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Ethical Issues in M&A Transactions
These are the slides for the presentation.
If Your Law Firm Was a Product: Automation, Customer Interviews, and Who’s Your Competition
Many of the world’s greatest cities are clamoring to be the next Silicon Valley; touting themselves as Silicon Roundabout (London), Silicon Hills (Austin), or my personal favorite Philicon Valley (Philadelphia). Each region is trying to capture the spirit of innovation to further its economic growth and competitiveness in a global market. This article endeavors to make law firms competitive not only against other firms but against other technologies. It explores customer discovery and evaluates law firms through the lens of product management. What is a law firm’s product? Is it contracts drafted? Advice given? Kinda both, but also kind of neither. “[A]product is something that can be marketed to customers because it provides them with a benefit and satisfies a need.”3A client wants a contract, not just to have a piece of paper with some legalese on it, but to protect themselves or effect a sale. The benefit to the client is the hope of the purchase contract or the decrease in anxiety to know that they have limited their liabilities. Advising a client to settle a case is only a benefit if the client understands that they are saving significantly more money than if they hadn’t settled.Now that you understand what a product is, this article will talk about ways to improve your current product through customer discovery and competitive analysis. We’ll also sprinkle in some tech you should know about too.
Ethics of Contract Drafting and Negotiation
Any time a lawyer negotiates or drafts a contract there are at least six ethical concepts in play which apply to your duties to the client under the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct. The attorney's duty to read the draft contract is excused when there is fraud or mistake. Nevertheless. as a matter of preventive law, the attorney should review the contract- perhaps with the help of a computer program- before it is signed. Also, the attorney should provide the client with an opportunity to review it. Not only can review by a second set of eyes be helpful in detecting problems, but if the attorney victimized by these situations faces a client's malpractice claim, it will be helpful if the attorney gave the client an adequate opportunity to review the contract, for most of the problems could be detected (or at least questioned) by the review of a layperson.
Conflicts of Interest: Who's Your Client?
In the same way emergency room doctors and nurses are simply more effective in treating their trauma patients if they are not, themselves, vicariously wounded, so are attorneys most effective when they are able to retain a certain professional detachment from the trials and tribulations of their clients – serving their best interests, of course, but never actually becoming one of the adversaries, per se, in the legal conflict. In exchange for this professional immunity from the struggles our clients and their adversaries must endure, society demands of all attorneys, through well-settled rules we will be talking about below, certain minimum standards of conduct.
The Prevalence of Substance Abuse and Other Mental Health Concerns Among Attorneys
The Prevalence of Substance Use and Other Mental Health Concerns Among American Attorneys. The study measured the prevalence of these concerns among licensed attorneys, their utilization of treatment services, and what barriers existed between them and the services they may need. Substantial rates of behavioral health problems were found, with 20.6% screening positive for hazardous, harmful, and potentially alcohol-dependent drinking.
Resilience Training: Performance and Interpersonal Management Skills For a Better Practice...And a Better Life
There is a reason that there are no company mottos that tell you to go out and have a sucky day. There is a reason that you tell someone to “Be Careful” instead of “Don’t have a wreck”. Humans subconsciously listen to the message and hear the main words as in this example, “careful” and “wreck”. Humans are driven through their unconscious mind, which is incapable of absorbing the negative “don’t”. For example: Hold your coffee is absorbed in the unconscious mind, don’t drop your coffee, don’t spill your coffee, and don’t burn yourself on hot coffee is incapable of reaching the unconscious mind.
Structuring Law Firm Organizations and Related Ethics Issues
This paper reviews the four principal forms of business entities used by Texas lawyers to organize themselves, along with eight informal sets of relationships that are being used in daily law practice to varying degrees. This paper is not intended as a complete analysis of choice of entity matters. There are ample materials elsewhere, indeed entire books, that consider the legal and tax implications of choosing one entity over another. The goal of the authors is to survey the four principal business entities and the eight informal relationships and highlight selected issues, and the liability and ethics implications that they present.
Impact On International Commercial Law Practices by the New Ethics of Human Rights
This paper first outlines the case for why the State Bar of Texas and those Texas lawyers who practice law on international matters should act on the international human rights issue. Second, the paper addresses where the Texas Bar and its members are today when confronted with very real human rights violations in the context of our international legal practices. Finally, the paper proposes a course of action for how we in Texas take the lead on this issue.
Conflict of Interest: Who is Your Client
What is a "conflict of interest," and why is everyone so hyper about it? Licensed lawyers are given some very special powers. When we become attorneys, we become officers of the courts of the state granting the license and of the courts affirmatively “admitting” us to their respective bars pursuant to that license (e.g., federal courts).
Conflicts of Interest - Who's Your Client? - Advice to Corporate Counsel
These are the presentation slides.
Conflict of Interest: Who is Your Client
What is a "conflict of interest," and why is everyone so hyper about it? Licensed lawyers are given some very special powers. When we become attorneys, we become officers of the courts of the state granting the license and of the courts affirmatively “admitting” us to their respective bars pursuant to that license (e.g., federal courts).
Conflicts of Interest - Who's Your Client? - Advice to Corporate Counsel
These are the presentation slides.
Ethics of Multiple Party Representation 2011: After the Referendum - Now What?
Ethics & Liability Issues Arising from Representing Multiple Parties
Ethics of Multiple Party Representation 2011: After the Referendum - Now What?
Ethics & Liability Issues Arising from Representing Multiple Parties
Ethics of Multiple Party Representation 2011: After the Referendum - Now What?
Conflicts, Contracts, and Costs: A Quick Ethics Update on Critical Law Practice Considerations
This presentation is intended to remind lawyers of their duties in three critical areas that affect a great majority of practicing attorneys. Those areas are: 1. A short reminder of our responsibility to analyze the rules regarding conflicts of interest and either avoid or resolve conflicts as they arise; 2. A reminder how lawyers can be protected by appropriately documenting files, including a solid attorney-client contract, outlining the expectations of both the attorney and the client throughout the representation, as well as closing letters; and 3. Keeping your law offices running smoothly and efficiently by choosing the right equipment and procedures for serving clients, maximizing your talents, and protecting yourself.
Emerging Standards of Technical Competence
by Ronald L. Chichester. Presented at the Advanced Evidence & Discovery Conference in San Antonio, 2016.
Ethics in Evolving Compliance Requirements CLE
CLE discussing implications of anti-money laundering laws for lawyers. As part of the CLE, we discuss the questions and issues related to a DAO as a client, the potential for the SEC to add blockchain/private network address keys to the OFAC search list and the WY law allows for a shareholder to be identified by a private network address key.
Fall, 2014
Includes articles on: "Texas Supreme Court’s Recent Shareholder Oppression Opinions Reaffirm Primacy of Common Law Fiduciary Duties Under Gearhart" by Byron Egan and Michael L. Laussade; "Texas Pattern Jury Charge on Trade Secret Misappropriation Near Completion" by Joe Cleveland; "What Happened to TrueCrypt?" by Ron Chichester; and "Judicial CLE Committee Update: Helping Strengthen Texas" by Evan Young.
Fall, 2015
Includes articles the 84th Session of the Texas Legislature, specifically: "2015 Texas Legislative Update on Entity Law" by Daryl Robertson; "A Series LLC Is Now Included Under The Texas UCC’s Definition Of Person, Removing Uncertainty For Secured Lending Transactions" by James Leeland; "Power of Attorney Bill (HB 3095)" by Jacqueline Akins. There were two non-legislative articles as well, including: "Confidentiality of Email – The Changing Consensus" by Ronald Chichester; and "Texas Crowdfunding Portals Provide Texas Businesses New Access to Investment Dollars" by R. Jason Pierce.
Fall, 2015
Includes articles the 84th Session of the Texas Legislature, specifically: "2015 Texas Legislative Update on Entity Law" by Daryl Robertson; "A Series LLC Is Now Included Under The Texas UCC’s Definition Of Person, Removing Uncertainty For Secured Lending Transactions" by James Leeland; "Power of Attorney Bill (HB 3095)" by Jacqueline Akins. There were two non-legislative articles as well, including: "Confidentiality of Email – The Changing Consensus" by Ronald Chichester; and "Texas Crowdfunding Portals Provide Texas Businesses New Access to Investment Dollars" by R. Jason Pierce.
Fall, 2014
Includes articles on: "Texas Supreme Court’s Recent Shareholder Oppression Opinions Reaffirm Primacy of Common Law Fiduciary Duties Under Gearhart" by Byron Egan and Michael L. Laussade; "Texas Pattern Jury Charge on Trade Secret Misappropriation Near Completion" by Joe Cleveland; "What Happened to TrueCrypt?" by Ron Chichester; and "Judicial CLE Committee Update: Helping Strengthen Texas" by Evan Young.
Who Is (or Are) Your Client(s)?
Representing the Majority Equity Holder and The Entity. This is Part One of a multi-part series.