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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.
The Art of Advising Clients
The author provides 24 keys insights to properly advising clients in an ethical manner.
Conflicts of Interest - Who's 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).
Counseling: Driving a Client to Clarity
The legal relationship between the lawyer and client and the working relationship between the lawyer and client involves a number of issues and dynamics. The purpose of this paper is twofold. FIRST, to address why it is important for both the client and lawyer to have the same clear understanding of what it is the client needs and what the lawyer must do to meet those needs. SECOND, how can a lawyer go about achieving mutual clarity? Three very important areas that both the client and the lawyer should have the same clear understanding of are: A. the facts, B. what the client actually needs, and C. the what, when, and cost of services the lawyer is to provide.
The Cloud — With Enough PUC, UCC, CPE, M&A, AAPl, D/T And EU Law To Advise Clients And Draft an Engagement Letter
This paper begins with an identification of some ethical issues that require or encourage greater technical skills for attorneys. After a brief introduction to technology applications, the technology is applied to both real and hypothetical examples of arising from both common business practices and legal ethics.
Ethical Issues Associated with Law Firm Acquisitions and Movement of Lawyers: How to Resolve the Ethical Issues Between Confidentiality and Conflict of Interest Rules
Law firm acquisitions and matters related to the movement of lawyers from one law firm to another law firm generate difficult ethical issues on which all parties to the movement of lawyers between firms must pay attention. The purpose of this article is to assist Texas lawyers in the identification and resolution of the potential dilemma between the ethical rules related to confidential information and the ethical rules related to the avoidance of conflicts of interest.
How Texas Lawyers Can Use Social Media Without Violating Ethics Rules
First, the bad news. The Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct that apply to use of social media are poorly written, ambiguous, byzantine, and potentially onerous. And of course, they were not written with the use of social media in mind. But there is good news. The Texas State Bar Advertising Review Committee has provided helpful interpretive comments that put some common sense back into the ethics rules. With the help of those comments and a few simple rules of thumb, you can use social media as part of your business development efforts without fear of violating the Texas ethics rules.
Ethical Issues Associated With Law Firm Acquisitions: How to Resolve the Ethical Issues Between Confidentiality and Conflict of Interest Rules
Law firm acquisitions and matters related to the movement of lawyers from one law firm to another law firm generate difficult ethical issues on which all parties to the movement of lawyers between firms must pay attention. The purpose of this article is to assist Texas lawyers in the identification and resolution of the potential dilemma between the ethical rules related to confidential information and the ethical rules related to the avoidance of conflicts of interest.
Social Media and Attorney Advertising
Seemingly light years removed from the mid-tolate 1960’s when engineers’ standard dress code was synonymous with a white or translucent pocket protector and a belt-hanging sliderule, to the late 1970’s and early 1980’s when an esoteric commanddriven cumbersome, elusive Internet-precursor was used virtually exclusively by hardcore technophiles affectionately deemed to be “nerds” or “geeks,” to the availability to the public at-large to such pedestrian platforms as CompuServe and America Online (“AOL”) in the late 1980’s throughout the 1990’s, to the modern-day graphically-interfaced Internet led by Yahoo, Amazon and then Google, has developed into a profoundly useful, friendly and globally informative platform for facilitating electronic communications that boast the capability of traversing virtually unlimited time and geographic boundaries. In the 2000’s LinkedIn emerged as a networking medium focusing on business professionals who sought to establish multifaceted productive connections that promoted business and related interests. Contemporaneously, MySpace launched as a vehicle having broad social and cultural appeal to a diverse adult population. Then, with the advent of the mid2000’s, Facebook appeared and continually dominated the social media marketplace which grew exponentially. As social media also known as “social networking” became the order of the day ― each and every minute of each day ― the population of users grew even more and indeed continues to grow apace, augmented and enriched with such platforms as Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, Tumblr, Instagram, Flickr, YouTube, etc. What next?
Practical Ethics for the Business Lawyer: the Top 20 Country Countdown with Practical Tips and Forms for Ethical Compliance
It is easy to postpone your own legal needs when demanding clients (and hopefully paying clients) are fighting for your attention. Procrastination, I believe, is the main reason lawyers sometimes fail to use their skills to draft an effective letters and agreements for their own use within their practice. It is often a matter of the shoemaker’s children having no shoes. For the next few minutes, I am asking that you focus your attention on your own legal needs within your practice. So, how does an attorney draft an effective and ethical engagement agreement? And when are written disclosures needed? Obviously, any engagement agreement or disclosure must be tailor-made for the circumstances. However, it is extremely helpful to have a basic form engagement agreement with optional provisions that are required in anticipated special circumstances. This is also true with regard to disclosure letters.
Related Ethical Opinions
Under the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct, may a lawyer communicate confidential information by email?
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.
The Risks of Cloud Computing
Although storing and manipulating data on remote servers via the Internet is not a new technology, it has recently been refashioned into a new service offering, generally referred to as “cloud computing.” The pervasive use of cloud computing presents new challenges to lawyers, their clients, and to forensic examiners. For lawyers and clients alike, cloud computing offers many economic benefits. However, recent state legislation and current disciplinary rules impose a duty on the lawyer to maintain the security and the integrity of information stored on the cloud. Lawyers also need to counsel their clients to ensure that their contracts for cloud-based services do not unnecessarily put the client at risk. For forensic examiners, new tools and procedures are needed to identify, collect, preserve, analyze and present electronically stored information (“ESI”) that is not within the control of the data custodian. This paper presents identifies various issues related to cloud computing, such as benefits, security, e-discovery, forensics, service contracting and the like.
Before the Cloud Turns Dark and It Begins to Rain
This paper begins with an identification of the ethical issues that require greater awareness and operating skill for attorneys. This requirement then leads to both real and hypothetical examples of technology’s impact on legal ethics and business practices in the legal industry. An overview of the Cloud computing industry follows with discussion of the range of services available through the Cloud. This paper then explores statutory protections and failings, contractual provisions, and case law uncertainty in identifying and protecting interests of Cloud providers, landlords to Cloud providers, lenders to every enterprise associated with the location and equipment used in the Cloud, Cloud consumers, Cloud consumer’s clients, software vendors, and the role attorneys take in representing these parties. This paper concludes with an examination of ethical issues facing attorneys and other professionals in their representation of clients and their firms’ own use of the Cloud.
Law Firms and Trade Names: Making Sense of the Opinions of the Professional Ethics Committee for the State Bar of Texas
Is there a question that needs an answer? Most law firms are practicing along and everything is working. So, what is the issue? Trade names are the issue! Why are trade names an issue? What is a trade name? Most law firms use two, three or four names, which are sometimes followed by initials, such as P.C., PLLC, or L.LP. Not to single out anyone in particular, but are the names of the law firm participants in today’s program “trade names”? The answer to that question is up in the air if you look at the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct (sometimes referred to in this paper as the “Rule” or “Rules”), consider the opinions issued by the Professional Ethics Committee for the State Bar of Texas (referred to in this paper as the “Ethics Committee” or the “Committee”) and consider a few of the cases on the subject.
How to Resolve the Ethical Issues Between Confidentiality and Conflict of Interest Rules
Law firm acquisitions and matters related to the movement of lawyers from one law firm to another law firm generate difficult ethical issues on which all parties to the movement of lawyers between firms must pay attention. The purpose of this article is to assist Texas lawyers in the identification and resolution of the potential dilemma between the ethical rules related to confidential information and the ethical rules related to the avoidance of conflicts of interest.
Keeping Client Data and Your Law License Secure
The practice of law has changed dramatically since the days of carbon paper, fax machines, and dusty libraries. Today, an attorney’s computer contains everything needed to manage a law firm’s entire business including the confidential and proprietary data of the firm and its clients, the equivalent of complete file rooms and libraries of documents and data. With laptops, attorneys travel everywhere with thousands of file drawers of information. Unfortunately, power and portability provide opportunities for loss of client data. This article will highlight the facts and figures of data breaches, the data and information impacted, the ethics and attorney duties to protect the information, the penalties for disclosure, and some practical tips on protecting the information.
A Rubik's Cube of Ethical Dilemmas Faced by General and Corporate Counsels
Ethics and the resolution of ethical dilemmas have been, and continue to, an area of indelible and deep interest to me. This focus of ethics and the related dilemmas has been with me since I was a child, as a Certified Public Accountant, and in all the roles in which I have been involved, personally and professionally. As Vice President and Associate General Counsel at JPMorgan, I was a member of the Global Conflict of Interest Committee for JPMorgan and I was the Committee’s representative in Texas. The first article that I penned for the Houston Bar Association when I was featured as “Profile in Professionalism” was centered on the subject matter of ethics and the ethical duties of an attorney. Basically, thought the subject matter of the many articles that I have written for the Texas Lawyer is not directly on ethics, the theme within those articles on diversity and inclusion is squarely about “doing the right and ethical thing.”
Ethics of Multiple Party Representation 2011: After the Referendum - Now What?
Conflict of interest rules derive from the need to protect client confidences and assure clients of the lawyer’s loyalty. Conflict of interest rules reflect competing concerns: • Undivided loyalty of lawyer to client. • Enhance effectiveness of legal representation. • Safeguarding of client information. • Avoid lawyers exploiting clients. • Protect legal system goal of adequate presentation to tribunals and avoid compromising adversary system. The migration of lawyers from one firm to another firm is pertinent to consideration of representation of multiple parties.