Matador Legal » Uncategorized

Wilmer Hale co-partner advocates move to fixed fee model

Matador Legal — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 05:03:01 +0000

William Lee, the co managing partner of Wilmer Hale in a column in National Law Journal has advocated the movement of corporate law firms to the fixed fee model.

Managers liable for payroll even after a bankruptcy

Matador Legal — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 05:17:42 +0000

A federal appellate court in San Francisco has ruled that the managers of a company under bankruptcy, chapter 11 or 7 are still liable for employee’s unpaid wages under the federal law. The 9th US circuit court of appeals has made this ruling, overturning a lower court ruling on the issue in the case of Boucher v/s Shaw.

The case has been remanded for further proceedings. The court also affirmed the previous lower court ruling that the managers were not liable under the Nevada state law.

Chapter 7 bankruptcies rise in north Georgia

Matador Legal — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 04:54:17 +0000

During the first months in north Georgia chapter 7 bankruptcies have risen from 9,584 last year to 15,363 this year, a rise of 60%. Total bankruptcies have risen from 18,124 to 24,328, according to US bankruptcy court for the northern district of Georgia

The challenge in the coming months would be for the retailers to continue to be in business in the wake of ever tightening credit markets. CIT, a lender to small and medium business had to be infused with $3 billion from the bond holders to continue to operate.

http://www.ajc.com/business/chapter-7-filings-up-103730.html

Legal Outsourcing news 7/27/09

Matador Legal — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 19:31:08 +0000

In house counsels are increasingly reducing the law firm panels. Read here.

A detailed and well researched piece on drivers in LPO growth here.

How to reduce in house legal costs. 10 metrics, here.

Torts remain unaffected in the recession, here.

Emergence of Litigation Support Professional (LSP)

Matador Legal — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:22:11 +0000

In the last 10 years, the growth of electronic discovery has lead to the emergence of a new profession called Litigation Support. The litigation support professionals (LSP) as they are called are increasingly involved in earlier phases of the e-discovery process, such as identification, preservation, collection and discovery conference preparation. It is believed that most of these positions are held by Posse List members/contract attorneys (The Posse List is over 7 years old and its membership now exceeds 16,000 contract lawyers worldwide) who have moved full-time and part-time into the field.

With the rise in number of such litigation support professionals, there are plans of exploring a certification process for this new profession.

Source:

http://www.theposselist.com/2009/07/17/the-rise-of-the-litigation-support-professional/

http://www.theposselist.com/the-posse-list/

Bankruptcies rise in Massachusetts in second quarter

Matador Legal — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 06:30:36 +0000

The chapter 7 bankruptcy filings have risen by 58% in the second quarter. 4,489 filings were reported in the second quarter compared to 2,839 in 2008 q2. The number for 2009, q1 for chapter 7 was 3,285, indicating that bankruptcies in q2 have risen by 36.6% compared to q1 in 2009.

Clients want more strategy advice from lawyers

Matador Legal — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:22:33 +0000

Traditionally the role of lawyers has been to structure deals and execute management decisions. A lawyer generally makes his client aware of the possible legal risks and proposes mechanisms to counter them.

But of late, the clients expect the lawyers to do more than just provide legal assistance. Clients want lawyers to understand their business and offer strategy advice, according to a study published here.

Legal outsourcing issues in Nigeria

Matador Legal — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 08:33:12 +0000

One of the main issues confronting the profession of law in Nigeria is whether lawyers should bid competitively for their services. There are many pros and cons to this issue. A few of the same have been discussed below:

Can lawyers be treated as contractors ? Opinions on this vary from individual to individual. In highly regulate markets like India, the profession of law is looked upon as a service to the public and foreign firms are not allowed to set shops and advertise.

A more detailed discussion on the legal market is here.

Roommate’s Income has no bearing for calculation of median income

Matador Legal — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:17:00 +0000

In a recent Minnesota bankruptcy court ruling (In re Bostwick, 2009 WL 1788046), it was held that a debtor having a roommate could claim a two-person household for calculation of means test, while simultaneously excluding the roommate’s income from use in the means test.

The court in its ruling also held that under Census Bureau guidelines, the debtor lived in a two-person household and the fact that the debtor and roommate were unrelated also had no bearing on the question of household size.

This ruling would really benefit debtors as in certain cases a debtor’s income could be below the state’s median income for a two-person household, thereby relieving the debtor from even taking the means test. In cases of debtors looking at a Chapter 13 plan, this could shorten the length of a chapter 13 plan from five to three years, which again could prove beneficial to the debtor.

Source:
http://www.bankruptcylawnetwork.com/2009/07/07/debtor-with-unrelated-roommate-lived-in-two-person-household-roommates-income-not-counted-in-means-test/

CSC bags outsourcing contract from Noble Biocare

Matador Legal — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 12:48:18 +0000

Computer Science corporation(CSC) has bagged another deal, this time with Noble Biocare, a dental implant manufacturer with headquarters in Switzerland. We had earlier reported of the deal CSC had bagged for British Nuclear Group.

The deal includes desktop and helpdesk services and data center operations for Noble Biocare’s 38 locations worldwide.