Let it Be
May 22, 2006 | Filed Under Tactics, In the News
But not if you are Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
A very interesting story from MacJournals recounts the long-running dispute and litigation between the licensing arm for the Beatles, Apple Corps, and Apple Computer. Jobs won the most recent round in the England and Wales High Court.
Conventional wisdom was that Apple Computer would be a loser. But the Judge sided with that sometimes bad Apple, albeit for different reasons than those they put forth.
The article reprints a key provision from a 1991 licensing agreement, which the Judge used to construe the plain meaning of a key phrase as giving Apple Computer room to include music-related products under the “Apple” banner.
This result serves as a handy reminder to all litigators: the case really begins when agreements are signed; your transactional lawyers need to be talking to you early in the process.
Neither side thinks the dispute is over. No Garden of Eden in Apple-land. Yet.
CEO Radar: Corporate Governance
May 15, 2006 | Filed Under Governance
Incoming…
According to a survey by AON Australia, corporate governance is the leading risk concern for Aussie executives. This is up from issue #9 in the last survey, three years ago. Legal risk, #1 in the prior survey, is now #5.
Here’s some helpful corporate governance links.
From an AON representative:
“We are also witnessing a recurring theme – that of risk culture. Whether risk management responsibilities are centralised or decentralised, organisations have identified the need to reinforce risk frameworks and systems through the right risk culture and behaviors…”
The right risk culture. Something to ponder as we await closing arguments in the Enron case.
Bird Brains
May 9, 2006 | Filed Under Crisis Planning, In the News
Just in time for tonight’s inevitable made-for-TV avian flu drama on ABC, lawyers see a potential need, and decide to take their best shot.
The law firm of McKenna Long & Aldridge has announced that it has experts ready and waiting to deal with potential client concerns related to pandemic planning.
MLA partner John Clerici is in the firm’s government contracts practice, and co-chairs its Biodefense Practice group.
I have written about this before, and it seems sensible that law firms will have to design an approach that balances their expertise and client needs. Should they dust off and re-brand their Y2K practice groups?
The NY Times has a good review of the drama; sounds a bit like “The Andromeda Strain” with geese.
The US Government’s pandemic web site is here, by the way.
MLA partner at work?
The GC and “Other Business”
May 8, 2006 | Filed Under Governance, In the News
Sometimes you have to watch an agenda for what’s not there.
The Montgomery Advertiser reports that last Friday Alabama State University general counsel Fred Gray Sr. was fired at a meeting of the university’s board of trustees.
The termination of outside GC Gray was apparently not on the agenda. Mr. Gray is a prominent civil rights attorney who represented Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He has also been recognized by the ABA with the Thurgood Marshall Award.
Mr. Gray is senior partner with the law firm of Gray, Langford, Sapp, McGowan, Gray & Nathanson.
You assume that this sort of thing could have been handled better. According to the report:
The move to select a new general counsel was not on the agenda. Trustee Marvin Wiggins made a recommendation out of the blue to change university counsel. Gray stood up to ask why Wiggins made the request.
“There was a motion on the floor to terminate Mr. Gray, which spurned a little banter about procedure,” said Bell, who did not know who cast the dissenting votes. “There was a bit more banter about procedure, but both motions passed.”
Gray spoke briefly with board Chairman Elton Dean after the vote and then walked out of the board room.
As GC, you have one client. That’s great most of the time.
But you really have to watch that client.
Law Firm Private Equity?
May 3, 2006 | Filed Under Law Firm Trends, In the News
So law firms (in NJ at least) are given the ethical go-ahead to own other law firms as subsidiaries, according to this article in the New Jersey Law Journal.
Fellow Legal Blog Network member Larry Bodine is quoted as calling this development a “potential gold mine” for law firms, allowing them to grab firms in hot practice areas and casting them off when the worm turns. More from Mr. Bodine, including the text of the opinion, here.
Sounds intriguing for a few adventurous law firms. Sounds like real fun for consultants, bankers and developers of legal indentity products.
But for the average law firm of some scale I really wonder if this isn’t precisely the wrong thing at the wrong time.
Doesn’t buying another firm only give you three things? A claim upon receivables, a hope that the good lawyers stay and a prayer that clients remain as well?
As a GC, I would have to think about this, and wouldn’t necessarily see this as a negative for a law firm that’s owned by another firm. But it sort of seems at first blush that such a firm is saying between the lines that it couldn’t cut it on its own.
It that good positioning in the marketplace?
If the management of some major firms are spending time looking at other firms or ancillary businesses, what does that say about their confidence in the existing business model?
Could this NJ ethics development, coupled with one of the results from the Clementi Commission in England (non-lawyer ownership of law firms; more from Bruce MacEwen here), spell the start of law firm roll-ups and eventual IPOs?
Boy, would I love to read a Form S-1 from a major law firm.
But if Wachtell Lipton ever goes public, sign me up. Something tells me that they are too busy focusing on their core transactional business that throws off over $2.3 million per year in revenue per lawyer.
An ethics opinion a gold mine? Or an open mine shaft? Time will tell.
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