February 27th, 2009 · No Comments

Stem Client Roundup for February 2009

The end of the month means it’s client roundup time again. And despite February being a short month, there’s no shortage of news to share!

John Hochfelder, our newest client and New York injury lawyer, wrote some helpful posts for clients involved in injury cases. He described how to prepare for a deposition, how jurors are selected for a trial, what a contingency fee is, and how this type of fee arrangement works.
At his Nursing Homes Abuse Blog, Jonathan Rosenfeld writes about a little-known law passed toward the end of the Bush administration. The new law means that plaintiffs must now obtain court orders to get access to nursing home records and inspections. February also saw Jonathan hold his first readership survey. It’s now closed, but we’re looking forward to seeing the results soon.
Hissey Kientz LLP launched another new microsite, Mesothelioma Lawyers Help, which focuses on asbestos-related illnesses such as mesothelioma and lung cancer. The site includes information on causes, symptoms, and types of mesothelioma, and explains the lawsuit process. It also monitors the latest news on related litigation.
Stem Legal’s Lawyer Addiction Blog, sponsored by our client The Meadows Addiction Treatment Center, has gotten off to a great start. Lately, we’ve covered lawyer assistance programs in California, Colorado, Connecticut, and Delaware as well as in Ontario. Even more encouraging, we’ve been getting some great feedback from LAP folks—stay tuned for more roundups and sites of interest.
Over at JD Scoop, Adrian Lurssen wrote a provoking post entitled “Social Media Perspective: Be a Lawyer”. Adrian’s point: with so many tools for lawyer marketing available (JD Supra’s legal document sharing service being one of them), it’s important to remember that web tools should make your job easier, not harder.
Clark Wilson LLP announced a new firm newsletter: BC Business Litigation Report. The publication provides readable summaries of current business cases in British Columbia, and is available by email, hardcopy, or RSS. Also noteable, my friend Nigel Kent, head of Clark Wilson’s insurance group, was profiled in a Canadian Insurance magazine article entitled “Meet Trusted Counsel”.
West Palm Beach attorney Ronald Chapman wrote a pair of posts on police searches, discussing when consent to a police search is invalid, and why an objection to a police search has to be made at the time of the search and not after the fact.
Legal practice management software client Clio had an amazing experience at the New York LegalTech tradeshow. They wrote a series of posts about how they effectively used Twitter to connect with existing and potential clients, and a great cross-section of industry leaders (Kevin O’Keefe, Bob Ambrogi, Carolyn Elefant, Solo Practice University). Clio was also named one of Bob Ambrogi’s “10 Tech Stars” – check out the video, where Clio President and Co-Founder Jack Newton discusses the SaaS model, Clio’s security guarantee, and its latest feature, Clio ClientConnect.
New Jersey criminal attorney John Marshall has posted on a number of interesting topics lately. His commentary on the legalization of marijuana, social host liability, and the interlock ignition bill (“Ricci’s Law”) is available at John’s New Jersey Criminal Defense and DWI Blog.
Contingent fee litigation lawyers at McClanahan Myers Espey LLP continue to be quoted in the news. Randy McClanahan explains why their client, ClearCorrect, filed declaratory judgment against Invisalign over a patent dispute. Mike Myers commented on a new bank-owned life insurance case the firm is handling.
And lastly, IP lawyers at China law firm King & Wood have posted their analysis on copyright due diligence investigations. As Wang Rui explains, Chinese copyright laws and implementation regulations have produced the twin concepts of “legal entity work and “occupational work” for assigning rights to works made in the course of an employment relationship.
King & Wood’s China tax group also published on a new regulation which sets out procedures for “withholding enterprise income tax for non-resident enterprises“. See: China Takes Action on Non-resident Enterprises Withholding from the firm’s official blog, China Law Insight.