Crane on Law by James Crane

Corporate counsel is always dealing with the challenges of controlling costs and providing their corporate client with the most defensible position.  One question that always comes up is "why shouldn't we just collect our own data?"  It's a good question.  Many corporations have an IT department staffed with talented and available personnel. 

[ Read More... ]

Aristotle thought that earthquakes were caused by subterranean winds.  OK, so he was a little off, according the USGS - tectonic plate movement simply fell outside his realm of experience.  Like Aristotle, though, many attorneys think their methods are as good as it gets.  What we attorneys have to learn is that there is always room for improvement.  This is especially true with legal technology tools.  Advances in scanning and optical character recognition, and new efficiencies in capturing and organizing digital data allow the technologically astute practitioner to nimbly navigate through a tangled jungle of documents.  This saves the client money and ensures more accurate discovery. 

[ Read More... ]

Whether the subprime mortgage situation is a crisis is the subject of debate. What we are able to do to help stem the increase in foreclosures is worth examining. What is clear, is that states are taking the problem very seriously and are aggressively going after lenders associated with subprime loans. On June 3 rd, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley joined in the subprime fray, filing a 59 page Complaint against Option One Mortgage Corp. and its parent H&R Block. You can see a copy of the complaint here.

[ Read More... ]

The June issue of the ABA Journal featured an article about how divorces are as ugly as ever despite the legal profession’s efforts to provide nuanced and sophisticated solutions like the “collaborative approach.” Because my practice focus is the defense of corporations, I was reminded how easily a company and its electronic data can get dragged into disputes despite no wrongdoing on its part. With so many company employees using portable technology belonging to the corporation, it only stands to reason that those devices and the data stored on them will be the routine subject of inquiry in a divorce. In my discussions with my friends who practice family law, they confirmed that attorneys are quick to go after the devices to try to uncover any embarrassing or damning information that may be stored within. The devices also have an activity log that can shed light on what spouses were doing, who they were communicating with, and when the communications took place. Many companies have Acceptable Use policies in place to govern how company devices are to be used. That’s a good start, but there must still be effective education and enforcement of the policy. As part of our corporate consulting services, we offer training programs and seminars to address the dangers of misuse of company devices and careless email communications.