ABA Section of Business Law
ABA Section of Business Law
Business Law Today
September/October 2000
Snap judgments
Improv in the boardroom?
Tired of those hokey "team-building" exercises? Well, the Washington Post recently reported that there’s a brand new hokey team-building exercise out there, but it’s so gosh-darn fun, you’ll forget that you’ve always hated those silly things.
It seems that companies across the country — including Andersen Consulting and Motorola Inc. — are sending their workers off to the improv to learn how to communicate better and, of course, think "outside the box."
From Second City in Chicago to the Improv Assylum in Boston, stages once reserved for professional comedians now have a day job helping corporate types.
"At the core of improvisation are the very things on which business runs — functional communications and hyperactive listening," said Joe Keefe, executive producer of Second City Communications. "Improv builds an ability to respond quickly to new situations and business needs to respond."
The animals’ Magna Carta
Some might call them wolves in sheeps’ clothing, but for animal activists turned law school profs, the classroom is becoming the best way to get their message out.
At Harvard, Duke and Georgetown law schools, bright-eyed students are already hitting the books to concentrate on animal law, the Detroit News reports.
Recently joining the faculty at Harvard, the article states, is Steven Wise, a lawyer whose recent tome on legal rights for animals was hailed by Jane Goodall as "the animals’ Magna Carta."
Wise predicts the field of animal law will only continue to expand, the News reported. In coming years, he expects to make a case that chimpanzees are so genetically similar to humans that they deserve legal rights too.
While this new area of law is getting plenty of attention today, we expect it’s just another stage in the evolution of the legal profession.
Reform, what reform?
Members of Congress may not be clear on what’s to be done this year with campaign finance reform, but BNA Inc. has taken matters into its own hands, clearly cataloguing the do’s and don’ts of corporate political activity in its latest guide for the politically active business.
The group’s new publication, "Regulation of Corporate Political Activity," gives execs with a penchant for contribution check-writing everything they need to know about PACs, fund reporting, solicitation and more.
"Both in-house practitioners and outside counsel will find valuable expert guidance on how their corporate law clients should conduct their political activities," said BNA legal services market manager Charlotte Kuenen.
With their portfolio "worksheets" and copy of the Federal Election Campaign Act in hand, business leaders around the country can start making their choices and writing their checks — to candidates who support campaign finance reform, of course.
States are catching on
Buyer beware — especially if you are a business buying online from another business.
According to the "E-Commerce Tax Alert," business-to-business sales are the hottest target for state auditors and a lot of the time, they hit the bull’s eye.
While most of the attention paid to online tax issues has focused on individual consumers, the newsletter reports, the bulk of sales- and use-tax violations come from larger online sales between businesses.
It seems that by purchasing online from an out-of-state business and having goods delivered by shipping service, not freight, many businesses are skirting tax requirements.
In a bit of high-tech irony, the Information Superhighway may have created this problem, but in return, information is just what states are using to haul in those errant tax dollars.
States are sharing with each other information they have on products sold from their state, thus helping their neighbors nab sales- and use-tax evaders at home.
Grouse to the world
Got a problem? Don’t get mad, get online!
In today’s high-tech culture, grousing to friends and family is so 1989. But now, thanks to gripe mogul Dan Parisi, USA Today reports, people around the world can log on and mouth off.
Parisi, the article states, has secured all kinds of lowest-common-denominator domain names so that disgruntled people around the world can log on to TWAsucks.com or GMsucks.com to say just what’s on their mind.
Of course, Parisi’s an equal-opportunity kvetcher. Not only does he have sites for dissing corporations, but there’s also SteveCasesucks.com, PatBuchanansucks.com and Libyasucks.com.
Alas, for anyone looking to give the King of Online Sour Grapes a taste of his own medicine. He’s already registered the domains parisisucks.com and danparisisucks.com.
New math at law firms
While recent news of associate salary increases has multiplied media coverage of the legal profession, The American Lawyer magazine says that’s not going to add up to good news for anyone except associates.
A recent column in the magazine outlines a vision of what writer Peter D. Zeughauser calls the New New Math.
First of all, Zeughauser explains through his somewhat convoluted math metaphor that increased associate pay is going to hit clients hard as hourly rates ratchet up to cover the raises.
Next, Zeughauser predicts managing partners will be subtracted from the equation. As partner profits are drained to cover fatter paychecks for associates, partners are going to move on to more lucrative pastures.
But, in Zeughauser’s opinion, this new division is another factor in the legal market place, and odds are most firms are prime for a change. Unless, of course, he’s miscalculated.
The Net turns murky
Forget that crystal ball. Now, thanks to the new "Pulse Survey" online at www.pwcglobal.com/iplf, you need look no further than your computer screen to tell the future.
But be warned, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Intellectual Property Leadership Forum survey findings, the future looks bleak for intellectual property rights.
In fact, 52 percent of the lawyers who responded to the survey said the Internet will make it harder for intellectual property owners to protect their goods. And 80 percent of respondents believed that filings for infringement of business-methods patents are on the rise.
Of course some of the respondents’ concerns may also stem from the fact that a majority of them are willing to blur the lines on intellectual property ownership. The survey found that 51 percent of those surveyed feel that it’s legit to disassemble "software or hardware to produce another product that emulates but does not include copyrighted portions of the original."
With the lines of property protection growing murky in cyberspace, PricewaterhouseCoopers might want to reconsider posting their findings on the Net. Survey says: It might not be safe.
—Heather Brewer
Back to September/October Business Law Today | Back to Business Law Home Page
