Sunday, February 04, 2007 7:23 AM
Dan Markel at PrawfsBlawg (which has one of the better taglines in the blawgosphere, by the way: "Where Intellectual Honesty Has (Almost Always) Trumped Partisanship Since 2005") asked What are punitive damages for? His question, and subsequent commentary, centered on ...a plaintiff who, after being awarded $7.5 million in compensatory damages in a wrongful death suit, decided to forego further pursuit of punitive damages against the defendant, whose carwash killed the plaintiff's wife.
Lexblog's Kevin O'Keefe, in the post Lawyers.com blogs are here : Will they work?, pointed out that
LexisNexis confirmed this morning that blogs are an effective marketing tool for lawyers with the introduction of their Martindale-Hubbell Lawyers.com's blog product. It had been long rumored this product was in the works.
It will be interesting to see how this project plays out for Lawyers.com.
You can also read the full Lawyers.com post and announcement here: New! Law Blogs on Lawyers.com.
Eric Turkewitz at New York Personal Injury Law Blog noted Major Law Firms Ignoring New York's Ethics Rule on Advertising: Despite New York's new attorney disciplinary rules on advertising going into effect today, and despite months of discussion, most major law firms have apparently failed to comply. Mr. Turkewitz expanded on this finding in his post; click above to read the whole story.
In a related story, Ben Glass at Effective, Ethical Marketing For Attorneys posted on the First Lawsuit Challenging New York's New Advertising Rules.
Mike Dillon, General Counsel at Sun Microsystems, offered Our (real) hiring profile. In his post, Mr. Dillon talked about the legal intern program at Sun, and both the quality and diversity of people that had been hired recently.
And, the talent coming out of law schools today is truly impressive. While graduating from top schools with strong a GPA is important; to me, a better indicator of success is "real life" experience. We can train people on the technical side of our practice, but, it's much more difficult to teach them the "soft" skills, things like - communication, collaboration, intellectual curiosity, initiative and leadership. Last year, the interns we hired included:
a former HR manager who speaks 4 languages;
a couple of experienced Java programmers, including one who had previously started his own company;
a student who had already passed the patent bar and had several issued patents; and
an accomplished musician who had spent several years working for the Nepalese government (and who, in his spare time, had summited Everest).
Monica Bay at The Common Scold said simply WOW! IT'S OVER! and offered her observations on this year's LegalTech NY. You can get the rundown at the link above.
Staying in the technology world for a moment, Ben Stevens at The Mac Lawyer reported Mac User Switches to Vista -- Or Does He?. In his post, Mr. Stevens pointed to a recent worthwhile story: Reporter Joe Hutsko conducted an experiment to write a story for anyone considering switching from Mac to PC in the wake of the release of Vista, Microsoft's new operating system.
David Canton at eLegal Canton asked the million dollar question: Should business run out and get Vista? I won't spoil it for you, read his post.
Robert H. Bork at Legal PRBlawg reported from The 2007 General Counsel Conference about the First 72 Hours of a Government Investigation
George J. Terwilliger III of White & Case, who co-chaired the conference, made a gaggle of good points a few of which are relevant to readers of this blawg:
- Critical decisions will be made very early in the case and decide the outcome
- Assess potential liabilities and people who can visit them upon you so that you target your responses appropriately
- Harmonize legal and PR messages
- Guard your credibility as if your company’s life depends on it
Tom Collins at More Partner Income looked at Part-Time vs. Full-Time Law Firm Management:
If the firm is where it wants to be from a strategic and size point of view, part time management may fit the bill perfectly. As a firm grows, however, it will become increasingly important that the organization has capable people heading up its functional areas—accounting, administration, and technology.
For a firm committed to an aggressive growth strategy or undergoing significant change, having a part time CEO falls short of what is needed to succeed and avoid missteps that could endanger the firm.
Click Mr. Collins' post link above to get his full analysis and commentary on this subject.
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And, finally, on a lighter note and perhaps the perfect ending for this week's Sunday Paper, IP Funny pointed out, in the post Blue Patents, that, yes, someone is writing a patent blog focused strictly on adults-only patent listings, the aptly named x-ratedpatents.com
Have a great Sunday...