Features

• • What's Hot, What's Not: National and Global Practice Trends 2013
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  • This report on what's going on in the legal profession looks at national and global market forces that affect the legal services market. The author predicts the total legal market will grow but will become even more segmented, with some less-innovative firms falling by the wayside.
• • What's Hot, What's Not: Wisconsin Practice Trends 2013
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  • Borrowing a page from Robert Denney's national and global look at trends in the legal profession, Wisconsin and regional attorneys and practice management experts weigh in on practice and marketing trends in the Dairy State.
• • Wisconsin's Wetland Reform Act
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  • Recent changes to Wisconsin law, effective on July 1, 2012, streamline the process of coordinating land development with protection of wetlands.

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Features

• • Retirement Adrift: Financial Elder Abuse
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  • Investor abuse is at an all-time high and elderly investors and retirees are especially vulnerable. For investors who lose money due to stockbroker misconduct, there are options for recovery through the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority or state and federal courts.
• • P.O.D.s May Thwart Testators’ Intent: It’s What Mom Wanted
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  • Some features of Wisconsin law may undermine a decedent’s true wishes, rather than advance them. Estate-planning attorneys should advise clients about the potential pitfalls of using payable-on-death designations to make changes to their estate plans.
• • As I See It: A Passion for Pro Bono: What’s Stopping You?
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  • We’re all busy, but providing pro bono legal services doesn’t have to be difficult or time-consuming. Here, lawyers experienced with the practical, and sometimes political, challenges posed by pro bono work offer tips to get involved in pro bono work.

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Features

• • Deportation Deferred: Risks to Undocumented Youths and Employers
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  • Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival, a new immigration initiative, may provide temporary deportation relief for undocumented youths, but the application process might also increase the risk of being deported or terminated from employment.
• • No Longer a ‘Back Room’ Deal: Nontraditional Settlement Agreements Revealed
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  • Many courts and litigation attorneys view nontraditional settlement agreements like Mary Carter and loan receipt agreements with mistrust. But such agreements, when properly structured, can promote more efficient settlement of certain lawsuits.
• • Contrary to the Child’s Best Interest: Jury Trials in Children’s Court Proceedings
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  • Jury trials in CHIPS, JIPS, and TPR proceedings, although a statutory entitlement, do little to promote the judicial systems goal of fostering and protecting the best interests of children.

Features

• • Swimming Upstream: 20 Mistakes to Avoid When Starting Your Practice
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  • Starting a law practice requires a lot of planning, decision making, and hard work. Here are some common mistakes attorneys face and tips on how to avoid them and build a successful law practice.
• • Taking a Different View: Explore Mutual Interests with Facilitative Mediation
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  • When clients seek help resolving disputes, put another option on the table. Facilitative mediation can leave them more satisfied than litigation, and at a lower cost.
• • Noncompete Agreements: A Suspect Expansion of Employers’ Rights
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  • Employers that use noncompetition agreements should avoid relying on a recent appellate decision that gave the employer-litigant wide berth to restrict an employee’s postemployment activities. The opinion’s nonprecedential status and its conflict with published Wisconsin cases make it a shaky and likely short-lived leg on which to stand.

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Features

• • Home Safe Home: Wisconsin’s Castle Doctrine and Trespasser Liability Laws
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  • Soon after passing concealed-carry legislation, the Wisconsin Legislature enacted two other laws to clarify state residents’ right to use weapons in self-defense and land possessors’ responsibility to trespassers. Although the castle doctrine law and the castle doctrine law and the trespasser liability act became effective Dec. 21, 2011, questions remain as to their provisions.
• • As I See It: James Bond or Jay Gatsby? An ‘Operation’ to Recover a Judgment Abroad
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  • The operation began with a Wisconsin judgment for past due legal fees, but serving the former client in Honduras quickly became an adventure for an intrepid lawyer and legal team. Read how the author tried to recover a judgment from a former tax client who skipped out on his family, his business, his creditors, and his lawyer.
• • PDF Tools for Lawyers: An Apple-to-Apples Comparison
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  • The State Bar’s Law Office Management advisor reviews four PDF products with law-firm-appropriate features and describes their highlights and drawbacks. Don’t miss the helpful chart ranking the products in different categories.

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Features

• • Internet Keyword Advertising: Not a Violation of Right to Publicity
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  • Wisconsin privacy law and intellectual property law protect against the use of an individual’s name for trade or advertising purposes. However, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals in Habush v. Cannon found that such protections did not prevent a law firm from using two competing attorneys’ names to generate advertising on Internet search engines.
• • Revised UCC Article 9: Compliance Tips for Creditors and Debtors
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  • Amendments to Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code, which deals with security interests in most types of personal property and fixtures, took effect on July 1, 2013. The authors describe the types of property and transactions to which Article 9 applies, explain key terms, and provide tips to help you counsel your creditor and debtor clients.
• • Patrick Fiedler: Seizing the Moment
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  • Patrick Fiedler has practiced law in a score of settings. During his year as State Bar president, he’ll draw on those experiences as he works with the Board of Governors to arrive at decisions that are in the best interests of the Bar’s members and the legal profession as a whole.

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Features

• • DNA Extraction on Arrest: Maryland v. King and Wisconsin’s New Extraction Law
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  • Law enforcement officers now must obtain DNA samples from all persons arrested for felonies, but questions remain as to the law’s constitutionality in practice, despite a U.S. Supreme Court decision unholding a Maryland law against a Fourth Amendment challenge.
• • Casting a Wider Net: Health Information Privacy Is Not Just for Health Lawyers
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  • Not only lawyers who concentrate on health care law but also many lawyers whose work merely brings them in contact with health information must understand new HIPAA regulations that rigorously affect privacy. New HIPAA regulations are effective Sept. 22, 2013.
• • Doing Business Overseas? Don’t Run Afoul of U.S. Foreign Corruption Laws
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  • A company doing business outside the United States might be tempted to rely on the knowledge of local business people and agents, but doing so without caution and policies in place might result in the company violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act – a U.S. law that bars bribing foreign officials.

Features

• • Tweets From Beyond: Planning for Digital Property After Death
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  • In this bizarre online world, even people who have no desire to enter the digital frontier are being forced there, with little understanding of the digital property they own and even less understanding of what may happen to those assets if they die or become incapacitated. Planning is crucial. You can even schedule Facebook, LinkedIn, and tweets to post after you die. Think about it.
• • Deathbed Planning: What You Can Do This Side of Paradise
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  • Attorneys can benefit terminally ill and elderly clients by recognizing and assisting with crucial and time-sensitive estate planning issues while the clients are still alive. The authors provide tips to help estate planning attorneys respond quickly and efficiently to elderly and terminally ill clients.
• • An Ounce of Prevention: Minimizing Affordable Care Act Retaliation Claims
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  • Many provisions of the Affordable Care Act will become effective on Jan. 1, 2014, including relatively little-known retaliation or whistleblower provisions. Attorneys and their business clients must know the broad definition of “protected activity” and how they can prevent retaliation claims from employees.

Features

• • A Changing Landscape: The Economics of Practicing Law
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  • Data reported in the State Bar’s 2013 Economics of Practice Survey can guide you in making independent decisions about the business side of your law practice. Here’s a look at some of the key findings reported for calendar year 2012 and what they might mean to your practice.
• • No Harm, No Foul: Proving Damages in Lost Profit Cases
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  • Business litigators must tap their quantitative skills when bringing or defending suits involving lost-profits damages, to ensure clients recover or pay a legally and financially appropriate amount. The authors explain some of the issues to consider when seeking recovery of these damages.
• • Profit Patterns: Maximizing Opportunities in Your Practice
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  • Awareness of financial patterns and forces, both in the economy as a whole and within a single law practice, can help lawyers increase their profitability without taking on more work than they can handle.

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Features

• • Mock Trial. Real Leaders.
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  • Critical thinking. Problem solving. Public speaking. Teamwork. Since 1983, mock trial has helped more than 30,000 Wisconsin students instill leadership skills and lifelong memories. Here are some of their stories.
• • Top 8 Recent Wisconsin Federal Court Decisions
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  • The article looks at eight significant Wisconsin federal court decisions interpreting Wisconsin law in 2013, encompassing common-law claims and statutory interpretations.
• • Top 9 Recent Wisconsin Supreme Court Decisions
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  • The article highlights nine significant Wisconsin Supreme Court decisions from the 2012-13 terms, during which the court issued more than 40 substantive decisions.

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