Be thankful for attorneys on Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving from Lawline.com  

Attention all attorneys in Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Washington, Wisconsin, I have some good and bad news for you. Which one would you like first?

We’ll start with the bad news: your CLE deadlines are approaching fast. December 31 is the day for most of you, and that day is fast approaching. Let me say, it may not be a bad idea to start planning to finish your requirements, because with the Holiday Season starting, life is likely to become only more hectic. That’s the bad news.

The good news, you ask? Online CLE provides a perfect opportunity to finish these requirements well before the deadline while reducing Holiday Stress. What better time to start than Black Friday? While the rest of the country fights, scratches, and crawls into department stores, you can kick back and relax, learn, and check off your CLE deadline.

Using the visual, the advantages to an Online CLE Black Friday are evident:

1)    Stay warm in bed and not cold in the streets.
2)    Be comfortable in your pajamas all day long.
3)    Avoid angry and potentially dangerous mobs.
4)    Have the freedom to grab a snack, be with family, and enjoy home.
5)    Learn in a stress free manner.
6)    Complete a required task before the deadline.
7)    Release any built up stress on pillows, rather on nearby shoppers (plus the latter can come with serious legal repercussions, which you could be learning all about meantime!)

So enjoy the weekend, give thanks, and relax. But know that if you would like to get a head start on some of the tasks for this busy Holiday Season, Online CLE is there for you when you need it!

Lawline.com celebrates its legal professionals and their ongoing commitment to the field of CLE. The Harvard Club, New York City.

Recognized for their innovative and relentless attention to customer service, Lawline.com focused on their distinguished faculty for one special night, celebrating and honoring their contribution to continuing legal education.

For Tim's full article go to

http://www.umcle.com/2009/11/lawline-com-honors-their-cle-faculty-with-a-reception-and-awards-ceremony/

Lawline.com's weekly CLE news wrap-up.

Cloud Computing is the future of technology. Expert Joseph J. Bambara provides what attorney's need to know to prepare in his Lawline.com Exclusive course "Possible Thunder Storm: The Legal Ramifications of Cloud Computing."

In 2005, Texas voters and the state legislature approved a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. According to the Democrat Attorney General candidate Barbara Ann Radnofsky, Texas may have inadvertently banned all marriages.
   
The amendment declares that “marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman”, a straightforward enough statement. The confusion arises from a clause in Subsection B, meant to ban same-sex civil unions, which states:  “This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.”

Something “identical…to marriage” is, of course, marriage.  Radnofsky argues that the wording of this clause bans, not just gay marriage, but marriage in general. Radnofsky blames the current Attorney General, Republican Greg Abbott, for allowing the language to become part of the Texas Constitution and has called it a “massive error”.  Abbott contends that the amendment does not ban marriage, only same-sex civil unions and domestic partnerships. A representative from the group that drafted the amendment claimed that a lawsuit based on the wording would have little chance of success.

Although the clause is not likely to result in the wholesale dissolution of Texas marriages, Radnofsky maintains that the wording leaves the door open for a host of lawsuits related to marital issues, such as inheritance and spousal rights.  Though this controversy may never be played out in the courts, it will be interesting what effect, if any, this has on the upcoming elections in Texas for Attorney General.

As President Obama continues his first presidential trip to Asia, much attention has been focused on his negotiation approach and whether he has achieved noteworthy results.  Obviously, a whole range of difficult, complex and long-term issues are being addressed, including those in the economic, political, environmental and human rights arenas.
 
My take on the trip so far is that President Obama has focused on long-term relationship building and information gathering instead of short-term headline-generating results.  Why might this be his strategy?    
 
It is critical to uncover the fundamental interests underlying the parties’ positions.  Interests are the parties’ needs, desires, concerns and fears.  They’re the basic driving forces that motivate parties.  The number and type of interests in complex negotiations like those involving China and the United States are many and varied.  For example, the parties’ interests here include maintaining and increasing their political power and influence, both domestically and internationally, and ensuring and improving their security and economic well-being. Plus, I suspect both sides’ here are focused on their long-term relationship interests.
 
Positions, by contrast, are what each side believes or states will satisfy their interests.  At a basic level, positions are what you want.  Interests are why you want it.  In the information-gathering stage of a negotiation, you must do your research and drill down far enough to discover your and the other side’s fundamental interests.  Why?  It will help you define success, leave as little as possible on the table and find the true “win-win” outcomes. Ultimately, I believe the success of President Obama’s trip will be measured more by what he is able to accomplish over the course of his time in office rather than by any specific results achieved this week.


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Marty Latz is the founder of Latz Negotiation Institute, a national negotiation training and consulting company, and ExpertNegotiator, a Web-based software company that helps managers and negotiators more effectively negotiate and implement best practices based on the experts' proven research.  He is also the author of Gain the Edge! Negotiating to Get What You Want (St. Martin’s Press 2004). He can be reached at 480-951-3222 or Latz@ExpertNegotiator.com.

You make plans for dinner at a well-known restaurant, set the reservation, show up on time, and then somehow end up waiting an extra half hour before you actually sit. Then, it takes an additional fifteen minutes before you receive your first drink. Ordering the meal takes equally as long, and don’t even think about a refill on that drink. Your only chance is to manually flag down the waiter, and that’s not something any patron should have to do.

Customer service can make or break a client's experience. Here at Lawline.com, we make our Customer Service a priority. We don’t just offer a product, but a service as well.

Here are just five of the philosophies of Customer Service we focus on every day:

1)    Create an Positive Experience

We don’t want to just sell a product and be done. We want to provide the greatest utility possible to our customers, and every interaction is an opportunity to maximize this. The relationship we establish with each customer is part of what our business offers.

2)    Listen

Who knows customer service better than the customer? We take to heart everything our customers say, positive or negative, so that we can provide a great experience. Listening allows us to create a Virtuous Learning Cycle where we can constantly improve our products and services to fit each individual customer.

3)    Be There when the Customer Needs You

We provide round the clock feedback. We understand customers have different schedules and may need our services at various hours. At Lawline.com, support e-mails are answered on average within fifteen minutes of submission on weekdays. This is something we take great pride in.

 4)    Follow-up

We always seek closure with a client or potential customer. We want to know whatever issue or concern you had was resolved, and we do not want to make any assumptions. We are here to help, and that means seeing your concerns to the end.

5)    Be Passionate

What good does it do to have all these key outlines and goals if employees are not passionate? Here at Lawline.com we have passion. We want to help, we enjoy interaction, and when our customer has a positive experience it means we did our job. This passion creates a continuous improvement cycle and facilitates the necessary environment for great customer service.

Those are some of the foundations of great Customer Service we believe in here at Lawline.com. More importantly, however, what do you think are some additional keys to providing great customer service?

Do you have questions for the Lawline CLE faculty members appearing on our upcoming programs? If so, Lawline wants to hear from you. Send your questions for our CLE faculty to me at Meredith@lawline.com or support @lawline.com. The Lawline team looks forward to hearing from you.
 

Upcoming Lawline CLE Prorgams

David Klein- Email Marketing

Richard Abend and Josh Silber- Hospital and Medical Records Used in Evidence.

Lily Royer- International Custody Dispute

As the host of The Legal Beat, I promised that I would start tweeting. I enlisted the help of Tim Baran, of UMCLE. In this episode of On The Line, he discusses the importance of attorneys being engaged in social networking such as Twitter. He further notes the future relationship between CLE and such social media platforms as Twitter.

A recent New York case is going to have large implications for parties and attorneys relating to e-discovery and litigation holds.

The case, Einstein v. 357 LLC et al., involved plaintiffs Harold Einstein and Jennifer Boyd in an action against The Corcoran Group, a national real estate broker, for the defective design, construction, and sale of a duplex condominium in Brooklyn, New York. The court ruled in favor of the plaintiff, and found that the defendant was in violation on various grounds of discovery. 

In a first of its kind case, the court ruled that failure to preserve electronic documentation upon the commencement of litigation constitutes gross negligence. In this case, The Corcoran Group was unable to submit to the courts electronic documentation, citing that routine deletion of these files was a part of its general business practice. However, upon litigation, The Corcoran Group failed to alter this scheduling and continued to delete potentially relevant electronically stored information (ESI).

As a result, Justice Charles E. Ramos concluded that “[The Corcoran Group] are deemed to have known of the water infiltration problem and to have willfully misled the Plaintiffs by concealing that condition from them during the sales process.”

The discovery issues at hand have been previously reviewed at the federal level under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and from the Zubulake decision; however, the court’s decision in this case represents New York State’s adaptation of those Federal rulings. Plaintiff attorney Jay Itkowitz, of the law firm Itkowitz and Harwood, cited the federal courts hand in the decision.

“The Federal Courts had what I would say is persuasive authority,” Mr. Itkowitz stated. “But the Judge also applied New York standards in the decision.”

The standards in New York can be traced back to when paper documentation was the primary source of record keeping. Discarding relevant paperwork while under litigation would violate the concept of protecting key information, and the Einstein decision carries the concepts of paper records over to electronic data. “You have evidence, you have to preserve it,” Mr. Itkowitz explained.

The only separation between the state and federal findings may revolve around the Plaintiff. At the federal level, the party producing the electronic data must pay for its imaging and review; however, in New York State, the Plaintiff is likely to be the one responsible to pay.

Simon Reiff, Itkowitzs’ partner as the Plaintiff’s representative, believes that the decision will have great significance on the way electronic information is handled in New York.

“Any litigator in New York now must advise his/her clients to preserve all relevant data,” Mr. Reiff stated. “But also [he/she] must inquire as to the basic mechanics of the client’s IT configuration and methods of business communications,” Mr. Reiff stated.

The Einstein decision will eradicate the excuse of ignorance in terms of how ESI is saved, deleted, and retrieved. Clients and their legal representative must now have a clear understanding of the involved IT configurations.

As Mr. Reiff stated following the decision, “Those attorneys and parties who fail to take preservation efforts upon being apprised that litigation is reasonably imminent risk severe sanctions.”


 

Director of Customer Experience, Christie LaBarca, reviews Lawline's newest customer service project, Project We Care.

The Legal Beat Clip of The Day features the CLE Faculty Spotlight with Anne Jordan. She discusses her background as an attorney practicing Discovery and Electronic Discovery. Anne focuses on the ethics of Electronic Discovery and also provides tips necessary to preserving these ethics.

If I were to describe a life in which one was served a private breakfast and dinner, given free daily exercise in the California sun, full control over the television and CD player in the evenings, and a private room to sleep in at night, you probably wouldn’t think of a California death-row inmate, but that’s exactly what it is.

Heck, that sounds like a life that most married men would envy. Full control over the remote? That sounds like pretty decent freedom for an inmate. Not to mention, these individuals also receive liberal telephone use and the ability to individualize their cells with entertainment and snacks.

An argument may be that these individuals are given a little extra luxury due to the doom that awaits them. However, with California’s system, many may not live long enough to see their death sentence. Despite having the nation’s longest list of death row inmates with 685 currently sentenced, California has only completed 13 executions since capital punishment resumed in 1977. According to an LA Times article, 75 inmates on death row have died premature of their sentencing date. Good thing they were provided so many special privileges. 

The costs associated with this inefficiency have not been kind to the state taxpayer either. California, a state that has been hit hard financially over the past decade, really does not have the extra cash to fork over for this. According to the LA Times, “A state commission of experts last year estimated that the additional security and legal spending for capital inmates costs taxpayers $138,000 per death row prisoner each year.” Who needs education anyway?

Executions in the state are currently on hold as review possible reform to the lethal injection procedure. Nonetheless, Federal Judges need to get on track with this issue. It’s taking money out of the state taxpayer’s pockets and allocating resources away from a plethora of state issues that could use the funds.

Some of the points in here may be a little extreme. Obviously, a life in the cellar ticking down the days until your execution is not a luxury or a life many of us on the outside envy. Nor does spending even a day in San Quentin sound like anything most us would remotely wish to experience. However, if confronted with the choice between life in prison or the death-sentence, the latter seems to be the better choice.
 

When it comes to patent law, there is much up to interpretation, especially if the patent pending material verges on the side of the abstract. On Monday, the Supreme Court Justices took on a case that has the potential of reshaping the concept of abstract patents.

The case revolves around Bilski and Warsaw v. Kappos, and the issue pertains to an abstract intellectual patent for which the two had been denied. Their proposed idea, in which they applied for in 1997, is a methodology of hedging to cut energy costs. They believe the process would help utility companies, factories, schools, and other institutions have more predictable and stable energy bills. The validity of their idea has not been questioned; however, the ability to patent the proposition has brought great controversy.

Mr. Bilski and Mr. Warsaw’s attorney J. Michael Jakes, received intense questioning and skepticism from justices. Some made it into a laughable matter by comparing the proposed patent to incongruous hypothetical cases, such as patenting teaching methodologies or book ideas. 

State Street Bank v. Signature Financial Group had opened up the patentability of business models, and a model could be eligible if it provided a useful, concrete, and tangible result. Although this temporarily paved the road for many business patents, these findings are no longer in consideration for US patent law.

Concurrently, the US Constitution states that patents should bring protection to authors and inventors alike in order to “promote progress of science and useful arts.” The degree to which this is applicable is material for the court to review.

For more information, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/business/10patent.html

Interview with attorney Jonathan Schecter

Lawline.com's Weekly News Wrap-Up

Intel’s antitrust allegations had simmered in the United States the past decade. However, on Wednesday, New York attorney general Andrew M. Cuomo filed a suit against the microprocessor giant on the basis of aggressive business tactics and unlawful payments to PC makers.

Intel, the world’s largest computer chip manufacturer, supplies approximately 80 percent of the computerized chips used in creating PCs and servers. Cuomo, according to a New York Times report, believes Intel has abused its market dominance: “Intel has used illegal threats, coercion, fines and bullying to preserve its stranglehold on the market.”

Cuomo also stated in the report specific tactics Intel has used to keep Dell Computers from seeking smaller suppliers, including large rebates and co-marketing arrangements. 

Although there has been little previous activity domestically in antitrust allegations, the company has been fighting suits in Asia and Europe the past five years. Most recently, the European Commission fined Intel $1.45 billion for violating antitrust laws, to which Intel is currently appealing.

Intel has also been involved in a suit with A.M.D., Intel’s longtime competitor, and constantly under the watchful eye of the Federal Trade Commission.

Intel has fought the accusations all along, citing in the report the benefit that they have provided consumers in innovation and low prices.

Many gay-rights activist saw great potential in establishing same-sex marriage in Maine. However, on Tuesday's state ballot, Maine voted against the legislation. Maine is now the 31st state to reject a proposition to legalize same-sex marriage.  

The state was a top prospect for gay-rights advocates. Its New England neighbors, including Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Connecticut, allow same-sex marriage. In addition, Maine’s liberal political makeup made it a seemingly greater prospect for advocates. The loss now places additional pressures on supporters to rethink their campaign efforts.

Currently, gay-rights groups have focused on the creation of new legislature across individual states. However, the loss in Maine brings with it the perspective of gay-rights advocates to campaign through federal efforts.

Concurrently, gay-rights opponents see Maine’s results as a representation of America’s overall beliefs. According to the New York Times report, Maggie Gallagher, president of the National Organization for Marriage, stated, “Maine is one of the most secular states in the nation, it’s socially liberal, they had a three-year head start to build their organization and they outspent us two to one. If they can’t win there, it really does tell you the majority of Americans are not on board with this gay marriage thing.”

For now, individual states will continue to be polled over the potential legislation. Voters in New York, New Jersey, Oregon, and California will all likely see same-sex marriage on ballots in the upcoming years.

GOP members are boycotting a Senate committee’s debate on climate control legislation, the Associated Press reported Tuesday. The proposal aims to cap greenhouse gases generated by industrial plants and curb fossil fuel usage.

Republicans demand further studies on the economic impacts of the proposal. Republic Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio, the only GOP member in attendance at the debate, stated that the GOP’s reasoning for boycott lies in the ambiguity of the future fiscal implications of the potential legislation.

The Environmental Protection Agency has projected costs to be no greater than $111 per year, but the GOP believes this projection needs greater backing. The legislation would utilize tradable pollution permits to create a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2020 and an 83 percent reduction by 2050.

Senator Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who serves as the committee chairman, reports that she would like to accommodate the GOP, but also hopes to keep the process moving forward. Currently, Democrats have a 12-7 majority within the committee, which would provide enough votes to send the proposal to the Senate.

Republicans stated in a letter to Boxer that, according the AP’s report, ignoring the GOP’s concerns ''would severely damage rather than help'' the bipartisanship needed to pass the bill through the Senate.

Facebook has taken a strong stances against internet spam in the past, and it has recently strengthened that reputation. This past week, the online social media giant, based in Palo Alto, California, received $711 million in damages after a U.S. District Court Judge ruled Nevada resident Sanford Wallace violated the U.S. CAN-SPAM Act and California’s anti-fishing law on Facebook’s website.

The CAN-SPAM Act, which offers protection against unsolicited emails, not only affects large corporations like Facebook, but also individual users. Although the verdict directly impacts Facebook, it also sets a precedent that can protect all individual email users from unsolicited marketing campaigns.

This is not the first time a large corporation has taken action against spam. In addition to another case involving Facebook in 2008, in which the company received $873 million in damages, Microsoft and AOL have also taken legal action to halt spamming. Just last month, Microsoft filed five suits related to spam and deceptive internet practices. AOL has also been involved in numerous cases throughout the past decade, although none to the extent of the damages awarded in the recent Facebook decision.

Facebook likely will never collect the full sum from Sanford. However, the case sets an important legal precedent against spam, and many, including Facebook, will deem this externality as victory enough.

Lawline.com's Legal Beat's Clip of The Day with David Japha. Look out for the full course on Lawline.com soon.

What's your take on the legal profession and the world it inhabits? Take a look at what New Yorkers had to say on Blogging The Beat.