Pennsylvania

Expert Analysis

• Are Lateral Recruitment Opportunities Shaping Your Strategy?

  

  In the second installment of this series on lateral recruiting, Howard Flack of Volta Talent Strategies LLC challenges law firms to ask themselves whether business strategies are determining lateral hires — or vice versa.

• How Patchwork State Regs Could Benefit Driverless Cars

  

  While a patchwork of autonomous vehicle regulations that vary from state to state is ultimately unsustainable, it may prove to be quite beneficial for short-term, early stage development and could serve as a blueprint that offers a safe and effective means of regulating the autonomous vehicle without severely limiting its development, say Mike Nelson and Trevor Satnick of Eversheds Sutherland LLP.

• Natural Resource Damages: A New Angle In PCB Litigation

  

  In an effort to use product liability theories to impose liability on manufacturers of products found in the environment, Washington state recently sued polychlorinated biphenyl manufacturer Monsanto in state court. This could signal a new era in PCB litigation, and should be closely watched by manufacturers and marketers of similar products, say Graham Zorn and Eric Klein of Beveridge & Diamond PC.

• Lateral Partner Hiring: Time To Look In The Mirror

  

  The surveys that report lateral partner hiring as more or less a 50-50 proposition keep being published, and yet the lateral partner market is as robust as ever. So, what are firms looking at to measure their success and justify the level of investment they continue to make in the lateral market? asks Howard Flack of Volta Talent Strategies LLC.

• A Closer Look At The Current State Of Equal Pay

  

  While progress has been made toward eliminating gender-based wage disparity, Equal Pay Day, observed Tuesday, is a reminder that more work needs to be done, and long before the next 50 years tick past. But hopefully it will be done through education about the law, and not more litigation, says Eve Wagner of Sauer & Wagner LLP.

• Opinion

  Untold Stories: Trump's Budget Would Silence Legal Services

  

  President Trump's draft budget proposes total defunding of the Legal Services Corporation. Yet leaders of over 160 of the nation's top law firms and 185 general counsel from leading corporations, who make their living at the intersection of business and law, make the case that destroying the LSC is bad for both, says Kevin Curnin of the Association of Pro Bono Counsel.

• A Law Firm’s Guide To Social Media

  

  Bear in mind that the internet seldom forgets and never forgives, and you are just one screen grab from a meme. A law firm's core messages and unique selling points must be clearly determined before embarking on a social media strategy, says Julie Bagdikian of The Pollack PR Marketing Group.

• Cybersecurity Steps Every Lawyer Should Consider

  

  In a state by state chart updated this month, the American Bar Association reports that 34 states have adopted all or most of the ABA's model rules technology amendments and that nine more states are studying the amendments. Even for lawyers in other states, legal ethics require the technological and legal competence to protect clients' confidentiality, says J.S. Christie Jr. of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP..

• Series

  Advocate For An Agency: Ex-FERC GC Cynthia Marlette

  

  Cynthia Marlette, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's general counsel from 2001 to 2005 and from 2007 to 2009, reflects on how she addressed the job's many responsibilities, including advising the commission on laws and enforcement actions, developing policy, seeking consensus among commissioners, and overseeing defense of agency actions in court, as well as dealing with historic events like the California energy crisis.

• 'Frontier' Issues: Pay-For-Delay And Patent Holdup

  

  Though the length of Acting Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen's tenure at the Federal Trade Commission remains unknown, life sciences and technology companies should prepare themselves for the changes that she has signaled regarding "frontier" areas of antitrust law including pay-for-delay and patent holdup, say Lesli Esposito and Brian Boyle of DLA Piper.