agreements allow the corporation to act as mini-prosecutors and turn over evidence of the individuals to the government.  And if the individual refused to speak with counsel - the result would be - you're fired.  Will that happen here? And perhaps, more importantly, should that happen here?  What it is important to remember here is that we are all entitled to exercise constitutional rights, even those who work at the Department of Justice. By the way, if you're looking for a way to track the emerging developments regarding the U.S. Attorney firings, check out the new blog, Gonzales Watch. Posted by Carolyn Elefant on March 27, 2007 at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) Supreme Court Considers Liability for Secondary Actors in Securities Fraud Investment banks and law firms that handle corporate transactions will be watching the Supreme Court closely next term as it addresses the question of whether "secondary actors" like law firms, which facilitate fraudulent transactions, can be sued for securities fraud. Yesterday, the Supreme Court announced that it accepted review of Stoneridge Investment v. Scientific Atlanta, an 8th Circuit decision where the court held that civil liability for damages does not lie against defendants who merely "aid and abet" securities fraud unless those defendants actually made a mistatement. The 8th Circuit decision conflicts with the 9th Circuit's decision in Simpson v. AOL Time Warner, Inc., et al., 452 F.3d 1040 (9th Cir. 2006), which held that secondary actor can be held liable if some if its conduct had "the principal purpose and effect of creating a false appearance of fact" in support of a scheme to defraud."  (For a good overview of these issues, see this article, Expanded Liability Under Section 10[b]). What's interesting, however, is that what may have finally nudged the Supreme Court to accept review of Stoneridge isn't the split between the 8th and 9th Circuits alone but, rather, a recently issued 5th Circuit decision in an Enron-related case. As Lyle Denniston discussed in this analysis at SCOTUSBlog, the 5th Circuit threw out a class action against various banks and brokerage firms for transactions related to Enron's defrauding of investors, finding that "the banks and brokerage firms had not engaged in a "deceptive act" under securities fraud law. From Denniston's post: The Fifth Circuit said that the "banks [and brokerage firms) owed no duty to the [investors] other than the general duty not to engage in fraudulent schemes or acts (that is, the duty not to break the law)." Thus, it concluded, investors could not have relied upon the banks and brokers' failure to disclose publicly the nature of the Enron scheme in which they allegedly took part...Making third parties liable in the circumstance in this case, the Circuit Court said, "gives rise to confusion about the extent of secondary actors' obligations and invites vague and conflicting standards of proof in divers courts." Denniston's post, which was written before the Supreme Court's cert grant in Stoneridge, suggested that the 5th Circuit's decision, which aligned with the 8th Circuit, may have minimized the conflict, particularly because the 9th Circuit decision had become moot. But Denniston also noted that the Enron case was headed for the Supreme Court, and because of that, the Court might decide to accept review of a case that addresses similar issues already pending review. And apparently, Denniston was right. Posted by Carolyn Elefant on March 27, 2007 at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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from legal blog watch

Legal Blog Watch

Lawyer Finds Success as Novelist I admit it: I get a vicarious thrill every time I read about a lawyer who finds success as a novelist. There but for the grace of God -- or lack of talent -- go I. Here in Boston, we've had our fair share of lawyers-turned-novelists: George V. Higgins, Jeremiah Healy, Barry Reed, Michael Fredrickson, Margaret McLean and Sabin Willett, to name just a few. Now, there is another: William Landay. As Boston Globe writer David Mehegan reports today in  his article, His Cases Have Become Mysterious: Lawyer-turned-novelist digs up dirt in old Boston, Landay, 43, went straight from his job as an assistant district attorney to a career as a novelist. His second book, The Strangler, has just been published. A take-off on the Boston Strangler murders in the early 1960s, it includes what the article calls "thinly disguised fictional versions of superlawyer F. Lee Bailey and Attorney General Edward W. Brooke." Landay's first book, Mission Flats, won an award for best first crime novel. The Boston College Law School graduate says his work as a prosecutor supplied some of the raw material for his books and that he learned from George Higgins that trial transcripts are good studies in dialogue. For now, though, he is done with practicing law and is planning his next book. "I'm that lucky guy who is doing exactly what he wants to be doing." Call it a vicarious victory for every lawyer who aspires to authordom. Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on March 20, 2007 at 02:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) The 'Perfect Storm' of Labor Law It is a great headline, says Michael Fox at the blog Jottings by an Employer's Lawyer. Not mine above but one that appeared recently in the Dallas Business Journal warning, Labor Lawyers See Gray Storm Gathering. The article reported that labor lawyers see a perfect storm brewing for age-discrimination claims, fueled by the clash of economic reality and legal reality. The components: Baby boomers aged 42 to 60 make up the largest group in the workplace, with 77 million men and women in the United States. As baby boomers climb the corporate ladder, they become more expensive to employ. As employers look at ways to keep costs down, they'll look at reducing their biggest expense: people. The story lacks much in the way of substance, says labor-lawyer Fox. But that, he concludes, "doesn't mean there is not a lot of truth to it." One thing for sure, he adds: "It is a great headline." Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on March 20, 2007 at 02:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) Help: Neutral Term for 'Tort Reform' My previous post today mentioned Illinois Lawsuit Abuse Watch, an organization seeking to bring "balance, fairness and common sense to our civil justice system." Of course, when it comes to the civil justice system, one person's idea of "balance, fairness and common sense" is certainly not another's. Groups such as I-LAW often refer to themselves as promoting "tort reform," and bloggers and journalists often run with this label. But "reform" is a word that suggests improvement for the better, so to call revision of the tort system "reform" is tacitly to endorse it. In an interview last year, George Lakoff, a fellow of the liberal Rockridge Institute think tank, argued that use of the phrase "tort reform" is part of the way conservatives have "cleverly framed the public discussion." He said: "[T]he very phrase 'tort reform' evokes a frame. In two words, it communicates that something is the matter with the tort system, which requires reform or correction. In this respect, the phrase is similar to another effective conservative phrase, 'tax relief.' Once the public accepts these phrases, they have bought into the idea that they need to be relieved from the affliction of taxes and that they need to fix the tort system. The debate then turns to the question of how and how much. At that point, progressives can’t win the debate; the best we can do is limit the losses." So what should we label the debate over changes to our justice system? Lakoff's suggestion is to replace "tort reform" with "destruction of the civil justice system."  For its blog about civil justice, the Drum Major Institute uses a name that Ralph Nader helped popularize, Tort Deform. These names certainly succeed in reframing the debate, but they get us no closer to neutral than where we started. Even the Wikipedia tort reform entry is tagged with a dispute over the neutrality of the title. So  for those of us who wish to refer to the debate in a neutral manner, what should we call it, if anything? Help us, readers, come us with a neutral phrase for the often-acrimonious discussion about civil justice in the United States. Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on March 20, 2007 at 02:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) Doctors Distrust Many Medical Experts Are medical experts promoting junk science through their courtroom testimony? They are in Illinois, says a survey released yesterday by Illinois Lawsuit Abuse Watch (I-LAW), a group advocating for a bill (HB 1896) that would set tougher standards in Illinois for admissibility of expert testimony. As reported yesterday in the Madison County Record, the survey of 176 Illinois doctors showed that almost two-thirds "had personally seen or heard statements by a medical expert witness in a courtroom that they believe to be inaccurate or based on questionable science." Should we accept this survey at face value? Obviously, I-LAW has an agenda -- not just promoting this bill but "tort reform" in general. And, obviously, the survey's respondents, doctors, are not generally known for their appreciation of the tort system. On the other hand, the survey was conducted by the Center for Survey Research at the University of Virginia, an independent academic research facility. So we can assume, at least, that it fairly well reflects the opinions of Illinois doctors. Among the survey's other findings, as reported by The Record: Almost all Illinois physicians believe there is a problem with medical experts who provide testimony on issues beyond their specialty (97%) and on cases with which they have little or no experience. Illinois physicians are almost twice as likely to believe lawyers who argue a case place "a lot" of importance on a physician's willingness to adapt medical findings to support the lawyer's case (66%) compared to the physician's qualifications within a particular medical specialty. Nearly all physicians surveyed (97%) believe it is unethical for medical experts to receive payment contingent upon the outcome of their testimony. Among other things, the Illinois bill would prohibit an expert from receiving compensation contingent on the outcome of a case and would require that an expert "only offer expert testimony with respect to a particular field in which the expert is qualified." Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on March 20, 2007 at 02:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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How blogs can be more powerful than traditional press

 

Advantages of lawyer blogs

March 17, 2007
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How blogs can be more powerful than traditional press

LA Times Staff Writer, Terry McDermott, cites the Talking Points Memo blog, which drove the U.S. Attorneys story, as "proof that Web writers with input from devoted readers can reshape journalism."

The world headquarters of TPM Media [Talking Points Media] is pretty much like any small newsroom, anywhere, except for the shirts. And the dog. And the quiet. Most newsrooms are notably noisy places, full of shrill phones and quacking reporters. Here there is mainly quiet, except for the clacking keyboards.

It's 20 or so blocks up town to the heart of the media establishment, the Midtown towers that house the big newspaper, magazine and book publishers. And yet it was here in a neighborhood of bodegas and floral wholesalers that, over the last two months, one of the biggest news stories in the country — the Bush administration's firing of a group of U.S. attorneys — was pieced together by the reporters of the blog Talking Points Memo.

The bloggers used the usual tools of good journalists everywhere — determination, insight, ingenuity — plus a powerful new force that was not available to reporters until blogging came along: the ability to communicate almost instantaneously with readers via the Internet and to deputize those readers as editorial researchers, in effect multiplying the reporting power by an order of magnitude.

It was a December post by Josh Marshall, who owns and runs TPM, about the firing of a U.S. attorney in Arkansas, and TPM's continuing reporting that broke the story that's taking the White House by storm. McDermott's article is a great read for those looking to understand the power of blogs.

What's the import for lawyers? Couple points. One, to understand the significance of the discourse taking place via blogs and the news stories that develop from blogs. Getting into that discourse by blogging on your niche area of the law gives you exposure and reputation enhancement as a trusted and reliable authority never before possible.

Two, the ability to shape public opinion. Lawyers are often involved in causes, whether on their own behalf or own behalf of their clients. Blogs can be much, much more powerful in shaping opinion and getting news coverage than traditional lobbying or PR.

BTW, we don't begrudge TPM's slight dissing of LexBlog back in December '05. This lawyer blog gig is alive and well.

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¿QUE ENTENDEMOS POR WEB POLULAR?

La web popular

FUTURO. Los programas que funcionan desde Internet y las páginas ‘sociales’ sientan las bases de una nueva forma de entender la informática

CARLOS ZAHUMENSZKY

«No sé cómo era mi vida antes de que existiera Internet». Esta frase puede sonar a chiste pero cada vez se dice con mayor seriedad. En origen, la red de redes era un conglomerado de páginas estáticas que ofrecían información de diversa índole. Con el tiempo, esa nebulosa virtual se ha extendido hasta formar parte del tejido de nuestra sociedad, sobre todo entre las nuevas generaciones. Antes, cuando dos personas querían mantenerse en contacto se daban su número de teléfono, después se fueron dando el e-mail. Ahora se dan su Messenger, su Skype o su MySpace. Cuando queremos ir al cine consultamos la cartelera en Internet y hasta compramos las entradas online. Cada vez más viajeros contratan sus vacaciones en la red, consultan la ruta en la web de Campsa o Google maps y aclaran sus dudas en Wikipedia.

Internet se ha convertido en una fuente de conocimientos en continuo crecimiento, pero eso no es todo. Además, esos contenidos se están convirtiendo en servicios soportados de forma online que comienzan a rivalizar con el software de nuestro ordenador. Ya nadie instalaría, por ejemplo, un programa de mapas aéreos en su ordenador existiendo un servicio como Google Earth, que se actualiza continuamente y puede ser personalizado y enriquecido por los usuarios.

Google es, precisamente, una de las empresas que más avanza en el desarrollo de aplicaciones web. La conocida empresa del buscador dispone de programas de bloqueo de pop-ups, gestión de imágenes (Picasa), búsqueda y lectura de libros, mapas, sistemas de búsqueda en el PC y hasta su propio procesador de textos. Los competidores de Google, como Yahoo, no se quedan atrás. El buscador ha mejorado su oferta con Yahoo respuestas, un servicio gratuito que permite hacer todo tipo de preguntas que pueden ser contestadas online por otros usuarios. Las preguntas se categorizan en epígrafes según su temática.

Un ejemplo wiki

Las aplicaciones web forman parte de lo que se conoce como ‘web 2.0’, un concepto originario de márketing referido a una nueva generación de servicios y contenidos que están modificando el mapa de Internet. Las aplicaciones que funcionan online son uno de sus rasgos. Los programas residen en servidores remotos y el usuario sólo se descarga una ‘aplicación cliente’ que le permite acceder a los servicios que ofrece el software. La otra característica es la participación. Una constante de la web 2.0 es que sus contenidos son más fuertes y completos cuanto más internautas los utilizan.

Wikipedia es un ejemplo claro. La enciclopedia online fue el primer wiki. Este termino, de origen hawaiano, designa a sitios web cuyos contenidos pueden ser modificados en tiempo real por los usuarios. Esta forma democrática de uso, que también se denomina sindicación de contenidos, ha probado ser muy efectiva. La fuerza de estas comunidades de usuarios se pueden ver en la popularidad que han alcanzado las bitácoras o blogs como páginas que recopilan información y opiniones.

Incluso la organización de estos contenidos se ha adaptado a los nuevos usos. Los hipervínculos de las webs tradicionales se han multiplicado sin una referencia sistematizada mediante el uso de etiquetas que llevan a un punto u otro de la red. Este fenómeno se ha dado en llamar ‘Folksonomía’ y aún dará mucho que hablar dentro de la web 2.0.

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Legal Blog Watch

'Collaborative Law Per Se Unethical' This is the opinion of the Colorado Bar Association's ethics committee, and it is understandably generating controversy among legal bloggers. The opinion, Ethics Opinion 115: Ethical Considerations in the Collaborative and Cooperative Law Contexts, concludes: "[T]he practice of Collaborative Law violates Rule 1.7(b) of Colorado Rules of Professional Conduct insofar as a lawyer participating in the process enters into a contractual agreement with the opposing party requiring the lawyer to withdraw in the event that the process is unsuccessful. The Committee further concludes that pursuant to Colo.RPC 1.7(c) the client’s consent to waive this conflict cannot be validly obtained. Because Cooperative Law lacks the disqualification agreement found in Collaborative Law, the practice of Cooperative Law is not per se unethical. However, those participating in Cooperative Law face unique ethical issues and must be mindful of myriad potential ethical pitfalls." With the collaborative approach growing increasingly common, particularly in family law matters, the opinion is sure to have repercussions well beyond Colorado. The collaborative law approach calls for the parties and their lawyers to agree to negotiation without litigation. If the process breaks down and litigation is required, the lawyers must withdraw from the case and new lawyers brought in. Agreeing to this process, says the Colorado Bar, requires the lawyer "to impair his or her ability to represent the client." At Engaging Conflicts, Gini Nelson says the opinion may serve to promote cooperative law over collaborative law, given that the former lacks the required lawyer-disqualification agreement. But John Crouch at The Family Law News Blog sees the opinion as contrary to clients' rights: "In my opinion ... this ruling violates clients' right to hire the counsel of their choosing, and their freedom of contract. It treats clients like children. In the long run, it cannot stand. Divorce is a dismal business for most divorce clients, and collaborative law is the single biggest thing that has come along to offer serious hope of making divorce less harmful." In a later post, Crouch suggests that a way around this ethical stumbling block may be for only the clients to sign the collaboration agreement. At Legal Profession Blog, S. Alan Childress says he is not so sure that would satisfy the Colorado ethics committee. "Still," he writes, "it remains to be seen whether other states will view these agreements the same way, or whether the suggested solution of client-only agreements maintains the positives, structure, and binding power of collaborative law while passing ethical muster in various states." The opinion is dated Feb. 24, 2006, but commentators agree it was issued on Feb. 24, 2007. This appears to be correct, given that the opinion that preceded it in number was issued in October 2006. Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on March 12, 2007 at 02:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) High Court Clerks = Law Firm Trophies In her Washington Post piece yesterday, No Justice In These Pay Scales, Dahlia Lithwick questions the signing bonuses of at least $200,000 that elite law firms will pay this year to recruit Supreme Court law clerks. For the former law clerks, it makes for "an awful lot of Pottery Barn furniture," she writes, but it makes "the already puzzling economics of elite law firm cachet ... truly incomprehensible." Lithwick cites gossip blogger Davit Lat, of Abovethelaw.com, for calling these hires trophy purchases, "something for a firm to crow about," that stopped making economic sense several decimal points ago. This is particularly so, as Lithwick notes, given that Supreme Court ethics rules prohibit former clerks from participating "in any professional capacity in any case" before the court for two years after they leave. But what of the potential for compromise before these clerks leave the court? At his blog LawBeat, Mark Obbie poses what he labels the "real clerk-pay scandal": "[A]ren't they compromised in their SCOTUS jobs by the knowledge that in a few short months, some -- but only some -- of the lawyers before them will be ready and quite willing to shove bags of cash into their paws? Here we have clerks helping justices research and decide cases. Many of the cases come to the Court courtesy of one of these firms." Several former clerks tell Lithwick these megabonuses are not so wrong. The money gave them the freedom to pay off their loans and then teach or work for the government. But Justice Anthony M. Kennedy thinks otherwise. Last month, he told the Senate Judiciary Committee: "Something is wrong when a judge's law clerk, just one or two years out of law school, has a salary greater than that of the judge or justice he or she served the year before." Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on March 12, 2007 at 02:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) Sad Week for the Mass. High Court News yesterday of the death of Martha B. Sosman, associate justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, at 56, was not entirely unanticipated. She had been diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005 and last year was so ill that she watched oral arguments from her home via Webcasts. Justice Sosman's death came just three days after the death of Edward F. Hennessey, the SJC's former chief justice and a member of the court from 1971 to 1989. Justice Sosman's place in the history books may be marked by her role as dissenter in Goodridge v. Department of Health, the case that gave the green light to gay marriage in Massachusetts. In fact, a 2004 Boston Globe Magazine profile of her was titled, The Dissenter. That profile suggested that Sosman's position in Goodridge may leave her "on the wrong side of history." Maybe so, but she never lost the respect of lawyers in this state. The liberal Massachusetts blog Blue Mass. Group reflected the sentiment of many when it said yesterday, "We here at BMG may not have always agreed with her opinions. Nevertheless, the Commonwealth has lost a good citizen." Of course, Justice Sosman's career was distinguished by much more than her role in one judicial opinion. After five years as a lawyer at Foley, Hoag & Eliot in Boston, she became an Assistant U.S. Attorney in 1984. In 1986, then-U.S. Attorney William Weld appointed her as chief of his office's civil division. She remained there until 1989, when she became a founding member of Boston's first all-woman law firm, Kern, Sosman, Hagerty, Roach & Carpenter. (Another founder of that firm, M. Ellen Carpenter, died in December at the age of 52.) In 1993, she was named to the Superior Court. When she joined the SJC in 2000, she gave it its first-ever female majority. Said SJC Chief Justice Margaret Marshall yesterday: "Justice Sosman will be remembered as one of the great justices of the Supreme Judicial Court, despite her all too brief tenure on the court." Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on March 12, 2007 at 02:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) Officials in Dark About Right-to-Know Law This is Sunshine Week, a national campaign designed to focus attention on the importance of open government and freedom of information. To kick it off, a group of journalists and FOI advocates conducted a nationwide audit of public disclosure under one law -- one conveniently with the words "right-to-know" directly in the title: the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act. Not surprisingly, more than half the time, the auditors found their right to know met with a refusal to disclose. The law in question was enacted more than two decades ago, in the wake of the Bhopal chemical plant disaster. It requires every community to develop and make public a plan for action in cases of chemical or hazardous materials spills. But when reporters went to their local government officials and asked to see these Comprehensive Emergency Response Plans, they were met with an outright "no" more than a third of the time, and one in five provided only partial reports. Sometimes, their requests were even met with police action: "In some cases, officials ran background checks on citizen auditors or sent police to follow them. The highway patrol in one state even launched an 88-county alert seeking more information about one requester." Other requests resulted in demands for exorbitant copying and labor costs. One Maryland county demanded $1,714 -- with $1,200 paid up front. To give credit where it is due, 44 percent of the agencies released the full report. Some had already posted it online. One Iowa official expressed delight at receiving the request, saying: "We need more awareness on what to do during an incident for the safety of everyone." The full report is available through the Sunshine Week site. Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on March 12, 2007 at 02:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) Libby Guilty? She Seemed Like a Good Dog That was Matt Barr's reaction to the big legal news last week, as he writes in today's Blawg Review #99, hosted by the group blog Begging to Differ. He explains: "Though she lives with my ex-wife 700 miles away, Libby always seemed like a great dog." Even Barr concedes, though, that her photo sure makes her look like she's hiding something. As for Barr, he digs up some bones of contention himself as he sifts through the week's best from the blawgosphere. And the libertarian-leaning Barr sprinkles it all with a liberal dose of Libby. Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on March 12, 2007 at 02:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Saludos cordiales
RODRIGO GONZALEZ FERNANDEZ
CONSULTAJURIDICACHILE.BLOGSPOT.COM
Renato Sánchez 3586 dep 10
Santiago, Chile

¿'Japan: abortion law'?

'Japan: abortion law'
by Oi wan Lam

Joe from Multantfrog discusses about the abortion law in Japan. Its origin is related to the Eugenic Protection Act, which is to prevent the birth of progeny which are undesirable from a eugenic standpoint, while protecting the life and health of mothers.

You may view the latest post at
http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/03/12/japan-abortion-law/

Saludos cordiales
RODRIGO GONZALEZ FERNANDEZ
CONSULTAJURIDICACHILE.BLOGSPOT.COM
Renato Sánchez 3586 dep 10
Santiago, Chile

FRON LEGAL BLOG WATCH

Legal Blog Watch

Copyright Ruling Sounds the Death of 'Net Radio Will the March 2 decision of the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board raising royalty rates for Webcasts 30 percent mean the death of Internet radio? U.S. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., thinks so. As CNET News reports, he testified yesterday before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet that the CRB's decision "represents a body blow to many nascent Internet radio broadcasters." That is also the conclusion of the Radio and Internet Newsletter, which did the math and found that the royalties an Internet radio station would pay would easily exceed any revenues the station might bring in. Among bloggers, the decision likewise won no fans. Here is a sampling of what they are saying: Andrew Raff at IPTAblog:  "If the royalty rates are set so high that webcasters cannot afford to operate and pay artists, the webcast royalty pool may end up smaller than it is currently." Alan Wexelblat at Copyfight: "Nothing short of Congressional action is going to hale the Copyright Board's new rate structures." Erik J. Heels: "The Copyright Office's recent decision that Internet radio stations must pay higher royalty rates for music than broadcast radio stations is puzzling. The Copyright Office is propping up old broken technology (broadcast radio) at the expense of newer better technology (Internet radio)." William Patry at The Patry Copyright Blog: "The decision ... will, by the accounts within the industry, lead to the death of small, independent Internet radio. The noticeable swaying of these canaries before they die may also be a signal of the impending death of the present system of rate fixing, a system that has never worked, despite the expenditure of vast amounts of Congressional time on the issue and vast amounts of money by the affected parties." Bill Goldsmith at Save Our Internet Radio: "Crippling an exciting, groundbreaking industry like Internet radio is certainly not in the best interests of the public, nor that of musical artists, and not even - if history is any judge - of the music industry itself." Doug Isenberg at GigaLaw.com Daily News: "The board ignored the arguments of the International Webcasting Association and other webcasters, and apparently simply endorsed the proposal of the RIAA-associated SoundExchange royalty organization, which represents the major and some indie labels." Paul Fakler via Martin Schwimmer's The Trademark Blog: "It boggles the mind how a supposedly market-rate determination by the Copyright Royalty Board could end up with such a rate that no sane webcaster ever could have agreed to." Mike at Techdirt: The industry continues to think that it needs to do this because it wants to own all distribution and promotional avenues in order to be able to continue to take its large cut. However, that's no reason for the Copyright Royalty Board to put in place these artificial barriers that only serve to protect the recording industry's outdated understanding of its own business model. The rate-setting authority of the Copyright Royalty Board is governed by 17 U.S.C. section 112. Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on March 8, 2007 at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) Are Noncompetes the New SOX? A Financial Week article on the rise of noncompete litigation directed at top executives piqued Jay Shepherd of the blog Gruntled Employees to do some research. What he found was that, over the last decade, the number of published noncompete decisions in state and federal courts nationwide has doubled. In just the last two years, the number of decisions surged 37 percent. If that many noncompete cases are being decided in written opinions, he notes, then the number being filed has to be significantly greater. Why this surge in noncompete cases? One reason, Shepherd says, is the increasing number of employees who are signing noncompete agreements. Another is the fiercer competition for top-level talent. Whatever the reason, there is irony in these numbers, as Shepherd sees it. Many in-house counsel view their biggest employment-law concern as the rise in Sarbanes-Oxley whistleblower lawsuits. But given the numbers, perhaps they should reconsider, Shepherd suggests. "[C]ompare the number of cases filed under SOX's Section 806 (the only part of the Act that allows an individual to sue) with the noncompete statistics above. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, only 130 SOX whistleblower cases were decided in 2006. ... And while that number has risen over the four years since the Act was introduced, the number of those cases pales when compared to noncompetes." For Shepherd, the conclusion is this: "Maybe noncompetes are the new Sarbanes-Oxley whistleblower bogeyman." Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on March 8, 2007 at 12:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) Software Cited for Unauthorized Law Practice A recent decision from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals may be the first to cite a software program for the unauthorized practice of law. Entrepreneur Henry Ihejirika offered the so-called bankruptcy expert system through his company Frankfort Digital Services and a series of Web sites operating under the names 700law.com, Ziinet.com and others. Ziinet described the bankruptcy service this way: "Ziinet is an expert system and knows the law. Unlike most bankruptcy programs which are little more than customized word processors the Ziinet engine is an expert system. It knows bankruptcy laws right down to those applicable to the state in which you live. Now you no longer need to spend weeks studying bankruptcy laws." In 2002, Jayson Reynoso visited Ziinet, plunked down $219 and used the program to generate a complete set of Chapter 7 bankruptcy forms. But when he filed them, the trustee noticed errors in the petition. Upon questing Reynoso, he learned that the debtor had paid for the assistance of the artificial-intelligence program. The trustee brought an adversary proceeding against Ihejirika and his companies, alleging that the Web-based program had acted as a "bankruptcy petition preparer" in violation of the law and had engaged in the unauthorized practice of law. The bankruptcy court agreed, and the 9th Circuit, in a Feb. 27 decision, affirmed. "Frankfort’s system touted its offering of legal advice and projected an aura of expertise concerning bankruptcy petitions; and, in that context, it offered personalized -- albeit automated -- counsel. ... We find that because this was the conduct of a non-attorney, it constituted the unauthorized practice of law." As the Wired blog 27B Stroke 6 notes about the case, Ihejirika used a flesh-and-bones attorney for his defense. But Seth at QuizLaw raises an intriguing question: What if the software had first taken and passed the California bar exam? Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on March 8, 2007 at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Saludos cordiales
RODRIGO GONZALEZ FERNANDEZ
CONSULTAJURIDICACHILE.BLOGSPOT.COM
Renato Sánchez 3586 dep 10
Santiago, Chile

FROM GLOVAL VOICES

'South Asia: International Women's Day'
by Neha Viswanathan

Today is International Women's Day, and I've been poking my nose a bit to take a look at what the blogs have to say. A post on adhunika blog poses a question asking what the readers would want changed. While this other post doesn't mention Women's Day, adhunika blog talks of wedding related expenses for middle class Bangladeshis. As it is in most cultures, the bride's family has to have the deeper pockets.

My observation reveals that it is mostly women who are the show pieces of the extravagance at the weddings. The brides today have to have 5/6 layers on their neck, heavy earrings, their head covered in different gold items, arms full of bangles, mantashas and rotonchur’s. They are consciously or subconsciously in a contest with their friends or family in wedding expenses and the (often exaggerated) social status of their grooms.

scribble pad on the usual

anyhow. if you think im grumbling about all that, contrary to appearances, im not. i was steeling myself for the absolute inanities that i would inevitably hear about how women dont have those (insert every single very much still contemporary issue here) problems any more. and yaay, who just lost a bet with me? i sure did.

iFaqeer on women in Pakistan.

As I started to say above, even with all the attention focused on Pakistan and Muslims since 2001, these women demonstrate in all they say and do, and in how they say and do it, something no amount of ink--print or electronic--has been able to capture and convey. And that is that one can live in a dictatorship, one can be victimized in the most barbaric way, and yet, even in this day and age, stand up and speak truth to power, demand justice while continuing to have and draw strength from a very strong and personal faith (as Mukhtaran Mai does) and advocate strongly for things like human rights, civil society, and civil rights in the context of, and with respect for, faith, family, tradition, and values.

The Blank Noise Project asks contributors to talk about their experiences with Street Sexual Harassment.

This is an attempt to understand how different women ( across age groups/ cultures/ communities) have dealt with street sexual harassment in their everyday lives. Male bloggers are encouraged to share stories of women in their lives and how they have dealt with street sexual harassment.

Women across the Indian Blogosphere responded to this call by The Blank Noise Project and responded with their experiences. Twilight Fairy shares her thoughts on dealing with harassers. Falstaff makes an interesting point by saying "I'm constantly appalled by how much of what passes for feminism seems to focus almost entirely on establishing victimisation, while paying little or no attention to what can be done about it". My life, my words on why street sexual harassment is real problem.

I think it is very important. How many women would go to work if they could travel without fear and their fathers/husbands did not impose restrictions on their movements (of course, the fact that they impose restrictions is itself a problem)? How many women are likely to get a quality education when the centre of education - the university or the college - is away from home, perhaps, in another city?

As for me, after a particularly harrowing day, I am not feeling too international or womanly. But, regardless of your sex or gender, have a nice International Women's Day.

You may view the latest post at
http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/03/08/south-asia-international-womens-day/

Saludos cordiales
RODRIGO GONZALEZ FERNANDEZ

LAWYERSCHILE.BLOGSPOT.COM
CONSULTAJURIDICACHILE.BLOGSPOT.COM
Renato Sánchez 3586 dep 10
Santiago, Chile

from legal blog watch

Legal Blog Watch

Juror Blogs Complicate Trials The jury foreman wrote on his blog that the upcoming trial would require him to "listen to the local riff-raff try and convince me of their innocence." He was surprised that he was chosen for the jury, he wrote, given his strong beliefs about the police and God. None of that was enough for the trial judge -- or the New Hampshire Supreme Court -- to throw out the conviction, but, as the National Law Journal reports in an article to be published Monday, the case illustrates a new area of concern for lawyers in criminal and civil trials. Says Chester, N.H., lawyer Mark Sisti, who represented the defendant in the case: "It's the kind of stuff that scares you because you don't know what's going on. You don't know if the jurors are communicating via this type of media or device after they are released each day, you don't know what they are picking up. It's not TV or radio, this is a whole new medium." Many bloggers, the article suggests, decide for themselves not to blog about their jury duty, even absent instructions from the judge. But others, thanks to courthouse Internet access, blog live from the jury room. Clay S. Conrad, a Texas lawyer who writes the blog Jury Geek, told NLJ reporter Vesna Jaksic that blogging by jurors raises interesting questions. A juror is not supposed to discuss the case, he notes, but is blogging a discussion? Whether it is or not, he says, it could later produce evidence that a juror has prejudged the case. In the New Hampshire case, the Supreme Court found no error because the blogger's posts were not shared with his fellow jurors and because he assured the trial judge that he had followed his instructions once the jury was seated, as Molly McDonough reported in October in the ABA Journal eReport. But for lawyers, the moral of the story may be that here is yet another reason why they must understand and pay attention to blogging -- and ask about it in voir dire. Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on March 6, 2007 at 02:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) Many Lawyers Behind USPTO Pilot Lawyers and bloggers played roles in helping to launch the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's pilot project for public review of patent applications via the Internet. As Washington Post writer Alan Sipress reported yesterday, the USPTO pilot will allow some companies submitting patent applications to agree to have them reviewed via the Internet. It is called The Peer to Patent Project, and, as Law Blog noted yesterday, it has been spearheaded by New York Law School professor Beth Simone Noveck, director of the school's Institute for Information Law & Policy. A broad array of other lawyers and bloggers are serving as advisers to the project. The list includes Robert Barr, executive director of the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology; Dennis Crouch, author of the blog Patently-O; John Duffy, George Washington University law professor; Will Fitzpatrick, corporate counsel to the Omidyar Network; Alan Kaspar, partner at Sughrue Mion; Stephen Kunin, special counsel at Oblon Spivak; Mark Lemley, director of the Stanford Program in Law, Science and Technology; Michael V. Messinger, director of Sterne, Kessler Goldstein, & Fox; Gideon Parchomovsky, University of Pennsylvania Law School professor; Arti K. Rai, Duke University Law School professor; and Steven  S. Weiner, partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell. The USPTO even consulted CmdrTaco, the founder of Slashdot, according to Wired News. The pilot project is an interesting idea, says ProfessorBainbridge, one that other administrative agencies might emulate. He writes: "For example, like all other federal agencies, the SEC currently invites public comments on rulemaking proceedings, but lacks the community rating system. Given the widely available technology for creating such a system, however, there's no reason why the SEC couldn't follow in the PTO's footsteps. Comments by respected securities law academics (ahem) presumably would get pushed up, while duplicate astroturf comments presumably get pushed down. Or maybe not, as we might see astroturf campaigns to affect the ratings. Yet, it seems a worthwhile experiment." Follow the project's progress through its blog.  Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on March 6, 2007 at 02:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) SOX: Unintended Consequences for Laywers Norm Pattis was the first to raise the red flag. On Feb. 16 at his blog Crime & Federalism, he noted the indictment of a Connecticut lawyer "in what appears to be a test case of a Sarbanes-Oxley amendment to the federal criminal code." The indictment, announced Feb. 16 by Connecticut U.S. Attorney Kevin J. O'Connor and reported the same day in the Hartford Courant, charged Greenwich lawyer Philip D. Russell with obstructing justice and destroying evidence concerning child pornography. The government alleges that Russell destroyed a church computer allegedly containing child porn downloaded by a church employee. What made the charge novel was the government's use in this child-porn probe of a law designed to target corporate wrongdoing. As Pattis explained then: "Russell ... has been charged with violating 18 U.S.C. Section 1519. That provision makes it a crime to tamper with potential evidence in 'contemplation' of a federal investigation. Unlike pre-Sarbanes-Oxley tampering statutes, there need not be an investigation in place or even imminent as a predicate for prosecution. The statute appears to criminalize what was once considered prudence by defense counsel. The mens rea for such crimes is now virtually limitless." With a new report this week by Associated Press writer John Christoffersen, Arrest Sparks Worries over Implications of Corporate Law, the case is attracting even wider attention. Christoffersen writes: "The arrest of a prominent attorney on charges of destroying evidence in a child pornography investigation is raising alarm bells that a law targeting corporate accounting schemes could be used to prosecute lawyers over work done on their clients' behalf." He quotes New York University law professor Stephen Gillers, who says: "Every criminal defense lawyer in the country has to be alarmed at the indictment. It's going to upset a lot of assumptions about how lawyers can represent clients. I think this is a boundary-pushing case." And in the Stamford Advocate, reporter Martin B. Cassidy says the case could become a landmark test of SOX and could set a precedent making criminal defense lawyers vulnerable to federal charges. He quotes Mark DuBois, chief disciplinary counsel for the Connecticut Bar Association, who says: "The question is what's evidence and when does something become evidence? How prescient does a lawyer need to be? Now if you guess wrong you've got big problems, because it is a serious crime." Pattis says the charges raise many questions for which he has no answers. "Once again, the law of unintended consequences results in overcriminalization: A law designed to prevent accountants and lawyers from shredding forms has become a tool in child pornography prosecutions. No one will care much about that. But what happens tonight if you find cocaine in your child's bedroom?" Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on March 6, 2007 at 02:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Saludos cordiales
RODRIGO GONZALEZ FERNANDEZ
CONSULTAJURIDICACHILE.BLOGSPOT.COM
Renato Sánchez 3586 dep 10
Santiago, Chile

RODRIGO GONZALEZ FERNANDEZ, SANTIAGO CHILE.

RODRIGO GONZALEZ FERNANDEZ, EN LA ACTUALIDAD DIRIGE DESDE SANTIAGO DE CHILE 46 BLOGS TEMÁTICOS EN LA RED

Va  cubriendo areas muy interesantes como blogempresa, derechoshumanos, vinos, agricultura, mineria , biocombustibles, energía nuclear, OTEC-chile  ( blog privado) ; tabaquismos21, librocomentarios; lawyerschile; derechovirtual; observatoriopolitico; corrupcionchile, defensorpueblo, COLECCIONISMO , chileportal , lobby, teletrabajorg ,blogs y empresas.; cursosycharlas; etc. etc.

En el caso de consultajurdicachile.blogspot.com hoy ya  tiene 2632 entradas a las que hay que agregar otras 2500 entradas de un blog anterior que no se ha podido actualizar más por deficiencias en blogger.com, lo que gace un total de 5.162 entradas . Esto es una cifra muy importante digna de destacar.

Entonces, Rodrigo González Fernández, se ha transformado en un referente noticioso en la blogosfera nacional e internacional  y ha señalado que el objeto es reunir informacion  DE CALIDAD Y CLASIFICADA DE LAS MEJORES FUENTES y opinión en los diversos temas , para luego dictar charlas, cursos, talleres en empresas, organizaciones en Chile y el extranjero.

 

LA ORGANIZACION

SANTIAGO - CHILE

 

 

 

Personal brand: How to be the reference lawyer

Personal brand: How to be the reference lawyer

by Francesc Dominguez

Question by David Schwaninger, lawyer of Küng Rechtsanwälte (Zurich, Switzerland)

 

What distinguishes an excellent lawyer from the rest? His image in the marketplace. Talent alone is not enough. Perception decides. It attracts new clients to you or drives them away. You probably know cases of qualified lawyers who do not have access to specific business, even their own clients’… Seek the motive in the client’s perception of you.

If you want to leverage opportunities, manage your personal brand, your image in the marketplace, with care.

Keys to successful personal brand

1. Be specialized. Increasingly more clients are seeking specialists. Specialisation will be a way for you to be more efficient, gain calm and be likelier to be the reference in your target market. Focus on knowing what clients consider is valuable. Make sure they realize that you understand and worry about their problem. It is the best way to gain their confidence. Choose your clients and find out how to attract them. If you wait for them to come to your office, you will let your clients define your professional life. You will lose opportunities.

2. Know yourself. Be honest: define your identity on the basis of what you are, not on what you believe clients expect of you. Know and take advantage of your virtues. Identify your main values. They will carry you to success if they are compatible with those of your clients and office partners. Be flexible and creative with them. Brands communicate and sell values, personalities that clients can relate to. Harmonize your brand with your values. Do not be afraid to find out what image your partners have of you. Ask them for feedback on your work (virtues and aspects to improve). Ask them to describe you in two words. Define yourself in two words also. You will know the best selling points of your brand. Then work on them and they will make you stand out in the crowd.

3. Improve. Gain self-esteem. Be aware that you are the best option for your clients. Give and you will eventually receive. Make promises that you can keep. Ask the key question: “What do I want?” This question will guide you to obtain results. Find answers to other questions as well, such as: “What do I do better than other lawyers? “How do I stand out?”, “Do clients value it?”, “Why should clients hire me rather than other lawyers?” Take care of details with clients. They are essential. In my case, for example, I see or call each client at least once a week.

4. Strategy. Plan an easy, but systematic and consistent, personal brand strategy. Know what direction you want for your professional life and define positive objectives to reach it.

5. Projects. Get focussed on projects. Delegate or outsource tasks as much as you can. Make the most of your time: concentrate on two or three exciting projects per year. You will gain knowledge and market value. A project could be a legal practice from a small city that also specialises and stands out from all the other practices that do not specialise. Another project could be the opening of a permanent office in a foreign country.

6. Visibility. Carry out very selective activities in order to promote your credibility and prestige. It is a type of activity you can do regardless of the geographical location or the size of your law firm. For example:

— Publish a brief book with a prestigious publisher for potential clients. For example, I got a book published for a client who had the smallest office, a solo lawyer who knows how to work with alliances. It is an innovative book, published with one of the most prestigious publishing houses in his country, targeting potential clients of the lawyer. At first, the client doubted that a prestigious publishing house could publish a book by him, an individual office. This is why he had never published books or articles with a major publishing house.

— Chat on prestigious forums, if possible without sharing space (competence) with other professionals.

— Take an important position with communication potential in an organization where you can further develop your communication skills.

— Establish effective alliances with other professionals or law offices.

— Take advantage of contacts. There is an evident difference between client cards that merely occupy space in a card case and client cards that actually create business opportunities.

7. Communicate well. When communicating, try to concentrate on a single idea. Explain yourself concisely: five seconds will suffice to tell the client the benefits he can receive from you. My brand promise, for example, is “competitiveness for professional services”. Support your brand promise with different arguments.

8. Coherence. Make sure that your objectives, strategy, actions and conduct are consistent with each other and with your own values.

9. Persistence. To obtain a powerful personal brand you will need to have clear ideas, determination and perseverance.

10. Act. Move from thought to action.

 

© 2006, Francesc Dominguez, Marketing Consultant, co-Author of the book El marketing jurídico [Law Marketing}. www.francescdominguez.com. Advice page published in Economist & Jurist (December 2006-January 2007).

Saludos cordiales
RODRIGO GONZALEZ FERNANDEZ
CONSULTAJURIDICACHILE.BLOGSPOT.COM
Renato Sánchez 3586 dep 10
Santiago, Chile