LawFuel Law Firm Newswire

The New York Doctor Ordered to Forfeit More Than $2 Million In Fees Collected For “Doctor Visits”

Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that MOSHE MIRILASHVILI, a Board-certified, state-licensed doctor, was sentenced today to 160 months in prison for conspiring to distribute oxycodone and unlawful distribution of oxycodone. MIRILASHVILI was also ordered to forfeit $2,046,600.00 in cash fees collected from “patients” during the period of the conspiracy, including more than $1.75 million in cash recovered from MIRILASHVILI’s home at the time of his arrest. MIRLASHVILI was convicted in Manhattan federal court on March 17, 2016, following a three-week trial before United States District Judge Colleen McMahon, who imposed sentence.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said: “Moshe Mirilashvili was essentially a drug dealer masquerading as a doctor. Through his sham medical practice in Manhattan where patients and dealers would line up, Mirilashvili wrote more than 10,000 medically unnecessary prescriptions totaling close to a million oxycodone pills. As today’s sentence makes clear, those who abuse their medical licenses to fuel the opioid epidemic that is devastating so many of our communities will be prosecuted and severely punished.”

According to the Indictment, evidence admitted at trial, and statements made at court proceedings and in court filings:

Oxycodone is a highly addictive, prescription-strength narcotic used to treat severe and chronic pain conditions. Every year, more than 13 million Americans abuse oxycodone, with the misuse of prescription painkillers such as oxycodone, leading to as many as 500,000 annual emergency room visits. Oxycodone prescriptions have enormous cash value to street-level drug dealers, who can fill the prescriptions at most pharmacies and resell the pills at vastly inflated rates. Indeed, a single prescription for 90 30-milligram oxycodone pills has an average resale value in New York City of $2,700 or more.

From October 2012 until December 2014, MIRILASHVILI, a board-certified, state-licensed doctor, wrote thousands of medically unnecessary prescriptions for large quantities of oxycodone in exchange for cash payments. MIRILASHVILI did so out of a sham medical office located on West 162nd Street in Manhattan where MIRILASHVILI typically charged $200 to $300 in cash for “patient visits” that typically involved little, if any, actual examination and almost always resulted in the issuance of a prescription for a large quantity of oxycodone, typically 90 30-milligram tablets.

Virtually none of these “patients” had any medical need for oxycodone, nor any legitimate medical records documenting an ailment for which oxycodone would be prescribed. Instead, most of these individuals were members of “crews” – that is, they were recruited and paid by drug traffickers (the “Crew Chiefs”), to pose as “patients” in order to receive medically unnecessary prescriptions. The Crew Chiefs then obtained these prescriptions and arranged for them to be filled at various pharmacies so that the oxycodone pills thereby obtained could be resold on the streets of New York.

As established at trial, MIRILASHVILI worked directly with some of these Crew Chiefs who paid MIRILASHVILI’s cash fees in return for the oxycodone prescriptions MIRILASHVILI guaranteed for their “patients.” As part of the scheme, MIRILASHVILI frequently accepted and even created fraudulent and fake documents – such as MRI and urinalysis reports – ostensibly documenting the medical need for the oxycodone prescriptions MIRILASHVILI was writing. For example, among documents recovered from MIRILASHVILI’s home at the time of his arrest were lab reports in which the name of the “patient” had been cut and pasted onto the document, as well as similar reports in which the name of the patient or other relevant information had been whited out. More than $1.75 million in cash earned from writing these medically unnecessary prescriptions was also recovered from the defendant’s home at the time of his arrest.

In total, between October 2012 and December 2014, MIRILASHVILI wrote more than 10,000 medically unnecessary prescriptions for oxycodone in return for cash payments, comprising nearly a million oxycodone tablets. MIRILASHIVILI collected more than $2 million in cash fees for “doctor visits” during this time period, all of which the defendant is being required to forfeit to the United States.

Ten other participants in the conspiracy have previously pled guilty, including the drug traffickers who oversaw crews of “patients” sent into the clinics to obtain medically unnecessary oxycodone prescriptions, and clinic staff, who profited by selling access to MIRILASHVILI and the fraudulent prescriptions he wrote.

* * *

In addition to the prison sentence and forfeiture, Judge McMahon sentenced MIRILASHVILI, 68, of Great Neck, New York, to 3 years of supervised release and ordered MIRILASHVILI to pay a $300 special assessment. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara thanked the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Tactical Diversion Squad (which comprises agents and officers from the DEA, the New York City Police Department, the New York State Police, the Town of Orangetown Police Department, the Rockland County Drug Task Force, and the Westchester County Police Department) for their work in the two-year investigation. The case is being prosecuted by the Office’s Narcotics Unit. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Edward B. Diskant and Brooke E. Cucinella are in charge of the prosecution.

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Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced today that GARY HIRST, former president and chairman of the board of Gerova Financial Group, Ltd. (“Gerova”), a publicly traded company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, was found guilty of defrauding the shareholders of that company by secretly giving away nearly $72 million of company stock to himself and his co-conspirators for no legitimate business purpose. HIRST was convicted after a two-week trial before U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said: “As the jury found today after a two-week trial, Gary Hirst conspired to commit securities and wire fraud by having Gerova issue more than $70 million worth of shares for no legitimate business purpose and by hiding his and others’ control of those shares. As a result of the manipulation of Gerova’s stock price, Hirst personally reaped more than $2.6 million in illegal profits.”

According to the allegations contained in the Indictment as well as the evidence presented during trial[1]:

From 2009 to 2011, GARY HIRST, along with his co-conspirators Jason Galanis, John Galanis, Jared Galanis, Derek Galanis, Ymer Shahini, and Gavin Hamels, engaged in a scheme to defraud the shareholders of Gerova, and the investing public, by issuing shares of Gerova stock for no legitimate business purpose and by effecting securities transactions in Gerova stock for the purpose of conferring millions of dollars of undisclosed remuneration on HIRST and his co-conspirators.

As a part of the scheme to defraud, GARY HIRST and Jason Galanis obtained sufficient control over Gerova to be able to cause Gerova to enter into transactions of their own design, and for their benefit, including the issuance of Gerova stock. Jason Galanis obtained this control without causing himself to be identified as an officer or director of Gerova in order to appear to abide by an SEC-imposed bar which forbade him from holding such positions at publicly traded companies. Among other means and methods, HIRST caused over 5 million shares of Gerova stock, which represented nearly half the company’s public float and which were intended for HIRST and his co-conspirators’ ultimate benefit, to be issued to and held in the name of Ymer Shahini, who knowingly served as a foreign nominee for the co-conspirators. HIRST, Jason Galanis, John Galanis, Jared Galanis, Derek Galanis, and Shahini understood that the purpose of the stock grant to Shahini was to disguise the co-conspirators’ true ownership interest in the stock, and to evade the SEC’s regulations for issuing unregistered shares of stock.

In furtherance of the scheme, HIRST and his co-conspirators created fraudulent, back-dated documents to conceal their theft of the stock and cover their tracks. Also in furtherance of the scheme, HIRST deliberately misled Gerova’s other officers, including its chief financial officer, and caused Gerova to fail to disclose the stock giveaway in Gerova’s public filings with the SEC. In a telephone call with Jason Galanis that was recorded by the FBI, HIRST gloated, upon reviewing a draft of one such public filing, “That whole, that whole Shahini thing, I mean, nobody, they totally missed it. Everybody.”

At the same time, and as a further part of the scheme to defraud, GARY HIRST’s co-conspirators opened and managed brokerage accounts in the name of Shahini (the “Shahini Accounts”), effected the sale of Gerova stock from the Shahini Accounts, and received and concealed the proceeds, knowing that this activity was designed to conceal from the investing public the fraudulent nature of the co-conspirators’ ownership of and control over the Gerova stock.

Jason Galanis, among others, also fraudulently induced investment advisers, including Gavin Hamels, to purchase shares of Gerova stock in the investment advisers’ client accounts by offering compensation and/or other benefits to the respective investment adviser. By causing the purchase of Gerova stock at the time, quantity, and/or price of their choosing, the co-conspirators were able to, among other things, effectuate the sale of large quantities of Gerova stock from the Shahini Accounts that the co-conspirators controlled while artificially maintaining the price of Gerova stock through coordinated matched trading. Such coordinated trading served to manipulate the market for Gerova stock and deceive the investing public.

As a result, GARY HIRST, Jason Galanis, and their co-conspirators reaped nearly $20 million in profits, including approximately $2.6 million that benefitted HIRST directly.

* * *

GARY HIRST, 64, was convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, each of which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense; and of one count of securities fraud and one count of wire fraud, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The defendant also faces a maximum fine of $5,000,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense on the securities fraud count and a maximum fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense on the wire fraud count.

Jason Galanis, 46, pled guilty on July 21, 2016 to two counts of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, each of which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense; one count of securities fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a maximum fine of $5,000,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense; and one count of investment adviser fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum fine of $10,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense.

John Galanis, 73, pled guilty on July 20, 2016 to one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense; and one count of securities fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a maximum fine of $5,000,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense.

Jared Galanis, 37, pled guilty to one count of misprision of a felony, which carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense.

Gavin Hamels, 40, pled guilty on March 22, 2016, to one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense; one count of securities fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a maximum fine of $5,000,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense; and one count of investment adviser fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense.

The maximum potential sentences in this case are prescribed by Congress and are provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentences for the defendants will be determined by the judge.

Mr. Bharara praised the work of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and thanked the SEC.

The charges were brought in connection with the President’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force. The task force was established to wage an aggressive, coordinated and proactive effort to investigate and prosecute financial crimes. With more than 20 federal agencies, 94 U.S. attorneys’ offices, and state and local partners, it is the broadest coalition of law enforcement, investigatory and regulatory agencies ever assembled to combat fraud. Since its formation, the task force has made great strides in facilitating increased investigation and prosecution of financial crimes; enhancing coordination and cooperation among federal, state and local authorities; addressing discrimination in the lending and financial markets; and conducting outreach to the public, victims, financial institutions and other organizations. Since fiscal year 2009, the Justice Department has filed over 18,000 financial fraud cases against more than 25,000 defendants. For more information on the task force, please visit www.StopFraud.gov.

This case is being handled by the Office’s Securities and Commodities Fraud Task Force. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Brian Blais, Aimee Hector, and Rebecca Mermelstein are in charge of the prosecution.

Sidley.com – The Second Circuit reversed a jury verdict of US$147 million after trebling and dismissed antitrust claims against a Chinese manufacturer of vitamin C, ruling that the case should have been dismissed by the district court on a motion to dismiss, which was filed just over 10 years earlier.

The district court had permitted China’s Ministry of Commerce (the Ministry or MOFCOM) to participate in the case as an amicus curiae but refused to credit the Ministry’s interpretation of Chinese law.

Holding that the district court’s refusal to defer to the Chinese government was reversible error, the Court held that when “we receive from a foreign government an official statement explicating its own laws and regulation, we are bound to extend that explication the deference long accorded such proffers received from foreign governments.” In re: Vitamin C Antitrust Litig., No. 13-4791-cv (2d Cir. Sept. 20, 2016), slip op. at 4.1

(China) moved to dismiss the complaint on the related grounds of comity, the Act of State doctrine and the doctrine of foreign sovereign compulsion.

Plaintiffs sued four vitamin C manufacturers, and an affiliate of one of them, based in the People’s Republic of China, alleging they entered into a cartel organized by a Chinese chamber of commerce to fix the prices and amount of vitamin C that the companies exported to the United States, in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The defendants moved to dismiss the complaint on the related grounds of comity, the Act of State doctrine and the doctrine of foreign sovereign compulsion.

The motion to dismiss was supported by an amicus brief submitted on MOFCOM’s behalf.

In it, “[t]he Ministry explained that the Chamber, which Plaintiffs refer to as an ‘association,’ is entirely unlike a ‘trade association’ or the ‘chamber of commerce’ in the United States and, consistent with China’s state-run economy, is a ‘Ministry-supervised entity authorized by the Ministry to regulate vitamin C export prices and output levels.’” Id. at 8.

Indeed, the Ministry’s amicus brief explained that the export prices and output levels alleged as unlawful by plaintiffs were actually the result of a consensus on price and output reached by the manufacturers under direct instructions from MOFCOM through the Chamber.

However, finding that the Chinese legal system did not produce statutory and regulatory histories similar to those the district court was used to seeing in the American regulatory framework, and unwilling to defer to the Chinese government’s explanation of its own laws and regulations, the district court denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss.

Similar arguments, supported by similar amicus statements proffered by the Ministry, were offered in support of subsequent motions for summary judgment and interlocutory appeal, both of which were denied. The remaining manufacturer defendant and its affiliate appealed that verdict.

The Court relied on the seminal U.S. Supreme Court case of U.S. v. Pink and its progeny 

The Circuit court held “that the district court abused its discretion by not abstaining, on international comity grounds, from asserting jurisdiction because the court erred by concluding that the Chinese laws did not require Defendants to violate U.S. antitrust law and further erred by not extending adequate deference to the Chinese government’s proffer of the interpretation of its laws.” Id. at 13-14.

The Court relied on the seminal U.S. Supreme Court case of U.S. v. Pink and its progeny “for the proposition that an official statement or declaration from a foreign government clarifying its laws must be accepted as ‘conclusive.’” Id. at 24. It rejected plaintiffs’ argument, which was accepted by the district court, “that Rule 44.1 [a procedural rule regarding the interpretation of foreign laws], adopted in 1966 long after Pink was decided, modified the level of deference that a U.S. court must extend to a foreign government’s interpretation of its own laws.” Id. at 26.

Finally, the Second Circuit noted that MOFCOM’s amicus filings before both the district and circuit courts were “historic” because “it is the first time any entity of the Chinese government has appeared amicus curiae before any U.S. court.” Id. at 7 and n. 5.

Moreover, the “Chinese government has repeatedly made known to the federal courts, as well as to the United States Department of State in an official diplomatic communication relating to this case, that it considers the lack of deference it received in our courts, and the exercise of jurisdiction over this suit, to be disrespectful and that it ‘has attached great importance to this case.’” Id. at 42. It is clear from these and other passages of the opinion that MOFCOM’s decision to participate directly in the litigation and present its position on the proper interpretation of Chinese law directly to the U.S. courts was pivotal to the outcome.

In fact, the Court commented in a footnote “if the Chinese government had not appeared in this litigation,” the district court’s decision to engage in a wide ranging analysis of Chinese law “would have been entirely appropriate.” Id. at 35 n.10. And in another footnote, the Court cautioned that “deference may be inappropriate” where “there is no documentary evidence or reference of law proffered to support a foreign sovereign’s interpretation of its own laws.” Id. at 30 n.10.

The decision thus clarifies that in the Second Circuit, a high degree of deference must be accorded when a foreign government appears directly in a U.S. court and provides a reasonably detailed explanation of its own nation’s laws or regulations.

One question left unanswered by the decision, however, is what level of deference will be accorded to such official statements when they are proffered by a private defendant in a subsequent action in which the foreign government does not participate directly.

1 A Sidley Austin LLP team led by Carter Phillips in Washington, D.C., Joel Mitnick in New York and Henry Ding in Beijing, represented the Ministry in this case.

The “Facebook” Judge who unfriended Kirland & Ellis has reconsidered his actions, reported here, and apologized for his criticism of the associate who bore the brunt of his barrage.

Craig Primis

Reuters reported that the judge (Nicholas Garaufis) on Tuesday apologized to the extent his comments may have sounded like criticism of the associate, but said he was concerned about whether Facebook’s lawyers at Kirkland & Ellis LLP were taking the matter seriously.

“We heard you loud and clear, and we apologize,” Craig Primis, a partner at Kirkland & Ellis, told Garaufis.

Mr Primis is a long serving partner at Kirland, who appeared from the DC office of the firm, although there were others in the Facebook team who travelled long distances to be at the status conference, including Facebook’s deputy general counsell, Paul Grewal who came from California to attend.

So Judge Garaufis was certainly garnering the high level attention he thought the Facebook class action warranted.

But he also drew some fire for the intensity of his Aleppo-style flaming of the young lawyer chastised for making the appearance prior to the ‘unfriending’ incident.

As AbovetheLaw noted, –

So all’s well that ends well. Kirkland and Facebook apologized to Judge Garaufis, Judge Garaufis apologized to them, and Facebook reassured the judge that it takes very seriously its obligation to make sure its platform is not used to incite terrorism (the subject matter of the underlying lawsuit).

This is an outcome that everyone can “like.”

Primis told the Judge that Facebook will be seeking the dismissal of both lawsuits on grounds including that as a communications platform, it had immunity from being sued under federal law.

  LOS ANGELES – A Lancaster man was sentenced yesterday in federal court for criminal copyright infringement for illegally posting screener versions of two movies – “The Revenant” and “The Peanuts Movie” – to a publicly accessible website. As a result of the illegal upload, “The Revenant” was available for download six days before its limited release in theaters and more than 1 million people were able to download the film within a six-week period, which caused Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation to suffer losses of well over $1 million.

William Kyle Morarity, 31, who used the screen name “clutchit,” pled guilty earlier this year to felony copyright infringement and was sentenced this week by United States District Court Judge Stephen V. Wilson to eight months’ home detention and 24 months’ probation. He was also ordered to pay $1.12 million in restitution to Twentieth Century Fox.

Morarity agreed to assist the FBI in the production of a public service announcement to assist the government in educating the public about the harms of copyright infringement and the illegal uploading of movies that are the legal property of the movie studio.

Morarity obtained the screeners without authorization while at work on a studio lot. He copied the screeners onto a portable drive and uploaded the movies from his home computer on December 17 and 19, 2015, to a BitTorrent website called “Pass the Popcorn,” which allowed downloading via a peer-to-peer network.

“The film industry creates thousands of jobs in Southern California,” said United States Attorney Eileen M. Decker. “The defendant’s illegal conduct caused significant harm to the victim movie studio. The fact that the defendant stole these films while working on the lot of a movie studio makes his crime more egregious.”

“Mr. Morarity used his position of trust to gain access to sensitive intellectual property, then shared that content online and incurred large-scale losses to the owner of that property,” said Deirdre Fike, the Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office. “The theft of intellectual property – in this case, major motion pictures – discourages creative incentive and affects the average American making ends meet in the entertainment industry.”

The case against Morarity was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Jennie Wang.

The Global 100 top law firms showed a slow and steady approach to their growth, according to the American Lawyer release of the world’s biggest law firms.

The top 100 showed a slower growth in 2015 with the highest revenues after the sixth, consecutive year of gains, the survey reported.

The top firms were:

1. Latham & Watkins: $2,650,000,000 2. Baker & McKenzie: $2,620,000,000 (verein) 3. DLA Piper: $2,543,000,000 (verein) 4. Skadden Arps: $2,410,000,000 5. Kirkland & Ellis: $2,305,000,000 6. Dentons: $2,120,000,000 (verein) 7. Clifford Chance: $2,118,500,000 8. Freshfields: $2,028,000,000 9. Allen & Overy: $2,002,500,000 9. Linklaters: $2,002,500,000

Revenues for the firms approached $100 billion – to be exact, $96.6 billion, say American Lawyer –

Revenue for The Global 100 increased 3.1 percent in 2015, to $96.6 billion, a record for this group. And average profits per equity partner rose 4.9 percent, to 
nearly $1.6 million. At current growth rates, total Global 100 revenue in next year’s survey will almost reach $100 billion.

Despite these gains, average revenue per lawyer (RPL)—a key measure of a law firm’s health and efficiency—dipped 2.1 percent, to $812,701. It is only the third decline in group RPL this millennium, after the financial crisis caused drops in 2008 and 2009, and the first time that Global 100 RPL has fallen without the United States economy being in recession.

 one of the questions posed by the survey was the cause of the revenue decline.  When Dentons merged with Dacheng to create a 4000-strong legal powerhouse the Global revenues slumped, with over one third of the Global 100 seeing a decline in RPL of over five percent.  More than a third experienced declines in 2015, which is the biggest in years and could indicate a trend in the immediate future.

Source: AmLaw & AbovetheLaw

Groundbreaking annual study ranks the performance of AmLaw 100 firms on performance, reach and engagement on social media platforms and thought leadership

Leading digital marketing agency Good2bSocial has released its third annual Social Media Law Firm Index, the only study of its kind that takes a comprehensive look at the top 100 law firms in the country (per The American Lawyer magazine’s AmLaw 100) and analyzes each firm’s adoption and use of best practices in social media marketing and thought leadership content.

In addition to measuring social media marketing performance, reach and engagement on specific platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, the 2016 Social Law Firm Index takes a particular look at how digital is being employed by firms to communicate and amplify thought leadership content.

Guy Alvarez, CEO of Good2bSocial, emphasizes, “A law firm’s most valuable resource—its intellectual assets—are also its most critical marketing assets. Content on social media platforms can be powerful business development tools for a firm, when used correctly – but simply including them in a digital arsenal without thoughtfully considering their value and best use renders them worthless. Social media marketing requires a strategy, training and adequate resources to effectively execute digital campaigns.”

Key Findings from the Study:

Bigger Isn’t Always Better: While the largest firms continue to perform better in reach and overall social media performance, our analysis reveals a number of firms considerably smaller in size performing very well in engagement and thought leadership.

Education v. Promotion: The firms that performed poorly in the study were those whose outbound communications were limited to press releases and other promotional content about themselves and their attorneys. These firms had the fewest followers and lowest engagement rates.

Think Frequent: The study’s highest-ranking firms published value-added content on a frequent, consistent basis. Conversely, the firms with the lowest scores published content irregularly and intermittently. Establishing and adhering to an editorial calendar to plan and track future content can help firms adhere to a regular content distribution schedule.

Some Lag Behind: While many of the AmLaw 100 firms have some degree of mastery and maturity in using social media to extend their reach and grow business, some firms appear to still reside in the Dark Ages. As leadership at clients and startups large and small grows younger, for millennials and others, social media is an accepted and expected communications channel.

Video Infancy: Video is still a medium that has been slow to adoption by the AmLaw 100. Law firms are still in the experimental stage in learning the best applications for video in business development and brand-building efforts.

The Social Law Firm Index 2016 Best Performing Firms:

The Social Law Firm Index 2016 Overall Top Five Firms demonstrated the greatest comprehensive adoption, integration and use of social media to market and grow business via social channels. The firms topping our list include:

1. DLA Piper 2. Latham & Watkins 3. Norton Rose Fulbright 4. Morgan, Lewis & Bockius 5. Greenberg Traurig

This year marks the inauguration of Good2bSocial’s Thought Leadership Index where firms were measured for representing their talent, acumen and skills in informative, accessible and impactful ways optimized for digital consumption. Polsinelli ranked first on the inaugural Thought Leadership Index, followed by K&L Gates and Latham & Watkins. The Social Law Firm Index 2016 also ranked firms based upon their Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook usage.

For the first time, the Social Law Firm Index 2016 utilizes The Good2bSocial Score™, an algorithm designed to measure the true impact of a law firm’s digital marketing footprint. Good2bSocial Score™and The Social Law Firm Index ranks are based upon a proprietary methodology developed to assess the effectiveness of each firm’s use of digital marketing and social media. The Good2bSocial Score™ ranges from zero to a perfect 100.

Download a copy of The 2016 Social Media Law Firm Index 2016 http://good2bsocial.com/thesociallawfirm

  About Good2bSocial

Good2bSocial is the leading digital marketing agency for law firms, lawyers and companies in the legal industry. Comprised of experts in business development, marketing, advertising, social media, consulting, journalism, data analytics and knowledge management, they offer a full suite of digital marketing services including social media, pay-per-click, SEO, content marketing and digital strategy. Good2bSocial helps their clients to understand and leverage the power of digital marketing and social media to power and transform their marketing and business development strategies while delivering measurable and meaningful business results.

Being ‘unfriended’ on Facebook is a face-slap many face – but now a New York judge has used it to unfriend an entire firm – Kirkland & Ellis – who sent a ‘rookie lawyer’ to defend Facebook against two lawsuits accusing the social network of facilitating terrorism.

The lawsuits are supported by 20,000 plaintiffs and the attorney

Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis went ballistic against Big Law’s Kirkland & Ellis for sending poor young lawyer Thomas Burcher II who, according to the New York Post, “slunk out of the courtroom looking like a sad emoji after receiving a blistering dressing down from the judge.”

The rant was, however, addressed to the K&E “clueless” partners who had handled the Facebook matter poorly – to say the least.

“You tell your folks back at Kirkland & Ellis that if they think so little of this court that they didn’t send a partner here to talk about this kind of problem which implicates international terrorism and the murder of innocent people in Israel and other places,” Garaufis said. “I think it’s outrageous, irresponsible and insulting.”

The Facebook lawsuits allege that Facebook’s algorithms “connect the terrorists to the inciters” and that Facebook sometimes refuses to take down pages exhorting violent attacks by Hamas against Jews. The plaintiffs are Israelis, some American citizens living in Israel, who have been “living in the crosshairs of a murderous terrorist rampage carried out by terrorists” since 2015.

Garaufis had indicated that Facebook has a “social responsibility” to resolve the issues arising from the lawsuits, but the rookie Burcher’s claim that a lawsuit was not the vehicle for the resolution saw the Judge hit the judicial and social media roof.

“I’ve been a lawyer for 41 years and a judge for 16 years and I’m not having this discussion with you,” he said.

Burcher sputtered that the lead counsel on the case was called away to Texas yesterday on a legal emergency.

“Maybe Kirkland & Ellis can scrounge up a partner who isn’t busy in Texas to come see a lowly judge in the Eastern District of New York,” Garaufis replied hotly before ending the conference.

“I want to talk to someone (at the law firm) who talks to senior management at Facebook,” he said.

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Buchalter Nemer* – From May 30 to June 3, 2016, I represented the Pacific Council as an official observer at pre-trial hearings for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) and four other alleged masterminds of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks of September 11, 2001.

They are charged with war crimes under the Military Commissions Act of 2009. After false starts and the failure of an earlier military commission, the current proceedings began in May 2012 and almost immediately became mired in procedural, discovery, and other pretrial issues. Since then delays, postponements, and countless incidents sidetracking the proceedings have kept progress painfully slow.

As Guantánamo hearing weeks go, this was an ambitious one. The court heard 42 motions covering a wide variety of issues. Most involved the scope of discovery and the appropriate treatment of information deemed to be classified or otherwise sensitive.

At this stage efforts appear to focus on evidence that may illuminate mistreatment of the prisoners—medical records, detainee statements, CIA oral-history-program interviews, and the like. Other motions sought to safeguard confidential communications between the accused and their attorneys. Several appeared to involve longstanding controversies yet to be resolved. Judge Col. James L. Pohl took all motions under advisement for later ruling.

Specific motions argued during the week included the following:

Defense requested an expert to examine potentially cancerous contaminants discovered in the soil at Camp Justice where the courtroom is located (and where NGO observers live for the week in tents).

Defense sought to establish secure phone connections between their clients at Guantánamo and their offices in the United States.

Defense teams argued for the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture to gain access to Camp 7 to assess conditions there. They also sought additional information on the CIA’s spying on attorney-client meetings (discovered in 2013), and schematic diagrams of the courthouse reflecting installed electronic monitoring devices that were discovered and subsequently ordered to be removed.

Ramzi bin al Shibh sought to hold detention camp authorities in contempt of Judge Pohl’s November 2, 2015, order “not to subject Mr. Bin al Shibh to disruptive and harassing noises and vibrations.” In support, Somalian detainee Guleed Hassan Dourad testified to sounds, vibrations, and strange smells emanating from his cell at night preventing him from sleeping. “We have mental torture in the Camp 7,” Guleed testified in English. He was captured in 2004, turned over to the United States and, since 2006, detained at Guantánamo. To date he has not been charged with an offense.

In a last minute upset, the court postponed what was to have been the world’s first glimpse of a notorious War on Terror prisoner known as Abu Zubaydah, whom the CIA subjected to some of the most brutal known interrogations of the post-September 11 era—waterboarding, forced nudity, confinement to a coffin-sized box—and concluded that he should be kept incommunicado for the rest of his life. Zubaydah, who was to testify in support of bin al Shibh’s allegations, made it all the way to the war court door but never stepped inside to testify about conditions in Guantanamo’s clandestine Camp 7. Before he could do so, his Navy lawyer, Cmdr. Patrick Flor, announced in court that he would object to any questions that might incriminate his client, risking Zubaydah’s entire testimony being struck from the record and prompting lawyers to postpone the testimony until July at the earliest.

KSM sought approval to send a letter he had prepared to President Obama, claiming a right of confrontation. But first, he had to get the letter back from the authorities to whom it had been presented to approve its dissemination (JTF GTMO, DOD, etc.). In a typical GTMO result, each agency had declined to authorize dissemination on what sounded to me like narrow bureaucratic justifications, but refused to return the letter, claiming it might contain information too sensitive or otherwise inappropriate for disclosure to KSM—its author.

At one point in the argument, KSM touched off a shouting match with Judge Pohl by announcing inexplicably in Arabic, “This is a nuclear bomb in the world.” Before he could elaborate, Judge Pohl shouted him down and threatened to eject him from court, adding that he would not tolerate defendants talking without permission in court.

An imaginative argument that took up the better part of a morning session was defense counsel James Connell’s claim that U.S. domestic law incorporates various international laws and treaties on the treatment of detainees, which he argued must be applied in this case. One of the forces slowing these proceedings appears to be a lack of clarity on the procedures, jurisdiction, and laws that should be applied in the context of a military commission sitting in Guantánamo.

As is his custom, Judge Pohl made no substantive rulings from the bench, promising them at unspecified later dates after further consideration.

Chief Defense Counsel Brigadier General John Baker said he expects the focus of the 9-11 hearings for the “next period of time” to be on discovery of classified information, a process he said was “in its infancy.”

Despite defense lawyers joking on occasion that “peace may have broken out” with the prosecution team, Baker said there have been few instances of the parties coming together to resolve matters outside of the courtroom. “The way litigation has unfolded,” he said, “there’s virtually no getting together and working it out.” According to one defense team member, the trial is not likely to begin before the end of 2019. Another predicted a start date “between 5 and 10 years from now.”

The military commission hearings were intended to provide a fair trial within a legitimate judicial framework. The painful delays and seemingly endless pretrial procedures threaten to erode perceptions of legitimacy and fairness, and they must be addressed if the United States hopes to restore its standing in the international community as a champion of human rights.

I believe these delays stem from a variety of sources, including the following:

Systemic inadequacies. The system itself may be flawed. New twists in the case seem to occur frequently, functionally shutting the process down until the controversies can be resolved. The military court has few legal precedents to go by, so nearly every issue that comes up causes another delay, breeding issues to litigate. Also, delay may further a defense objective in these capital cases for as long as possible to keep their clients from being executed.

External influences. Although it is difficult to resist concluding that government prosecutors are unduly uncooperative, one must also appreciate the difficult task they have trying to conduct a trial with their every move scrutinized by outside agencies like the CIA, FBI, and NSA, all of which have a say in withholding or redacting potentially confidential or merely embarrassing discovery materials. Working through their objections is proving a daunting and massively time-consuming task.

Also, the Joint Task Force Guantánamo, which operates the detention facilities, does not appear to be subject to many orders by the military judge. This makes it difficult for the court to influence prison conditions or ensure defense counsel access to their clients.

Judicial temperament. Judge Pohl is doubtless a capable jurist in many respects. He clearly is intelligent, has a firm grasp of the pleadings, and understands the issues. His reluctance to rule on motions in a timely manner, acceptance of prosecution recalcitrance in turning over documents, and possibly over-cautious navigation of admittedly uncharted legal waters, however, all add to the perception that this trial may never end.

The Pacific Council has recommended several means by which to re-establish legitimacy of the military commission process and, beyond that, our nation’s credibility on the world stage by expediting and bringing transparency to these proceedings, most notably by appointing a federal district court judge to preside over the military commission trials. This recommendation should receive more attention.

Author – 

Steven Stathatos’ practice focuses on commercial transactions, real property finance and entitlement, and a wide range of corporate, partnership and general business matters. He is a current member of the Pacific Council on International Policy.

Los Angeles, September 22, 2016 – LawFuel.com – Buchalter is pleased to announce that its Scottsdale office is growing with three new additions. Laurent Badoux joined as a Shareholder in the firm’s Labor & Employment Practice Group. He was formerly the Chair of the Phoenix Labor & Employment Practice at Greenberg Traurig LLP. Douglas John and Shaun Kuter also joined as members of the Tax & Estate Planning Practice Group. John was previously a Senior Partner at Frazer, Ryan, Goldberg & Arnold LLP, where Kuter was previously an Associate. Both Badoux and John are also licensed in Nevada, where they both have active practices.

“Laurent, Doug and Shaun are welcome additions to our growing Scottsdale office,” said Adam J. Bass, President and Chief Executive Officer of Buchalter. “Their complimentary practices to our existing labor and employment and tax and real estate capabilities make our services incomparable in this region, and Laurent, Douglas and Shaun’s expertise is another value-add to our clients.”

Badoux’s practice spans a national and international scale as he handles a variety of labor and employment litigation matters, including labor relations, harassment claims, wage and hour audits, breach of fiduciary duties and more. He represents clients across a number of industries and in addition to handling litigation matters, Badoux assists clients on a proactive basis by conducting audits, providing preventive employee and managerial training and drafting sound employee handbooks and policies.

“I have known many of Buchalter’s attorneys in Scottsdale for years and hold them in high regard. My labor and employment practice meshes perfectly with Buchalter’s current offerings,” said Badoux. “I am eager to continue representing my clients at Buchalter.”

Badoux earned his J.D. from the Emory University School of Law and his B.A. in English composition and French literature, cum laude, from the University of Arizona.

John focuses his practice on state and local taxation matters, with an emphasis on property tax counseling and litigation. He regularly advises his clients – including individuals, small businesses and Fortune 500 corporations – as they navigate Arizona’s and Nevada’s complex state and local tax systems.

John earned his J.D. from the University of Arizona, his M.A. in economics from the University of Arizona and his B.A. in history from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.

Kuter focuses his practice on state and local tax matters, including proactively advising clients on potential tax pitfalls and representing them in litigation in administrative tribunals, Superior Court and appellate appearances. Kuter also has significant experience with tax controversy matters, and formerly worked at the Arizona Department of Revenue’s Office of General Counsel, where he handled transaction privilege tax, use tax and luxury tax issues.

Kuter earned his J.D. from Temple University and his B.S. in political science and government from Arizona State University. ###

Buchalter Nemer is a full-service business law firm representing local, regional national and international clients in a multitude of practice areas and their subspecialties, among them: Bank and Finance, Corporate, Health Care, Litigation, Insolvency and Financial Solutions, Intellectual Property, Labor and Employment, Litigation, Real Estate, and Tax and Estate Planning. Buchalter Nemer has offices in Los Angeles, Orange County, San Francisco, Napa Valley and Scottsdale. For more information about the firm, visit www.buchalter.com.

    London, UK; September 22, 2016 – Law firm Sullivan & Worcester is advising documentation agent Deutsche Bank, and the syndicate of lenders, in the annual Pre-Export Receivables-Backed Trade Finance Facility for the Ghana Cocoa Board (“Cocobod”) for $1.8 billion. The documentation for the transaction signed on 21stSeptember, 2016.

The proceeds of the Facility will be used to assist Cocobod in meeting its financing needs for the 2016/17 cocoa crop. The facility was signed on time and in the amount launched. It was oversubscribed in syndication.

Geoffrey Wynne, head of the Trade & Export Finance Group and of Sullivan & Worcester’s London office, commented: “There are no other more significant Sub-Saharan receivables-backed soft commodity financings than this annual transaction. It allows Cocobod to meet its financing needs for its annual cocoa and light cocoa crop, while at the same time providing payment security to Ghanaian cocoa farmers.  As in previous years, the facility proved to be enormously popular in syndication.   Sullivan & Worcester is delighted to have advised the lenders and to have brought the transaction to signing.”

Partner Geoffrey Wynne is leading the Sullivan & Worcester team advising Deutsche Bank, supported by London associate Sam Fowler-Holmes.

Trade Finance Awards

In June 2015, Sullivan & Worcester was, for the third year in a row, named ‘Best Law Firm in Trade Finance’, by the readers of Trade & Forfaiting Review (TFR) in the TFR Excellence in Trade Awards 2016.  In addition, Global Trade Review (GTR) named Sullivan & Worcester the ‘Best Trade Finance Law Firm’ 2015 in its annual ‘Leaders in Trade Awards’.  The firm is also recognised as a top tier firm for Trade Finance by the UK Legal 500, 2016.

About Sullivan & Worcester

Sullivan & Worcester is a leading law firm advising clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies to emerging businesses. With 175 lawyers in Boston, London, New York, Tel Aviv and Washington, D.C., the firm offers services in a wide range of areas, including corporate finance, banking, trade finance, insurance, securities and mutual funds, litigation and dispute resolution, mergers and acquisitions, tax, real estate and REITs, private equity and venture capital, bankruptcy, environment and natural resources, climate change, renewable energy and water resources, regulatory law, and employment and benefits law.

Glamorous civil rights lawyer Amal Clooney’s next move in her fight against the corrupt and inhumane is the world’s worst current scouge – ISIS.

Fighting ISIS is something that requires more than bombing missions and special forces for Ms Clooney, but how exactly can they be sued for their depraved criminality?

Supported (of course) by husband George Clooney, Ms Amal is representing client Nadia Murad who was captured and made a sex slave when 19 years old following the slaughter of her eight brothers and her mother in the Yazidi genocide.

Nadia Murad

But how and where will this trial occur?

Amal told the UN that bombs alone will not destroy ISIS, but a trial and the killing of an idea is more powerful.

She wants to expose their brutality and corruption through trials.

Clooney, who said she spoke with her husband before taking on the case, added: ‘I don’t think anybody can feel that they’re being courageous compared to what Nadia’s doing. It’s no joke. This is ISIS, and they have sent her very specific threats saying we will get you back .

‘This is a direct quote: “We will do everything to you.”‘

Few law firm consultants and analyts have spoken, lectured and written about the future of law firms and lawyers than Canadian Jordan Furlong.  Having spoken to lawyers throughout North America and Europe, Jordan Furlong’s views on what lawyers need to do to survive rapid change in their profession has become some of the most read and listened-to advice anywhere in the world.

LawFuel spoke to Jordan Furlong with some tips on where the law is going and what smaller firms in particular need to be doing to survive and prosper in the challenging new world ‘Law Order’.

LawFuel: What can/should small law firms do in order to meet the challenges that technology presents today in terms of delivering their services? In other words, while they do not have the financial resources of start-up ‘virtual firms’ or Big Law, they still want to be relevant and even occasionally ground-breaking in what they do. But how? What should they focus upon?

JF –  One way to look at technology is as a challenge, and in terms of staying aware of what new technologies are emerging and figuring out which are worth paying attention to, I suppose that’s right.

Practising law is still a full-time job, so if you feel pressure to also read every legal tech blog and column, that’s another job right there, and it’s going to make things difficult. (Note: I don’t think you should read every tech blog and column.)

“Technology” is nothing more than a ten-dollar word for “tool . . “

But technology presents an opportunity to law firms at least as much as it presents a challenge, and that’s the way I recommend lawyers, especially those in smaller firms, look at it.

“Technology” is nothing more than a ten-dollar word for “tool,” so think of it this way: what tools do I need to command in order to run a successful and profitable law practice?

  LawFuel – What’s technology’s benefit for small firms?  

Technology’s major upside for small firms is, I think, on the internal side of the business more so than the client-facing side.

The first and easiest thing to do is look at the technology you’ve already got and ask whether you’re making good enough use of it. Excel is a prime example: how many people in your office (including you) know how to create and maintain a spreadsheet, one of the simplest yet most powerful technologies available to law firms?

How many people use Rules in Outlook to manage incoming email?

What’s the state of your firm’s tickler system to handle filing deadlines and limitation periods? These are tools you already have at your disposal: they cost you nothing to install and maybe a day’s worth of training to maximize their benefit.

. . train your people so that you get the most out of the purchases you make

There are also more advanced technology options available on the market that can improve your operational effectiveness. ]

Thousands of solos and small-firm lawyers in North America swear by cloud-based practice management systems (like Clio), most of which are available to New Zealand practitioners as well.

These online software suites can replace the myriad CD-based practice management software programs that many firms laboriously installed and updated throughout the ‘90s and ‘00s. These are easy wins: small efforts at minimal cost to upgrade your efficiency. And again, train your people so that you get the most out of the purchases you make.

LawFuel – What about the ‘external’ side of things?  

There are also gains to be made through technology on the external, client-facing side of practice. Electronic billing is an obvious one.

Many law firms still send out paper invoices through the postal service (or if they’re really advanced, as email attachments) several weeks after a legal service is performed, and they don’t expect to see a payment for 90 days. That’s kind of crazy, when you think about it. Not only does it keep cash out of your hands longer than it should, but it also inconveniences your clients and reduces their impetus to process your invoice.

“strive to make “flat fee” the default setting for all your legal services”

So bill your clients through an online service immediately upon completion of a task — US studies have shown this significantly increases payment speed and realization rates.

Use Paypal – And give your clients the option of paying with credit cards or through PayPal. Make the process of paying you as easy as possible. (And while it’s not a technology issue, since we’re on the subject of billing: strive to make “flat fee” the default setting for all your legal services.

In other words, don’t start off with the assumption of hourly rates and offer a fixed fee as the exception; establish fixed fees as the default presumption and place the onus on rebutting that presumption to bill by the hour.)

LawFuel – So how can firms make themselves somehow different from the crowd?

I guess what I’m saying is that given the fast-changing and more aggressive state of legal market demand, making better use of technology in your law practice is absolutely essential.

But equally given the sorry state of most law firms’ response to market demand, your firm can still stand out and make clear gains simply by making better use of the tech you have now and making selected investments in newer technologies to make life easier for your clients and for you.

Don’t worry about artificial intelligence and other out-there topics, at least not yet; nail down the basics before moving on to intermediate and advanced. Many of your competitors don’t even have the basics right yet.

LawFuel –  Do firms need to ‘niche down’ and become more boutique, or do they simply need to present a new, more modern face to their market and deliver their services more efficiently (process improvement)?

JF –  I don’t see any reason why they can’t do both.

I do think that the future for solos and small-firm lawyers is much more in niches rather than in general practice.

There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is that the kind of work we consider “general practice” (and that traditionally has been associated with small-firm lawyers) is going to leave law firms and go to commercial non-lawyer legal service providers.

In North America, companies like LegalZoom and Rocket Lawyer are leading the way, but in the medium- and long-term, most of this work (real estate transactions, wills, simple business law, etc.) will wind up in online applications and software programs.

You’re likelier to find people getting wills done through Amazon or Google than through your local solicitor.

So “general practice” consumer law is going to leave sole practices and small firms. And when you think about it, this is as it should be.

LawFuel – Is this because of increasingly complex laws, as well as through technology developments?  

It was sensible back in the 1960s or 1970s for a one- or two-lawyer shop to do a little bit of everything, because there frankly wasn’t that much to know: the world and the law were both considerably simpler and smaller then.

“. . it’s not realistic for a single lawyer to stay competently up to date on multiple legal fields”

But today, even “straightforward” areas of the law are deep and increasingly labyrinthine, and it’s not realistic for a single lawyer to stay competently up to date on multiple legal fields.

Really, that’s what big firms are for, isn’t it? The whole point of being a large firm is to be “full service.”

And anyway, even if you have your heart set on being a legal GP, the market soon won’t allow it. As software and systems take over these areas of work, the price at which these services are sold will drop well below any amount that a lawyer could charge and even hope to turn a profit.

The general practice solo is part of a history that’s passing. If you’re in a small community, it will hang on longer than in urban centers, but the eventual outcome will be the same.

LawFuel -So what’s left for solos and small firms?

Niches, again for a couple of reasons. One is that the ever-increasing complexity of the law means that even a narrow, tightly focused area of practice has significant depth and breadth, enough to sustain a practice in almost anything.

One of the most prominent sole practitioners in the US, Carolyn Elefant, specializes in energy and eminent domain law.

And the second reason is that, thanks to the internet, a small-firm lawyer’s market is no longer restricted just to her city or town or neighbourhood, but can extend across a country or even beyond. There are no borders when it comes to online marketing, and the more you specialize, the more likely you’ll be found by people searching the web for your particular unique niche.

As to the other aspect of a modern small-firm practice, increased efficiency and process management, the answer is an even more resounding yes.

There is one and only one reason why a law practice should tolerate or even encourage inefficiency: because the firm wants to drag out its lawyers’ performance time to generate more billable hours.

” . . the crazy thing is that an inefficient, hourly-billed practice hurts no one more than the lawyer herself”

That’s not a goal to which any professional service provider should be proud to aspire. Try telling a client that that’s why you avoid efficiency, and see if you can look them in the eye when you say it.

And the crazy thing is that an inefficient, hourly-billed practice hurts no one more than the lawyer herself.

I don’t care how hard you work, how many nights and weekends you spend at the office and how much you neglect friends and family to do it: there literally are only so many hours in a day that you can bill to your clients.

“When you make “time spent” the financial foundation of your practice, you’re setting an arbitrary, artificial ceiling on your earning power.”

When you make “time spent” the financial foundation of your practice, you’re setting an arbitrary, artificial ceiling on your earning power. You’ll never be able to bill more per day than (your rate multiplied by (24-x) hours).

But when you decide to make efficiency a priority and abandon the hourly model for pricing your work, you open up whole new worlds of profit possibility.

Fixed fees encourage you to get the work done faster, so that you can use the remaining time to do even more fixed-fee work. Automate a process so that you can render a service 10 times an hour, rather than once.

You could reduce your effective billing rate by 50% (improving your competitiveness) and still make five times as much money as you did before.

Faster doesn’t have to mean lower quality, by the way — process improvement systems like project management and checklists actually enhance the quality of your output while reducing time spent.

More importantly, you align your practices and procedures with the interests of your client, who wants (a) good work (b) priced affordably and (c) done quickly.

Alignment with your client’s interests is always, always a good thing for a law practice.

LawFuel – For that matter, do they really need to increase that EQ and their attitude towards themselves, their clients and their work?

JF –  Attitude determines altitude, as I once heard someone colourfully say. Lawyers need a good attitude towards themselves, their vocation in law, and their clients.

The absence of a good attitude leads, respectively, to (a) grouchy and depressed lawyers, (b) low morale in law firms, and (c) indifferent or even callous service to the people who are paying our bills.

I don’t think you’d disagree with me that these three foregoing features are far more common throughout the legal market than they ought to be.

“There is probably no skill in shorter supply among lawyers than empathy . . “

This fact often comes as an unpleasant shock to many lawyers, but law practice — especially solo or small-firm practice — is a people business. This is an unhappy realization for many lawyers who went into law because they were introverts who preferred the company of books and the confines of their minds over human interaction.

There is probably no skill in shorter supply among lawyers than empathy: feeling for your client, putting yourself in his position, seeing the world generally and his legal situation specifically through his eyes rather than your own, and then listening intently to what he has to say.

Equally, there is probably no skill whose successful development and deployment presents a shorter and better way to more satisfied clients and a happier law practice.

LawFuel – What’s the good news here?

JF – The good news is that, given how most lawyers are short on empathy and EQ, even displaying a moderate amount to those around you will vault you to the front of the line in this regard.

The competition for “World’s Most Empathetic Lawyer” is not exactly Olympian. In fact, this rule applies to almost everything in this article. You don’t have to adopt these practices and procedures and attitudes better than anyone else in the legal profession.

You just have to adopt them. As the old joke goes, you don’t have to outrun the bear. You only have to outrun the other hikers.

Several years ago, I wrote a post about solo practice that I still think holds up today. How David beat Goliath expands on that foregoing theme: don’t try to out-muscle BigLaw or out-technology the IT specialists.

Solo and small practice has its own built-in advantages, and chief among those are the ability to move quickly to adapt to changing market circumstances, run low-cost yet high-quality law practices, and develop a personal touch that clients find satisfying and memorable. Play to the strengths, not the shortfalls, of small-firm practice.

This wing of the legal profession is still a great place to practise.

Jordan Furlong of Ottawa, Canada, is among the world’s leading analysts of the legal industry. He forecasts the impact of the changing legal market and provides strategic advice for lawyers, clients, and legal organizations. Jordan has addressed dozens of law firms, lawyer associations, state bars, law societies, courts, and law schools throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia regarding the impact of legal market forces on members of the legal profession.

Jordan is a Fellow of the College of Law Practice Management, a Policy Advisory Board Member of Responsive Law, and an Advisory Board Member for the ABA’s Center For Innovation. He also serves as Legal Strategist in Residence and Co-Chair of the Institute for Law Practice Management and Innovation at Suffolk University Law School in Boston, where he has taught courses on the future of legal practice. He writes regularly about the changing legal market for several periodicals and on his website, Law21.ca.

See Also:  6 Simple Steps Lawyers Can Use Content Marketing to Secure New Clients

The #1 Marketing Tip From The Top Law Firm Marketing Gurus

The law firm of Kephart Fisher is pleased to announce the establishment of an Of Counsel relationship with attorney Gary Jones. Jones brings his considerable experience and expertise to a new practice area for the firm that will focus on matters related to liquor licensing and the hospitality industry. Jones is well known throughout the state for his work with clients in the hospitality industry, advising developers, restauranteurs and others on issues related to the manufacturing, distribution, licensing, regulation and merchandising of all legal beverages.

“We are delighted to welcome Gary Jones to our team of seasoned professionals, and excited about the prospect of opening a new practice area that will be especially beneficial for our clientele,” said David Fisher, Principal at Kephart Fisher. “Gary has decades of experience in this arena, and has become the go-to expert when it comes to providing guidance through the often difficult process of pursuing and securing liquor licenses, as well as protecting these assets.”

According to Ohio’s Department of Commerce, the number of Ohio’s licensed alcohol manufacturers is at an all-time high. This growth is attributed to Ohio’s business-friendly regulatory environment and the popularity of quality craft and artisan products made locally. With the Division of Liquor Control issuing new licenses, renewing licenses annually, and approving license transfers, Jones’ practice has never been busier.

Jones entered private practice following his graduation from Franklin University. In 1971, he was offered a position with the Ohio Department of Liquor Control, where he led a division that handled inspections and the issuance of all permits. He left the department in 1974 to return to private practice, but continued to focus on this area of the law, representing retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers across the state. His impressive list of clients includes many nationally known companies, businesses and industries, some of which he has represented for more than 30 years.

“I am very much looking forward to this next phase of my career, and especially happy to be working with the excellent team of professionals at Kephart Fisher,” Jones said. “I have devoted most of my professional life to this area, and have every expectation that we will grow this practice over the coming months and years.”

About Kephart Fisher Established in 1986, Kephart Fisher is a boutique law firm specializing in real estate development, zoning, planning, finance, private equity formation, organization, syndication and general business representation for closely held businesses. The firm’s “Selling Solutions Not Time” operating model incorporates a unique alternative to traditional time keeping and billing, with clients charged on a value added or project centric basis rather than for billable hours. For more information, visit Kephart Fisher’s website at http://www.kephartfisher.com.