With new technologies comes new businesses and new products—and new insurance issues. As with so much else, the new color in property insurance is green.
Filed under: Business, Civil Litigation, Legal Topics | Tagged: green insurance, LEED certified, property insurance | Comments Off
As Americans, we feel comfortable saying whatever we want about public officials and celebrities on our blogs and websites. We’ve got the First Amendment behind us. Unfortunately, the First Amendment doesn’t stretch to cover everywhere our Internet musings may go. Forum shopping has taken a new turn — libel tourism – in which defamation plaintiffs [...]
Filed under: Business, Civil Litigation, Legal Topics | Tagged: defamation, First Amendment, France, libel tourism, U.K. | 3 Comments »
So, you finally get around to preparing and signing powers of attorney for health care, personal care, and financial management. Now, where should you keep them? Should they be at your home? In a safe deposit box? At your attorney’s office? What’s the point of preparing these important documents if you don’t have them when you really [...]
Filed under: Elder Law, Estate Planning, Legal Topics | Tagged: Financial Management Power of Attorney, Personal Care Power of Attorney, power of attorney, Power of Attorney for Health Care | Comments Off
By now we all have heard about the son that former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger fathered with his married household employee. Many pundits are jumping to assumptions that this child is now entitled to live the luxury lifestyle of his father. Others are labeling Schwarzenegger a deadbeat dad, assuming that he should, and did not, provide for his biological son. It turns [...]
Filed under: Family Law, Legal Topics | Tagged: conclusive presumption, Family Code, Governor Schwarzenegger, marital presumption, parentage | 5 Comments »
The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice are bringing record numbers of actions under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act these days, and the trend is likely to continue. In one case (.pdf) Johnson & Johnson subsidiaries are accused of paying bribes to public doctors in Greece who use the company’s surgical implants. Maybe it’s time for [...]
Filed under: Business, Legal Topics | Tagged: bribery, business, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, foreign official | Comments Off
During discovery, parties often use search terms to separate the wheat from the chaff, i.e., the irrelevant or unresponsive data from the relevant or responsive information. The sheer volume of electronic material makes the use of search terms a necessity, but, as with many conveniences, there is some risk involved. The key may be in agreeing [...]
Filed under: Civil Litigation, Legal Topics | Tagged: discovery, e-discovery, search terms | Comments Off
Consider this scenario: Your corporate client asks you for advice on the legality of a new marketing strategy. You issue an opinion that certain aspects of the plan are marginally legal, but that the audit-risk is low unless your client’s competitors chose to sue. Your opinion letter is reviewed and filed in the company’s general files, [...]
Filed under: Business, Civil Litigation, Legal Topics, Practice of Law | Tagged: attorney-client privilege, confidentiality | 1 Comment »
I am very excited about my first YouTube video — an interview with Tim Sullivan, the contributing editor of CEB’s new book California Property Insurance: Law and Litigation. This book is a great guide for attorneys who Handle real property and advise clients on how to insure that property; Manage, or assist others who manage, [...]
Filed under: Civil Litigation, Legal Topics, Real property, Tort Law | Tagged: bad faith, first-party insurance, insurance, practice guide, real property, Tim Sullivan | Comments Off
It’s becoming harder to establish that a peremptory challenge to a potential juror is discriminatory. It sometimes seems that almost any justification for striking a racial minority or a woman from the jury venire will be accepted. And woe to a party who is challenging a trial court’s finding against the existence of discrimination — talk about [...]
Filed under: Civil Litigation, Criminal Law, Legal Topics, Litigation Strategy | Tagged: bias, discrimination, jury selection, peremptory challenges, Wheeler motion | Comments Off
