Legal counsel often retain specialized analysts to perform valuation, damages, or transfer price analyses. These analyses may relate to disputes involving taxation, shareholder rights, condemnation and eminent domain, bankruptcy, all types of...
The Practical Lawyer Articles
PRACTICAL FEEDBACK FROM ACTIVE DIRECTORS
There is an increasing supply of qualified candidates looking for their first board seat with a private company. Experienced directors understand how the process works, and what to expect. First-time candidates, however, are thirsty to learn how...
DIRECT EXAMINATION: HOW TO DO IT EFFECTIVELY
There have been many articles written about cross examination, but there is not much that covers direct examination. As a result, what I know about direct comes from virtually the only source I have found: the school of hard knocks. And for reasons...
SERVING ON A CORPORATE BOARD: WHAT LAWYERS NEED TO KNOW
Historically, lawyers, especially while still in active legal practice, didn’t serve on corporate boards. Boards typically preferred C-suite executives—whether retired or active—as directors. Attorneys were nonetheless often “in the boardroom” in...
FOLLOW THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD — AN ALLEGORY FOR RAINMAKERS
In a very weird walk down the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City to ask the Wizard for new clients and matters, members of the executive committee of Gale, Scarecrow, Tinman and Lion, LLP, a 100+ lawyer firm are chanting “Pandemics, Politics,...
DEPOSING DOCTORS: PHRASING QUESTIONS AND CONTROLLING THE TESTIMONY
“If you find yourself in a fair fight, you didn’t plan your mission properly.”Colonel David Hackworth, 1930-2005. Some contrarian legal writers claim leading questions are not practical or especially effective. I disagree. Leading questions—those...
THE TRUTH IS RARELY PURE AND NEVER SIMPLE
The title of this article is from Oscar Wilde’s play, The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). Wilde’s immutable proposition is of great importance to those of us engaged in the adversary system. We are...
SOCIAL SECURITY, SSI, AND SSDI: WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE AND WHY DOES IT MATTER?
Both SSI and SSDI offer cash benefits for persons with disabilities. Both programs are overseen and managed by the Social Security Administration. Medical eligibility for disability is determined in the same manner for both programs. However the...
PRACTICAL SUCCESS
WE CAN DO IMPOSSIBLE THINGS In the summer of 1969, with less technology than what exists in the device you’ll use to share today’s social media tidbits, human beings flew to the moon. We’re so desensitized to the fact of the matter that the...