Business of Law

Expert Analysis

• DACA Ruling Raises Bar For Assertions Of Agency Deference

  

  The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in U.S. Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California, blocking termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, is the latest in a line of rulings that refuse deference where an agency fails to follow Administrative Procedure Act rulemaking procedures, say Robert Wanerman and Stuart Gerson at Epstein Becker.

• Opinion

  Attys Should Stop Using 2 Common Cannabis Industry Terms

  

  Adopting the industry-preferred alternatives to the terms "marijuana" and "black market" will help lawyers show that they are sensitive to the historical and systemic harm done by the war on drugs to people of color, say Joshua Mandell at Akerman, Nicole Phillis at Davis Wright and consultant Yvette McDowell.

• Opinion

  Let's Create An Ethical Obligation For Attys To Fight Racism

  

  In this moment of national recognition of historical institutional racism, the American Bar Association must implement a model rule that explicitly declares efforts to fight racism and advance equality to be a matter of attorneys' ethics and professional conduct, say Marc Firestone at Philip Morris International and David Douglass at Sheppard Mullin.

• 6 Considerations When Shopping For Legal Tech Software

  

  When evaluating the vast range of legal technology options available today, law firms will want to make sure that firm intellectual property and client data stored in the software are encrypted, isolated, protected through backups and in compliance with the ever-growing list of data regulations, say Eric Tucker and Dorna Moini at Documate.

• Berman Ouster May Not Be The End Of SDNY Drama This Year

  

  While the dust appears to have settled after the surreal departure of U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman from the Southern District of New York last month, the interim tenure of Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss bears close watch in this fraught moment leading up to the presidential election, say Danya Perry and Samidh Guha at Perry Guha.

• Law Firm Strategies For Publicizing Laterals Amid Lockdowns

  

  With business development dinners and social events no longer viable for new lateral hires, law firms need a refreshed game plan — one that fully exploits the digital landscape, say Andrew Longstreth and Jesse Dungan at Infinite Global and Michael Coston at Coston Consulting.

• RPM Internal Probe Case Brings Privilege Lessons For Attys

  

  A little-noticed case working its way through the D.C. federal courts — U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission v. RPM — could limit attorney-client and work-product protections in the context of internal investigations and should serve as a cautionary lesson for counsel sharing information with independent auditors, say Matthew Sloan and Danielle Dankner at Skadden.

• Are Your Slack Communications Primed For E-Discovery?

  

  With the increasing use of channel-based platforms such as Slack, Messenger and Teams in the work-from-home era, companies should assume they may be compelled to produce channel-based data in litigation and take proactive steps to protect sensitive information, say Jessica Brown and Collin James Vierra at Gibson Dunn.

• 6 Dispute Prevention Steps As Lawsuits Rise Amid Pandemic

  

  With the inundation of lawsuits resulting from the pandemic, now is an opportune time for companies and their advisers to implement prevention measures explicitly designed to break the dispute cycle early and to de-escalate possible legal actions as they form, says arbitrator and mediator Janice Sperow.

• Opinion

  Time To Consider Percentage Rental Agreements For Lawyers

  

  It has long been the law that attorneys cannot use percentage rental agreements because doing so would constitute an impermissible sharing of fees with nonlawyers, but such arrangements can help lawyers match expenses with revenues in lean times like now, say Peter Jarvis and Trisha Thompson at Holland & Knight.

• 'Settle And Sue' Malpractice Cases Have New Clarity In Calif.

  

  A California state appellate court's recent decision in Masellis v. Law Office of Leslie F. Jensen provides a road map for proving causation and damages in settle-and-sue legal malpractice cases — an important issue of long-standing confusion, says Steven Berenson at Klinedinst.

• What You Say In Online Mediation May Be Discoverable

  

  Mediation conducted online with participants in different states makes it harder to determine where communications were made, increasing the risk that courts will apply laws of a state that does not protect mediation confidentiality, say mediators Jeff Kichaven and Teresa Frisbie and law student Tyler Codina.

• Opinion

  Texas Should Cancel Its 2020 Bar Exam

  

  An in-person bar exam in July would pose unacceptable health risks and put applicants at an unfair disadvantage, so the Texas Supreme Court should instead initiate a COVID-19 diploma privilege for this year, say professors Renee Knake and Dave Fagundes at the University of Houston.

• 10 Tips For A Successful Remote Arbitration Hearing

  

  As I learned after completing a recent international arbitration remotely, with advance planning a video hearing can replicate the in-person experience surprisingly well, and may actually be superior in certain respects, says Kate Shih at Quinn Emanuel.

• Opinion

  To Achieve Diversity, Law Firms Must Reinvent Hiring Process

  

  If law firms are truly serious about making meaningful change in terms of diversity, they must adopt a demographically neutral, unbiased hiring equation that looks at personality traits with greater import than grades and class rank, says Thomas Latino at Florida State University College of Law.