I'm taking a guess that, in many cases, the Louisiana attorney has a high chance of also being a Saints fan, or at least caught up in the Saints Super Bowl frenzy.

Word on the virtual street (Twitter) is that the Louisiana State Bar Association will be holding a CLE seminar next Friday, February 5 regarding the "Who Dat?" trademark controversy.

If you aren't familiar, the issue is over vendors selling t-shirts with the phrase "Who dat?" - a long time phrase used in New Orleans from the chant "Who dat gonna beat dem Saints?" The NFL views the sale of these shirts on an infringement of a trademarked phrase that it owns.

If the rumors on the Louisiana State Bar Association CLE are true, then I'm the first to commend them on putting together such a timely and relevant program on short notice.

Check back with The Legal Beat and we'll keep you up to date on the status of the program.

Lawline's Friday 5 brings you the countdown of the world's strangest laws. Bigfoot, Blowfish and Napoleon... oh my! You just have to see it to believe it.

In light of Toyota’s unprecedented decision to recall and stop selling eight car models, this New York Times excerpt caught my attention:  “In its drive to become No. 1 in worldwide sales, Toyota may have left its reputation vulnerable.”  The Tokyo Shimbun went so far as to say, “[t]he discrediting of Toyota could even destroy the world’s trust in Japanese manufacturing, which relies on its reputation for high quality.”  Time will tell what the full consequences will be.

In negotiating and in life, trust is hard to build, easy to destroy and difficult to restore.  Toyota’s plight is a useful reminder that we should always value and protect our reputation.

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.
 

Lawline.com is proud to announce The Golden Ticket. The NYCLA Insitue and Lawline.com now offer unlimited online and live CLE programing for just $499. Register now at Lawline.com/goldenticket!

In a historic moment for Continuing Legal Education, Lawline.com and the New York County Lawyer’s Association (NYCLA) have teamed up to provide a combination of the highest quality live and online Continuing Legal Education - but only with an exclusive Golden Ticket. The offer is extended to twenty-five fortunate attorneys who come across the opportunity. Each recipient receives one full year of unlimited access to both Lawline.com and NYCLA courses, which combines for a total of over 275 hours of CLE. The price? Only $499.

Lawline.com has been providing online CLE for over 10 years and has been featured in such publications as Forbes, Crains, Inc., Entrepreneur, and CNBC. Lawline.com has also recently been named one of the 40 Best Companies to Work for in New York State and a Finalist for Customer Service by the N.Y. Enterprise Report

The New York County Lawyers' Association has historically been one of the largest and most influential county bar associations in the country. Having turned 100 years old in 2008, the organization holds strong to its traditions, and their Golden Ticket offering with Lawline.com is another example of advancing the practice and education of attorneys.

Time is short for receiving the exclusive Golden Ticket, and The Legal Beat provides one of the limited routes!

 

It's Wild Card Wednesday on The Legal Beat, and as host and producer, that means it is my pick. Therefore, I picked the very wild topic of cross- examination. Defense attorney Rocco C. Cipparone will review cross-examination tactics from active listening and preparation to creatively dealing with a witness.

Legal Beat host Meredith Ganzman leads attorney Jany Sabins through an analysis of the upcoming year of "No-Law" and uproots the history behind her passion for tax law.

The combination of technology, innovation, and law means one thing: 2010’s 3-day LegalTech Trade Show in New York, NY, beginning Monday February 1. Last year’s dominant theme was eDiscovery, with much attention being given to social media as well. What will stand out this year?

Technolawyer produced a great article on predictions for 2009 after last year’s show, and there’s great reasons to believe those predictions will come to light. The first forecast was a wave of iPhone applications. Is there any doubt about this one? Yes, there are finally other products being released in the market to compete with the iPhone, but competition is negligible at this point. Last year was still the early stages in iPhone potential in regards to applications, and in 2010 there is going to be a host of maturation in the development of downloadable legal applications. Without a doubt, there will be much innovation released in iPhone Applications throughout the three day event.

CourtReportersSchools.com has a great list of current iPhone Legal Applications currently out on the market. Again, look for this list to be greatly expanded throughout 2010.

Social media is another hot topic in the legal industry that will be sure to produce buzz at the event. Blos, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin – it’s a mixture of excitement, confusion, and growth.  It has been a bit of a hit and miss area of legal application, with some attorneys and firms diving in greatly, and others reluctant, preferring traditional forms of media and focusing solely on their practice. However, there’s no denying its growth within the industry, and with growth comes innovation.

And don’t forget eDiscovery. The big hit at last year’s event will likely be so once again. The question is whether this year’s technology will help sort through the clutter of electronic evidence. The electronic age is producing a constantly expanding set of new law and litigation, and because of this rapid change many still struggle with the concept of the necessity in dealing with electronic forms of evidence. But again, with the growing importance of this form of evidence will come a great influx of legal technology to aid in the process.

The Legal Beat will be attending the three-day event and produce up close interviews with some of the most innovative firms in the industry. We’ll also give you a behind the scenes look at the event itself. For more information visit http://www.legaltechshow.com/

 

ABC had its debut this past week of the The Deep End,  a new television series about first year associates at Sterling Law, a top Los Angeles Law Firm. That’s about all the time I’m going to take delving into the shallow depths of its plot. Instead, I’m just going to list off reasons why if you missed the first episode, you should consider yourself lucky.

1. Everybody is sexy. Apparently the law schools these first-years recently graduated from based their enrollments on aesthetic qualities and time spent at the gym.

2. Everybody is witty. Every character says the perfect line, with perfect diction, and with no delay. It makes me feel like hiding behind my computer, writing blog posts complaining about my inferiorities, and wishing I could accomplish such a feat.

3. I did not hear one piece of legal knowledge in the episode. The most legal term was “pro-bono.”

4. The group of first-years takes “victory shots” after a good day at work.

5. I heard the word “totally” more than any other word. Was this an episode of Dawson’s Creek? It totally could have been.

6. These characters went to top-ranked law schools and passed the California Bar. Really? Totally.

7. Everybody is sexy AND they eat very large cupcakes at work. Combine this with victory shots and the character's wittiness, and now I really just want to hide in a corner.

Billy Zane does star in the show as a competitive head-honcho at the law firm, and his dealing with young the attorneys is at least a comic relief, so that is one plus to the show. However, it doesn’t make up for the rest of the over-dramatization and unrealistic realm presented as an actual daily life in a competitive law firm. The only thing I see coming out of this series is a wave of high school and college graduates applying to law school, only to realize that books are actually involved somewhere in the process.
 

Lawline.com 's Weekly Wrap-up for CLE News. On this week's show, New Developments in Campaign Finance Law , California CLE Deadline, Lawfirm Commercials, and a Lawline Exclusive CLE Preview with Stuart Teicher.

Michael Stutman stars in this week's Family Law Friday on The Legal Beat. Host and Producer Meredith Ganzman leads Stutman through a discussion on Pets in Divorce and Custody Cases.

In December, GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt disclosed NBC would lose an estimated $200 million on the Winter Olympics.  In a New York Times article yesterday, Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports, said he would have preferred that Immelt wait to reveal the losses until the end of January “so it didn’t cause any disruption of sales.”

“When you say something like that,” Ebersol said, “advertisers think they’ll get a bargain, and we’ve told them there aren’t any.”  In effect, Immelt decreased NBC’s leverage with its advertisers by disclosing that NBC is a bit desperate for revenue due to its expected loss, and that it had fewer competing advertisers for its spots.

What is the lesson here?  All of the key internal stakeholders in a negotiation need to be on the same strategic page.  Problems arise when the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.  To help prevent this, organizations should – for all their significant negotiations – create strategic negotiation plans and implement negotiation best practices. This includes identifying what strategic information should or should not be disclosed and ensuring all of the key stakeholders are aware of those strategic choices. Importantly, our ExpertNegotiator Planning and Management Software is designed to help you do this by allowing you to create online negotiation plans accessible by each stakeholder in your negotiation – thus ensuring you avoid problems like the one created by Immelt.

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.

 

Tiger Woods: he’s flipped sports, entertainment, and media upside down as of late. But it doesn’t stop there – he’s thrown the legal world into turmoil as well.

In a symposium set for March 4 at Cardoso Law School, in  New York City, three attorneys, Fernando Pinguelo, a partner at Norris McLaughlin & Marcus and Chair of the firm's Entertainment Law Group, Porcher L. Taylor, III, an associate professor at the University of Richmond, and Timothy D. Cedrone, a 2009 cum laude graduate of Seton Hall University School of Law, will lead the topic, The Tiger Woods Effect: The Uncertain and Turbulent Future of Endorsement Deals, Morals Clauses, and Reverse-Morals Clauses? The trio is also focusing on producing a first of its kind law review.

Media, business, and law are industries greatly familiar with moral clauses – a provision in a contract that companies utilize to prohibit specific behavior unto the “talent,” whereby the company can terminate the contract if the talent violates these terms. However, Pinguelo, Taylor, and Cedrone are focusing in on the opposite end of the spectrum. Can the talent hold businesses accountable for unethical behavior?

This is what is becoming referred to as the Reverse-Morals Clause, an area of increasing interest and discussion within the legal community. According to Pinguelo, there is currently no scholarly law research on the subject, and little to no known law review in regards to it. He and his colleagues are out to change that.

“The reverse moral clause allows the talent unilateral ability to terminate a contract if the ethics of a business is called into question,” Pinguelo states. Pinguelo added that these issues date back to examples of Enron, but also have been notable in more recent cases such as Lehman Brothers.

The trio’s research will focus on a phenomenon they have dubbed “The Tiger Woods Effect.” Woods’ climb to fame, stardom, and power, along with a near perfect image, created him into the ideal model to demand reverse-morals clauses. However, the current ethical questions surrounding him in the media have damaged this negotiating power.

“Pre-Tiger Woods scandal, before Thanksgiving, he could write his ticket,” says Pinguelo. “If anyone had the potential for a reverse-morals clause, it would have been him.”

Before the symposium, the three attorneys plan to publish a law review titled, The Reverse-Morals Clause: The Unique Way to Save Talent Reputation and Money in a New Era of Corporate Crimes and Scandal. In the review, they divide the issue into five sections, in which they discuss the necessity of reverse-moral clauses and offer drafting and negotiation insights.

Pinguelo and Cedrone also recently authored what now will serve as a framework for the upcoming material entitled, Morals? Who Cares About Morals? An Examination of Morals Clauses in Talent Contracts and What Talent Needs to Know.

Both the review and the symposium present the potential to be the foundations of a largely growing and increasingly important area of law. We’ll keep you up to beat on all that’s coming up in research and news leading up to the symposium.

Fernando Pinguelo is also a distinguished faculty member of Lawline.com and a lectured in both E-Discovery: What you Technically Should Know and Morals? Who Cares About Morals? An Examination of Morals Clauses in Talent Contracts and What Talent Needs to Know, the latter in which he once again teamed with Timothy Cedrone.
 

It's Taxation Tuesday and hopefully this is your taxing news of the week. President Obama's proposed "Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee" to tax banks is aimed at recovering most of the government bailout’s expected $117 billion loss over the next decade. But is President Obama’s plan a good idea? Is it without its discrepancies? Bank Compliancy attorney and Lawline.com CLE faculty member, ThomasWhitford, phoned in with his take on the tax. Go to Lawline.com to watch Thomas Whitford's Bank Compliancy CLE course, and for all news CLE, stick with The Legal Beat.

Lawline.com 's Weekly Wrap-up for CLE News. On this week's show, The Do's and Don'ts of Law Firm Life, CLE California Deadline, On The Line with Alan Schnurman Part 2, and a Lawline Exclusive CLE Preview with Abram Bohrer.

Bridgewater, NJ (January 12, 2010) – Fernando Pinguelo will speak at the Second Annual Campbell Law Review Symposium, entitled Emerging Issues in Electronic Discovery, on Friday, January 22, 2010, in Raleigh, North Carolina.  His topic will be “How Are Company Legal Departments Positioning to Deal with eDiscovery in the Event of Further Litigation.”  The Campbell Law Review Symposium expects to draw hundreds of practitioners and in-house counsel from across the country.  Pinguelo’s presentation is part of a larger project that will assist in-house counsel address electronic discovery issues in a meaningful and cost-effective manner.  The results of his project will be published within a special Campbell Law Review edition dedicated to electronic discovery.

The Campbell Law Review began publication in 1979 for the purpose of serving the legal community with scholarly articles, notes, comments and other reviews of legal topics.  The Campbell Law Review fulfills this service by placing special emphasis on issues from North Carolina and other states in the Southeast, as well as issues concerning national legislation and Constitutional questions from all circuits and the Supreme Court.

Pinguelo, Co-Chair of the firm’s Response to Electronic Discovery and Information (REDI) Group, devotes his practice to complex litigation with an emphasis on business disputes, electronic discovery, and media and employment matters.  He has experience in all facets of litigation (trial, mediation, arbitration, and appellate) in both federal and state courts. As a former prosecutor, he has tried several cases.  Today, Pinguelo handles a broad spectrum of disputes including copyright infringement, misappropriation of trade secrets, fraud, breach of non-compete covenants, discrimination, and business torts; and is able to address a rapidly evolving crisis or emergency.

A leader in the emerging area of electronic discovery, Pinguelo works with business owners, C-level executives, in-house counsel, and human resources, information technology, and risk managers to develop strategies to manage business and legal issues related to electronic documents. He recognizes that complex contract and statutory considerations impact the evolving business environment. This understanding enables him to help clients comply with the broad array of laws that regulate document management. Pinguelo focuses on preventing claims and pursues strategies that enhance a client’s ability to manage electronic documents because he is keenly aware of the financial and public relations fallout that can result from high-profile electronic discovery abuses and negligence.

Notably, Pinguelo was involved in New Jersey’s first case addressing its new electronic discovery rule amendments, and has lectured numerous times on the topic, including at the Judicial College which provides judges with a wide range of academic programs. He has designed a state-of-the-art electronic discovery law course and teaches one of only a few such courses in the country at Seton Hall University School of Law.  Recently, the Fulbright Program, the U.S. government's flagship international exchange program, designated Pinguelo a Fulbright Specialist for his work in eDiscovery, and he will engage in a project at a university in one of over 100 participating countries.  Pinguelo was also invited to be a member of eDiscovery Group of The Sedona Conference® Working Group Series, a prestigious series of think-tanks consisting of leading experts brought together by a desire to address various "tipping point" issues in each area under consideration.  Pinguelo founded and contributes regularly to eLessons Learned (www.eLLblog.com), an educational blog about electronic discovery best practices that was recently recognized by the ABA Journal magazine as being one of the top 100 law blogs of 2009.

Pinguelo earned his J.D. from Boston College Law School in 1997 and his B.A., magna cum laude, from Boston College in 1994.  He is admitted to practice in New Jersey, New York, and the District of Columbia.

~ ~ ~

Norris McLaughlin & Marcus has been serving the business community of New Jersey and the New York metropolitan area since 1953. Once a humble two-man practice on Main Street in Somerville, New Jersey, Norris McLaughlin & Marcus has become the largest firm in Somerset County and one of the top 20 firms in New Jersey, with a significant presence in New York City and the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania.

Norris McLaughlin & Marcus’ clients run the gamut, from Fortune 500 corporations to smaller publicly and privately held companies to start-up companies and individuals. The attorneys, with staff assistance, provide legal services in nearly every area of business law. A full practice area listing can be found at www.nmmlaw.com.

The firm’s more than 150 attorneys come from diverse backgrounds, hold degrees from top U.S. law schools and regularly serve as leaders in bar associations and various trade groups.  With 25 of its members listed as the Best Lawyers in America for 2010, in addition to an active repertoire of speaking engagements and legal publications, attorneys at Norris McLaughlin & Marcus embody large-firm talent in a small-firm setting. This combination of legal talent and personable surroundings allows attorneys at Norris McLaughlin to provide service and value to their clients on an individual level. It is the goal of Norris McLaughlin& Marcus to accommodate the needs of every client through the use of experience, strategic planning and common courtesy.

Norris McLaughlin & Marcus enjoys an international reputation for excellence through its membership in Meritas, the largest worldwide affiliation of high-quality, mid-sized law firms. With Meritas, Norris McLaughlin & Marcus is able to extend its services to clients in every state and in more than 70 foreign countries.

In this Legal Beat edition of the CLE Faculty Spotlight, attorney Abram Bohrer will review his background in and his passion for handling personal injury and airline travel. He will also reflect on his experience as a new addition to the Lawline Faculty. Look for Abram Bohrer's Lawline exclusive CLE course soon.

Lawline.com 's Weekly Wrap-up for CLE News. On This week's show, the first of 2010: Lawline.com Best Companies New York, The California Crunch, Marketing Director Jeff Reekers reviews "The Deep End", and a new Lawline.com Exclusive Course preview.

A friend recently purchased a used car "as is" for around $5,000 from a dealer. About 45 days later the transmission tanked. Unfortunately, the problem appeared after the state "lemon law" warranty expired.  My friend obtained several estimates for the repair, the cheapest of which was $1,400. Not wanting to pay so much, she returned to the dealer to see if they would help.

What negotiation approach should she take?

She could try a competitive approach and threaten to file complaints with the appropriate state regulatory agency and the Better Business Bureau and stop making her payments (the dealer had financed almost the entire purchase price).

Alternatively, she could take a more problem-solving approach and appeal to the dealer's sense of fairness and potential sympathy for her plight (she is a single mother and her car broke down shortly before Christmas).

Based on her positive experience buying the car (the dealer hadn't use overly competitive, high-pressure tactics), she decided to take the latter approach. It worked, and the dealer ultimately agreed to repair the car for only $300 even though they had no contractual obligation to do so.

The bottom-line: picking the right negotiation approach will help you get the best results.

__________________________________________________________________________________________


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.
 

NEW YORK, Jan. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Lawline.com is once again being recognized for its excellence and innovation. It was named one of the "40 Best Companies to Work for in New York" by the New York State Society for Human Resource Management and Best Companies Group. This comes just a few short months after being chosen a finalist in the "Best Customer Service" category by the New York Enterprise Report.

Established in 1999, Lawline.com has become one of the nation's leading providers of Online Continuing Legal Education. Focusing on “quality, price and service” has always been its primary mission. Lawline.com has been able to achieve this goal by hiring energetic, highly motivated individuals and exposing them to multiple departments in order to find the best fit for the employee’s skill set.

David Schnurman, Lawline.com's President, believes this is at the core of his company’s success. “Our greatest assets are our employees. We strive to provide them with what they need to excel, and in return we believe that this maximizes their potential."

Lawline.com is always on the lookout for great talent and often meets them in the most unexpected places. One such example is when Schnurman explored joining a gym for his employees near his office. He was so impressed with the corporate sales manager, he hired him as a consultant to train his key personnel in sales and customer service at 8:00AM every day. The response was overwhelming and before long, the conference room was filled with other employees wanting to participate in the morning brainstorming. Within three months, he was hired full time as V.P. of Sales.

Lawline.com will be honored at the Best Companies to Work for in New York at the awards dinner on Wednesday, April 21, 2010, at the Albany Marriot.

If you would like more information on Lawline.com, visit www.Lawline.com or contact Jeff Reekers at (646)448-3265 or Jeff@Lawline.com.

About Lawline.com

Lawline.com was founded in 1999 and was one of the first companies to offer online Continuing Legal Education. Lawline.com now provides hundreds of hours of original online CLE programming to attorneys across the nation.

Lawline.com expanded from Lawline, a well regarded legal television program in the New York Metropolitan area. 
 

ABC is releasing a new legal drama series entitled The Deep End. The show’s premise centers on the cutthroat competition amongst a group of young attorneys as they strive to be accepted into Sterling Law, a prestigious Los Angeles Law Firm.

Here at The Legal Beat, we’ll be watching closely and providing weekly episode reviews.

The Deep End airs January  21 from 8:00-9:00p.m., ET, on Twentieth Century Fox Television.

Check out the clip for an introduction to the series.

In this episode of On The Line, Alan Schnurman discusses his early days as a Personal Injury attorney and also reflects on his the proud moments of his career. He further reflects on what some of the more embarrassing moments in his career has taught him about his work. Even after thirty-eight years of practicing, Alan explains why he still gets nervous in trying a case. Go to The Legal Beat to catch Part 1 of Alan's interview and Lawline.com for all of your CLE needs and to view Alan's CLE courses.