Legal Week
In between the rush and flow of working as general counsel of global computer company Lenovo, Mike O'Neill realized that there are some basic principles that guide his work. He calls these tenets -- some of them he's learned along the way, and some he is still learning every day. He shares those at the top of his list, including the single most important rule for a successful in-house role: We don't get paid for what we do -- we get paid for what we get done.
The Legal Intelligencer
For all the talk about change, corporate counsel are finding it hard to believe that outside firms are serious about rethinking their approach to client service and billing. In a survey by Altman Weil, 75 percent of the responding chief legal officers rated their law firms between zero to four on a 10-point scale, indicating their opinion that firms had little or no interest in change. "This is a dramatic vote of no confidence from chief legal officers," Altman Weil Principal Daniel J. DiLucchio Jr. said.
The Recorder
With venture capital all but dried up, government contracts lawyers say they are getting a lot of questions from high-tech companies eager to compete for stimulus funds. But government money comes with quite a few strings attached, which means more red tape to explain to clients. That's not necessarily a roadblock, lawyers said, but clients will need good compliance infrastructure as they go down that road.
The Recorder
Big tech companies like to complain about the glut of low-quality patents clogging up the system. Craig Opperman has a message for them: Take a look in the mirror. The Reed Smith patent lawyer says that companies are trying to file more patents than the next guy, but they're also trying to pay less for the legal work. The consequence, according to Opperman: a backlog at the patent office and wasted money at companies where patents end up being rejected or not worth that much.
Corporate Counsel
Your company has just been served with a 30(b)(6) deposition notice under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and it is your job to respond to the notice and determine who will testify on behalf of the corporation. Is there anything you can do to ensure that your company puts its best foot forward at the deposition? The answer is yes, say attorneys Lori L. Pines and Ardith Bronson, who offer strategies for selecting and preparing witnesses to participate in these depositions.
The Recorder
As the make-or-break patent trial between Tivo Inc. and EchoStar Corp.
got under way in Marshall, Texas, Tivo's top brass had an idea: Let's
buy a cow. Tivo's lawyer bid on and won the Grand Champion Steer -- the
most prized farm animal at the Farm City Week auction. Did buying the
animal help Tivo win? Companies look for every possible advantage when
they head down to the small towns of the Eastern District of Texas, but
not everyone thinks friendly community gestures are the best strategy.
The Legal Intelligencer
Limited resources can inspire corporate legal departments to think creatively and invest in programs that save money, effectively utilize in-house counsel and improve customer service. Alternative dispute resolution, as opposed to litigation, is one way that a corporation can save money, says Chaton T. Turner, an assistant counsel in the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's corporate legal department, which uses mediation to resolve certain disputes and grievances that patients have with the system.
The National Law Journal
Although the Obama administration appears to have backed off from more extreme plans to merge the Securities and Exchange Commission in a major consolidation of agencies, the SEC may still surrender authority to the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and a new consumer protection agency. Inept as some divisions of the SEC may have been, however, it does not follow that moving around the boxes on a regulatory design chart will improve matters, says law professor John C. Coffee Jr.
The National Law Journal
A case brought by the SEC last month accusing a Deutsche Bank Securities bond salesman and a former Millennium Partners hedge fund manager of insider trading in credit default swaps -- the derivatives blamed for much of the economic meltdown -- has kept a low profile but could prove to be significant. The case marks the first time the SEC has gone after trading in credit default swaps, and it comes as debate rages over how to regulate them and other increasingly creative and complex financial products.
