Native American

Expert Analysis

• The Elephant In The Room: Advancing Women To Partnership

  

  Despite more focus and investment, the numbers continue to show little progress in advancing women to the top tiers of firm leadership. Considering the irreversible nature of the transformation of the market for top talent, it is time to start experimenting and innovating from the core, rather than from the periphery, say Anusia Gillespie and Scott Westfahl of Harvard Law School.

• How Midsize Law Firms Can Minimize Cybersecurity Threats

  

  It can be challenging for midsize law firms to develop an enterprise cybersecurity program that mitigates the eminent threat of data breach and meets the regulatory and compliance requirements of the firm and its clients. This challenge becomes daunting when considering the steady rise in client audits, say K. Stefan Chin of Peckar & Abramson PC and John Sweeney of Logicforce.

• Weekly Column

  Innovating For Wise Juries: Matching Experts

  

  In the penultimate installment of this series, Stephen Susman, Richard Lorren Jolly and Dr. Roy Futterman of the NYU School of Law Civil Jury Project answer a question on many legal analysts’ minds: What if both sides’ expert witnesses sat in a hot tub discussing the case while a jury watched?

• Rebuttal

  The Rise Of Midsize Firms

  

  Recently, this publication featured an op-ed in which one law firm partner contended that midsize firms will be the next casualty of the legal market, due to a supposed inability to compete with BigLaw or boutique firms for business. Though we can expect to see Am Law firms continue to lead the market in megadeals and life-or-death litigations, by all indications midsize is on the rise, says Ronald Shechtman of Pryor Cashman LLP.

• 5 Questions To Ask Yourself Before Submitting Litigation AFA

  

  Outside counsel should be able to articulate why she is proposing an alternative fee arrangement for this matter. If the client has not requested an AFA or the case is unusually difficult to budget with accuracy, this might not be the case to propose an AFA, say attorneys with WilmerHale.

• How Mobile Apps Can Benefit Your Practice

  

  Despite the boom in mobile application development, many lawyers are still reluctant when it comes to using apps in their daily work. Attorney Sean Cleary explores the benefits and shares some recommendations for apps geared toward attorneys.

• Rebuttal

  The Future Of Litigation Finance Is Analytics

  

  In a recent Law360 guest article, Christopher Bogart of Burford Capital LLC claimed that "while theoretically well designed to find the proverbial needle in a haystack, big data and AI currently lack the ability to do so usefully in a commercial litigation financing context." But AI can manage many of the tasks that litigation financiers would otherwise perform, says Eva Shang, co-founder of Legalist Inc.

• 2 Bills Would Help Level Playing Field For Tribal Governments

  

  Notwithstanding the fact that Indian tribal governments are recognized sovereign entities by the United States, they are frequently treated less favorably than their state and local government counterparts. This is particularly true with respect to their tax treatment under IRS rulings and the Internal Revenue Code. In the past month, however, Congress has introduced two bills that promote parity for tribal governments, say members... (continued)

• Where AI Meets Cybersecurity And The Legal Profession

  

  Artificial intelligence and machine learning will continue to be a major focus for the legal community, whether as an isolated topic, as it intersects with cybersecurity, or within the legal profession itself. Each of these raises unique concerns for attorneys, says Randy Sabett, vice chair of Cooley LLP's privacy and data protection practice group.

• Weekly Column

  Innovating For Wise Juries: Interim Arguments

  

  By allowing attorneys to summarize what has just occurred in testimony and how it fits into the wider case narrative, courts can substantially improve juror comprehension through every step of a trial. Yet interim arguments are not practiced regularly, say Stephen Susman, Richard Lorren Jolly and Dr. Roy Futterman of the NYU School of Law Civil Jury Project.