Even in a strong economy, clients – you – should look at ways to get the most value from your lawyer's services. That starts with picking the right lawyer, of course, but aligning your interests with him or her matters a lot, too.
Different fee arrangements create different incentives. An hourly engagement tends to give
Congress allows appeals from "final" judgments but seldom other kinds. 28 U.S.C. 1291. An order that rejects most but not all claims on a motion to dismiss, for instance, doesn't count as final. (One to stand while speaking in court or to wear a yellow tie doesn't either.) But what if the ruling requires you to give
Patent holders that make stuff tend to dislike holders that don't. They call them patent trolls.
Blawgletter has heard that juries don't share the anger. They view patents as property and see misuse of it as bad, even if the owners bought patents solely to extract licensing fees and, if necessary, to sue for infringement.
But the Federal
Yesterday, the Supreme Court peppered Merck's lawyer with hot questions. Before he started, at least, the advocate likely harbored hope that he could convince Their Honors that the two-year statute of limitations under 28 U.S.C. 1658(b) starts running before the plaintiff could have alleged enough facts to survive a motion to dismiss under the tough pleading standards of Bell Atl. Corp.
Seldom does Blawgletter get the chance to copy something we wrote a year ago, plop it into a post, and hit "Publish".
The Supremes gave us the excuse today by granting cert in Morrison v. Nat'l Australia Bank Ltd., No. 08-1191 (U.S. Nov. 30, 2009), about which we noted last October:
Down Under Securities
Last week, just before Thanksgiving, the Second Circuit shot a big turkey. The fowl in question – a jailbird actually — claimed that New York Daily News and The Polish Daily News defamed him. Their repute-blackening words? That Shemtov Michtavi, a drug offender, planned to sing like a canary.
The district court blasted the libel claim, holding that it couldn't fly
This has nothing to do with AIG. Or does it?
The Special Investigator General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program issued an audit report last week. The paper — "Factors Affecting Efforts to Limit Payments to AIG Counterparties" — goes 47 pages to explain why the Federal Reserve and its good friend the Treasury threw
The Arbitration Act of 1925 set up a regime aiming to settle disputes quickly and cheaply. The system depends on courts to make it work. Courts don't do quick and cheap. Sorry.
The Fifth Circuit proved the point this week. The appeal turned on whether a district court erred by ordering a respondent in an arbitration (Old Colony) to pay $29,600 as a deposit to cover American
Boeing put the the first KC-135 Stratotanker into service 52 years ago. The U.S. Air Force bought the last one in 1965.
The four-engine KC-135 Stratotanker jets across the firmament, refueling other aircraft in flight. It also, per Boeing – which first delivered the hulking milk cow in June 1957 — can with upgrades "serve as flying command posts, pure transport
You could put an eye out with that gavel.
Intel Corporation has made peace with Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., the companies announced in IDENTICAL press releases today (here and here). The money part said:
[Blah blah blah,] and Intel will pay AMD $1.25 billion. Intel has also agreed to abide