ABA Section of Business Law
ABA Section of Business Law
Business Law Today
July/August 1998
Snap judgments
Is arbitration too casual?
Arbitration can serve as a friendlier way of settling disputes, but some lawyers are developing a casual-day-in-court mentality that takes away from the procedure's effectiveness, according to a recent Chicago Daily Law Bulletin article. "You have to be careful not to get carried away by the relaxed nature of the proceedings," said Michael J. Silverman, a panelist at a recent seminar on arbitration. While arbitration provides an opportunity for everyone to speak, among other differences from formal courtroom protocol, it is still a serious proceeding and should be treated as such, Silverman said. At one recent arbitration in which Silverman was involved, lawyers consistently arrived late, with one even listening to testimony with his feet propped on the table.
Meeting a need?
Today, just about everyone is attached to a three-inch-thick planner, like a prisoner to a ball and chain, trying in vain to make it to their 8:30, their 9:45 and their working lunch at noon. The ensuing meeting madness is no surprise considering that 3M Meeting Network, an online resource group, reports that professionals spend up to a whopping 60 percent of their time in meetings.
And while in theory these staff huddles increase productivity and communication, 3M estimates that as much as 50 percent of time in meetings is wasted, leading to a board room boredom that has workers grumbling. From 1981 to 1995, the number of meetings rose from seven per week to 10, according to Roger Mosvick, author of a meeting-management book.
But there are ways to keep the meeting malaise at bay. Among other things, they stress preparation
including an agenda
maintaining a tight time schedule and following up with those attending. If these sound like good ideas, you might want to bring them up at your afternoon team meeting, if there's still room on the agenda.
Monopoly fever
Pass go, collect millions of dollars! Across the United States in 1997, it seemed that dozens of companies were drawing that card as they played the game of high finance. Seemingly every week another federally approved merger made the headlines as more than 3,700 transactions took place, 128 of those valued at more than $1 billion, according to an article in USA Today.
But, while experts admit these acquisitions have some companies sitting on valuable property, hotels on Park Place aren't likely as the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission's antitrust divisions monitor the merger requests, federal sources said.
Government officials do acknowledge that in many industrial sectors, there are fewer companies today than just a couple of years ago. But, according to the feds, this recent merger trend is more a product of a booming stock market, deregulation and the global economy than of a mad scramble for monopolies. Of course, the acquiring companies may draw an unwelcome Chance card if anti-merger advocates such as Ralph Nader succeed in getting the Justice Department to cut back on its authorization of mergers, which Nader believes result in "a tidal wave of misspent money."
It's a dog-eat-dog world
As competition heats up in the business world, companies need to prepare for battle and protect themselves from corporate espionage, according to Alan Brill of Kroll Associates, a counterspy of sorts who helps companies protect themselves.
In a U.S. News & World Report article, Brill highlighted some simple but often overlooked ways that firms in the thick of the fight can protect themselves. Among his cautionary tricks of the trade, Brill points out traveling as a potential danger and advises business travelers never to leave computer disks with company information in a hotel room. Even a short amount of time, Brill says, allows a competitor to sneak in and copy the data.
Even though Brill is not suggesting at the moment that companies adopt a secret handshake, he is firm in his recommendation that employees be smart with passwords. According to Brill, the two most common passwords are "secret" and "password"
not too hard for hackers to figure out, especially when they have software like the program that allows Brill to crack a password in roughly a minute.
Making temps sign nondisclosure forms, tightening lax procedures and controlling what flows out of the office in trash and recycling bins are other ways that Brill suggests protecting firms on the front line.
Beware that e-mail
With a few clicks of the mouse, one e-mail message can make its way around the world and end up on the wrong person's laser printer. So even though lawyers are using electronic messaging more and more, savvy lawyers still shy away from e-mail when dealing with confidential material, a recent survey found.
The convenience and accessibility of e-mail has more than 60 percent of the lawyers surveyed going online to contact clients several times a week or more, with 42 percent sending e-mails daily, The Affiliates staffing service found.
Even with e-mail's widespread use, 59 percent of lawyers at the 1,200 firms surveyed still won't send confidential messages through cyberspace. "Despite advances in encrypting e-mail transmissions," the service said, "more sophisticated security measures may be called for in the legal field in order to address concerns about protecting privileged information."
Repayment blues
For many whose tough times in law school were eased with day dreams of a flourishing practice, a six-figure salary and a suburban home with two Beamers in the garage, student loans have really hit home
and of course home turns out to be a one-bedroom walk-up above a Laundromat.
According to a study by Nellie Mae, a nonprofit student loan provider, 40 percent of people who studied law, medicine or business incurred debts that exceed their current salary. In fact, Nellie Mae found 25 percent of former students shell out 20 percent of their monthly income to keep up with school debt.
The price tag is not likely to get any smaller. Since 1991, the average student debt has more than doubled from $8,200 to $18,800 in 1997. With these staggering bills to pay each month, the financial burden has done more to today's young lawyers than just slow discretionary spending and force many to settle for domestic Brie. In fact, Nellie Mae found that student loan payments caused delays in home-buying and in starting families.
"While student loans have helped millions of students gain access to a post-secondary education," said Lawrence O'Toole, Nellie Mae president and CEO, "higher debt from borrowing to cover the increasing cost of college is becoming more of a burden for students." Nationally, 60 percent of college students finance their education with loans, Nellie Mae reports.
Ethics ignored
Who says the country is facing moral decay? Certainly not WalkerInformation, whose recent survey to create a baseline for individual firms' ethics assessments found that more than decay, there's actually something rotten in the state of business today.
According to WalkerInformation, 41 percent of U.S. workers are aware of ethical violations in the last two years and only 37 percent feel comfortable reporting such misconduct. The survey also found that nearly 30 percent of workers say their employer ignores ethics some of the time and knowingly breaks the law, with sexual harassment, lying, stealing and discrimination reported as the biggest problems.
WalkerInformation, a business resource group, conducted its 2,000-employee study to find a baseline against which individual companies could measure themselves after conducting the survey
The Business Integrity Assessment
among their own employees.
However, with such big-name businesses as Prudential, Texaco and Archer Daniels Midland paying the price for alleged misconduct after the allegations were brought to light, some companies may prefer to stay in blissful ignorance. Leaving many execs in a quandary: To use the test or not to use the test, remains the question.
Don't let your dog eat it
Backpacks and binders may have given way to brief cases and Manila folders, but today's young lawyers are still toting home unfinished assignments, according to a survey by The Affiliates, a national staffing service.
In fact, the survey of 1,200 law firms found that 78 percent of lawyers bring work home weekly and 28 percent reported doing so every day. Increased caseloads and improved home-office equipment have created the rise in lawyer homework, according to The Affiliates Executive Director Kathleen Call.
Of course without Mom around to enforce the no-TV-until-your-homework-is-done rule, many lawyers may be switching on the tube while working. How else can the success of "Ally McBeal" be explained?
Heather Brewer
