Author: Brian Sanchez

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Ditching the Billable Hour for Pricing Certainty of Client-Focused Alternative Fee Structures

White Plains, New York (PRWEB) April 30, 2017

(April 30, 2017) — The trend of top lawyers leaving top law firms to launch boutiques continues. The latest BigLaw partner to make the move is veteran trial lawyer David L. Wallace, who has left Herbert Smith Freehills’ New York outpost to launch Wallace Law PLLC, a trial boutique practice focused on civil litigation and dispute resolution.

“The old model is broken and unsustainable,” notes Wallace. “I left that Dickensian world for the freedom to lawyer on different terms, for the autonomy and flexibility of a smaller platform, for simpler client relationships, to escape the tyranny of the billable hour, for a new challenge. Basically, to avoid becoming irrelevant.”

Serving clients nationwide both inside and outside the courtroom, Wallace Law takes a timeless approach to advocacy. Rather than join the madding crowd in solving problems on an hourly basis, it works on a non-hourly basis under fee structures that are agreed upfront, before any work begins, and specifically geared towards the client’s value drivers, business goals, and desired results.

David Wallace, the firm’s founder, a high-caliber trial advocate who for years has consistently been nationally ranked by clients and peers among the best in the business, says: “Look, I get it. Law’s a business. But it’s more than that. We don’t make widgets. Our services are ultimately about people, relationships, and outcome — value creation. And the billable hour doesn’t value those things much at all. The reality is that unless you’re dealing with bet-the-company stuff, trial work doesn’t fit old law’s economic model very well.”

With offices in White Plains and Manhattan, Wallace Law is focused on results, a desired outcome, what success looks like to those it serves, without reference to how long the process takes. Wallace adds: “Clients buy results, a desired outcome, not hours. Time for us is strictly an investment in the client, not a measure of productivity or value. In a world with more than enough risk and uncertainty to start, we think the pricing predictability of timeless advocacy is no small thing.”

Wallace is a 30-year veteran of top law firms. After joining Herbert Smith Freehills in 2012, he successfully represented key clients of the firm, including major food and beverage companies, in U.S. class actions and commercial disputes. Before that, Wallace spent 25 years at Chadbourne & Parke, where he gained national recognition for his fierce and tenacious courtroom advocacy in a number of notable tobacco product liability trials, including two rare directed verdicts, and also launched his group’s global practice in the late 1990s, handling first-of-its-kind litigation for multinational corporations in the U.K. and throughout South America.

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For further information, please contact David L. Wallace, Wallace Law PLLC, at 914-304-8136, david@wallacepllc.com, or david.l.wallace(at)live(dot)com.

For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2017/04/prweb14291525.htm

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CHICAGO — Monica Gutierrez wants to be an intellectual property lawyer. But here she is, sitting in a law class on marijuana.

The gray area between state and federal law intrigues Gutierrez — she needs to learn how to help cannabis businesses get their names federally registered, she said — and she’s not alone.

Law firms throughout Chicago, from national firms to solo operations, are carving out cannabis practices. Full of lawyers with expertise in real estate, mergers and acquisitions, intellectual property, and other specialties, firms are increasingly offering to help companies navigate the highly regulated world of medical marijuana, in Illinois and elsewhere.

But that world remains limited, compared with other industries, and plagued by uncertainty. Plus, the stigma surrounding the federally illegal drug still remains, barring some firms from advertising their cannabis practices.

And when it comes to dealing with a substance the federal government puts in the same class as heroin and LSD, there are plenty of issues on which to counsel.

“Every area of law you can think of, when it intersects with cannabis, it gets complicated,” said Dina Rollman, who teaches the cannabis law class at Illinois Institute of Technology’s Chicago-Kent College of Law with her business partner, Bryna Dahlin.

The two women formed their firm Rollman & Dahlin in January 2016 to focus on the cannabis industry, and they have seen their workload consistently expand over the first year, Rollman said. The firm counsels companies that grow and sell marijuana as well as businesses that intersect with the industry, from advertising agencies to vaporizer manufacturers.

Their practice’s growth has mirrored that of the cannabis industry, starting with Illinois and branching out to other states, Dahlin said. Cannabis practices at other firms have expanded with the industry too.

Law firm Thompson Coburn helped multiple companies through Illinois’ initial application process for medical marijuana dispensary and cultivation licenses in 2014 and is helping those companies and others navigate the varying laws as they expand to other states.

The St. Louis-based firm now has an established cannabis practice to which attorneys across four of its offices with varying areas of expertise contribute. Diane Romza-Kutz, a partner in the firm’s Chicago office, has expertise in food safety labeling that she applies to the cannabis industry, for example. Colleagues work with high-growth companies or specialize in land use, she said.

Cannabis law covers a number of legal disciplines, so firms are carving out whole practices to cater to the growing industry, said Bob Morgan, president of the Illinois Cannabis Bar Association and head of the cannabis practice at Chicago-based Much Shelist.

“A cannabis business needs not just a cannabis-focused lawyer but also one that really understands litigation and corporate law and intellectual property law and all these different types of practices,” said Morgan, who was the first coordinator of Illinois’ medical marijuana pilot program. “A single attorney would not normally have that kind of competency.”

William Bogot, a partner at Philadelphia-based Fox Rothschild who heads the firm’s marijuana practice from its Chicago office, came to cannabis law through gambling, so to speak. He’s a regulatory attorney who worked for the gambling industry.

“The gambling space is a very highly regulated world,” Bogot said. “When the new medical cannabis law came to Illinois, it wasn’t all so different. … It was kind of like a natural fit for us.”

Before its cannabis practice was officially carved out, some attorneys at Fox’s 21 other offices around the country already were working in the space, Bogot said. The Chicago office was doing cannabis licensing and regulatory work, a partner in Denver was doing cannabis tax audits, and an attorney in California was doing real estate work for cannabis companies, for example. It was time to formalize, he said.

Now, 48 of the firm’s almost 800 lawyers are part of the cannabis practice group. Fox’s offices in states coming online with their medical marijuana programs are providing expansion opportunities, Bogot said.

State lawmakers approved Illinois’ pilot medical marijuana program in 2013, and dispensaries started opening two years later. Since then, licensed dispensaries have generated more than $53.8 million in retail sales, according to the state.

The Illinois Department of Public Health keeps a watchful eye on the program, which is still in its pilot phase. Cannabis companies must abide by laws dictating everything from where facilities can be located to how they dispose of plant waste.

While some pioneering states, such as Colorado, grant medical marijuana cards to patients based on broad definitions of symptoms and conditions, Illinois has a limited number of conditions that cannabis can be used to treat. As of April 5, there were 18,300 qualifying patients in the state.

That’s still small enough that few attorneys in the state practice solely in the industry, Morgan said. But attorneys in Illinois are getting their feet wet. The Illinois Cannabis Bar Association, founded in fall 2015, has 60 members, all of whom find cannabis law woven into their practices in one way or another.

Illinois lawmakers introduced legislation last month proposing to legalize recreational marijuana, but they said it probably won’t come up for a vote until next year.

The stigma surrounding marijuana remains for some law firms. They practice in the field but don’t advertise it because of concerns about what other clients might think, Morgan said. It also remains unclear how the industry will grow, and how the Trump administration will treat the drug.

For most attorneys in the space, the excitement surrounding working in a new industry wins out.

Gutierrez, set to graduate from law school next month, shares that sentiment.

“Nobody really knows what they’re doing in this area, so there’s a lot to learn, and there’s a lot of firsts,” she said. “It’s pretty exciting.”

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The Government is eyeing tougher regulation of companies that buy and sell homes in private deals in a bid to protect consumers.

It follows revelations in yesterday’s Weekend Herald that an elderly cancer sufferer has just days to save her Mangere house after signing it away in under three hours without talking to her relatives or lawyer.

Sarah Ewe, 72, says she did not realise she was signing a sale and purchase agreement for $560,000 when Auckland House Buyers sales rep Peter Lee called at her house in November.

Her family believe the widowed great-grandmother has been take advantage of to secure a cheap deal and there is no way she gave informed consent.

Several Herald readers have offered to help the family, with one forwarding his lawyer’s contact details and promising to cover any legal costs associated with fighting the sale contract.

But there are now growing calls for better regulations of no-commission, fast sale property buying companies or a law change to give consumers greater protection.

Consumer Affairs Minister Jacqui Dean acknowledged the Ewe family’s distress.

She wanted anyone who felt they’d been deceived in a private treaty house sale to contact her office so the scale of the problem could be assessed.

“If it is an ongoing concern we would look into the wider issue.”

Continued below.

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Auckland House Buyers has refused to comment, but denies misleading Ewe and maintains the sale price was fair.

Meanwhile, a South Auckland budgeting service says it knows of several families targeted by companies offering no-commission purchase offers well below market value.

Mangere Budgeting Services Trust chief executive Darryl Evans told the Herald on Sunday tighter rules were needed to counter operators who were simply out to make money.

“It’s just awful. You’ve got to be aware of the con jobs.

“It’s profit over people and I hate it.”

Evans said it was common to see the companies’ signs while driving around South Auckland.

“They’ll call it advertising. I call it preying on people’s vulnerability.”

They were often attractive to homeowners who had racked up debt and wanted to cash up in a quick sale without paying hefty agency fees.

But in Evans’ opinion the deals were usually too good to be true and he advised anyone contacted by one of the companies to consult a lawyer rather than risk under-selling their biggest asset for $100,000 or more below market value.

Mangere MP Aupito Su’a William Sio was appalled by the Ewe family’s case and planned to contact them to offer his assistance.

“Too often we’ve got these situations in generally working class, low income areas where they are easily taken advantage of by unscrupulous [traders].

“But elderly people on their death bed? This woman is undergoing treatment for cancer. She is not in a state of mind to be able to make good quality decisions about assets.”

Sio was unsure if the Consumer Guarantees Act applied in this case.

“But if it doesn’t it should.”

To prevent similar cases, sellers, particularly the elderly, should be given a “cooling off” period in which they could change their minds and back out of the deal.

This might require a law change, he said.

“It’s about protecting vulnerable people from relinquishing their assets without having the full information about their rights.”

Labour’s housing spokesman Phil Twyford backed calls for a tougher regime.

He said the companies were unregulated, labelling them the real estate equivalent of parasitic clothing trucks and finance firms.

“When you’ve got a company that’s doing this systematically you have to wonder whether there’s a need for a bit of accountability and some protection for consumers.”

A family spokeswoman said Ewe was overwhelmed by the response from the public yesterday and thanked people for the kind offers.

– Herald on Sunday

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The high-tech whiz kids are starting to flex their political muscles on Beacon Hill, pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into lobbying aimed at appealing to state lawmakers and helping craft public policy.

Last year, 77 high-tech companies spent about $5.4 million on lobbying — more than double the 48 companies that spent $2.4 million a decade ago, according to an Associated Press review of lobbyist reports filed with the state secretary’s office.

The records not only offer a peak into the business of lobbying, but are another reminder of just how fast the pace of technology has accelerated.

Three of the top four firms doling out the most on lobbying in 2016 didn’t even exist a decade ago.

One of the top spenders was Uber Technologies Inc., founded in 2009 in San Francisco, which paid lobbyists nearly $330,000 to help get the transportation network company’s voice heard at the Statehouse.

The spending coincides with efforts by state lawmakers to regulate ride-hailing companies.

Last year, the state passed what Republican Gov. Charlie Baker called the strongest-in-the-nation background checks for drivers for companies like Uber and Lyft.

Uber and Lyft embraced the new law. Chris Taylor, Uber’s Boston general manager, credited Baker and lawmakers at the time for “creating a framework that embraces an innovative industry that has changed the way the commonwealth moves.”

The two companies then entered into an agreement with Baker to start the background checks a year earlier. About 8,200 drivers failed the checks. More than 62,000 passed. Some drive for both companies.

While Baker later said up to 500 of those who failed had successfully appealed, Uber criticized the background checks as too strict. A representative of the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Uber’s lobbying efforts.

Another top spender was LevelUp, a Boston-based mobile payment app launched in 2011, which also spent about $300,000 on lobbying.

According to the company’s lobbying report, the money was spent to support legislation targeting so-called “patent trolls” — companies that buy up patents and force businesses to pay license fees or face costly litigation.

Specifically the company backed a bill designed to protect Massachusetts companies from what supporters call “abusive patent infringement claims.”

A message left at the company’s headquarters wasn’t immediately returned.

A third top spender was the Boston-based DraftKings, which spent nearly $159,000 on lobbying last year.

According to the company’s report, the focus of that lobbying was the debate in Massachusetts over regulations of daily fantasy sports and online lottery products.

A representative of the company declined to comment.

The surge in lobbying by new high-tech companies — especially those that disrupt existing systems — shouldn’t come as a surprise, according to Mark Gallagher, a spokesman for the Massachusetts High Tech Council.

“I think generally speaking there is a growing recognition in the tech community that public policy on a federal, state and local level can have a material impact on their companies,” Gallagher said.

That’s particularly true when lawmakers are struggling to keep up with lightning-fast changes in the economy brought on by new technologies that might require a policy framework.

“A decade ago, a lot of tech companies were focused more on their companies and less on an appreciation of the impact of policy,” Gallagher said. “That has changed.”

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A Belgian municipality has adopted a motion that prohibits all forms of political, economic and cultural dealings with Israeli institutions and companies promoting the regime’s occupation of Palestinian territories.

The municipal council of Sint-Jans-Molenbeek approved the bill, which “gives a strong signal to politicians in Belgium to stop dealing with Israeli institutions that violate international law and contribute to settlement,” the Middle East Monitor reported.

The motion, reportedly adopted by a large majority earlier this week, is intended to “safeguard human rights and the application of international law in the field of public procurement.”

 Sint-Jans-Molenbeek is the first municipality in Brussels to take such an initiative.

The Palestinian mission to the European Union, Belgium and Luxembourg welcomed the move in a statement.

“[The decision] constitutes strong political and moral support for the Palestinian people, supporting them in their response to serious violations of international law by the Israeli occupation and Israel’s refusal to comply with all UN resolutions on the Palestinian issue,” said the statement.

The mission also hailed the motion as a “courageous step that reflects the municipality’s solidarity and friendship with the Palestinian people.”

The motion was initially recommended in 2015.

This comes as international calls are mounting for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement aiming to end international support for Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and pressure Israel to comply with international law.

The BDS movement was initiated in 2005 by over 170 Palestinian organizations that were pushing for “various forms of boycott against Israel until it meets its obligations under international law.”

Thousands of volunteers worldwide have joined the BDS to help promote the Palestinian cause, including scores of Palestinian and international trade unions, NGOs, academic and business societies, as well as cultural figures.

It has also gained support in countries such as Australia, Britain, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Romania, South Africa and the United States.

The occupied Palestinian territories have witnessed new tensions ever since Israeli forces imposed restrictions on the entry of Palestinian worshipers into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem al-Quds in August 2015.

More than 300 Palestinians have lost their lives at the hands of Israeli forces in the tensions since the beginning of October 2015.

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… of the largest U.S. law firms, according to the trade journal … rank among the top 100 law firms when measured by profits per … rivals and Wall Street white-shoe firms alike.
In 2016, the firm … .
Most of the other Chicago law firms that rank among the largest …
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Firms keen to distance themselves from controversial zero-hours contracts are tying staff to deals which carry many of the same problems and potential abuses, an investigation has found.

Documents seen by HuffPost suggest companies are able to exploit loopholes in the law to sidestep a 2015 ban on exclusivity clauses that stop staff working for other firms.

And they show how so-called ‘short hours’ contracts enable employers to demand staff to be at their “beck and call” – and potentially ask them to travel hundreds of miles for shifts.

Emiliano Mellino/IWGB

The contracts have sparked condemnation from unions, with outsourced security staff at the University of London (UoL) going on strike over their use this week.

One such contract, used by security outsourcing firm Cordant Group at UoL and seen by HuffPost, tells employees:

• They will have a minimum of 336 hours of work a year;
• They must always be available to work at short notice;
• They must be available to work at any location in the UK with ‘reasonable notice’;
• And that hours can be allocated randomly throughout the year meaning there may be ‘periods when no work is allocated’.

Trade unions, a policy expert and an employment lawyer all told HuffPost such contracts don’t differ materially from zero-hours deals but that, crucially, they circumvent current government rules and would dodge any future law banning them entirely.

Cordant declined to comment on the findings. The University of London said it doesn’t comment on a supplier’s employment arrangements.

One Cordant employee, Ismail*, told HuffPost he was informed by bosses that the company’s contract provided “unlimited” hours – and thus a limitless earning potential.

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Yet within months of signing, Ismail discovered a very different side to his working arrangements.

“There was a change suddenly,” Ismail said. “One month I had been getting fifty hours a week, then the next, almost nothing.

“Now I’m working two three-and-a-half hour shifts a week.”

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There was constant change, Ismail said, including the location of shifts.

“I started out in a warehouse and ended up at the university,” Ismail said. “They sometimes changed where I worked suddenly too, I didn’t know where the next [shift] would be.”

The sudden withdrawal of hours has had a big effect on Ismail’s ability to provide for his wife and children in Britain, and for relatives living through civil war in Yemen.

“I can’t provide for them now, that’s the worst thing,” he said.

I can’t provide for them now, that’s the worst thing
Ismail, Cordant security worker

Yet a review of Ismail’s Cordant employment contract shows how his predicament is entirely legal – set out starkly in black and white.

HuffPost passed parts of the contract relating to working hours and location to an employment solicitor, who described its wording as having little difference to a zero-hours deal.

“There appears to be few differences, based on the excerpt of the contract we have seen, for employees between a flexible contract like this and a zero-hours contract,” said Katie Mahoney of employment specialists Doyle Clayton.

Emiliano Mellino/IWGB

While employees on the contracts will have more statutory rights as a result of their signing a contract with minimum hours, Mahoney said the document does not make clear if working elsewhere is allowed.

“It is not clear whether this contract expressly prohibits this,” she said. “But the requirement that the employee must be available to work when requested suggests that this is the reality and they must work exclusively for the employer, despite not being guaranteed anything more than 336 hours of work a year.”

“It appears that by using a ‘flexible’ contract, the employer might be trying to get round the ban on exclusivity clauses,” she added.

Emiliano Mellino/IWGB

The contract states: ‘You agree you are available to work when requested unless otherwise agreed in advance with us.’

The contract also states that disciplinary action would be taken if employees declined work with less than four hours notice. Cordant employees said turning down work often led to fewer hours in future.

“They won’t tell you to your face that they are giving you fewer hours if you turn down work, but it happens all the time,” Abdul Bakhsh, another Cordant security officer who also represents workers, said.

‘You agree you are available to work when requested unless otherwise agreed in advance with us’
Cordant Services contract seen by HuffPost

Ismail and Abdul are among the Cordant workers who went on strike at UoL this week over the use of the contracts and low pay.

Henry Chango Lopez, President of the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain, which represents some Cordant workers at UoL, said “uncertainty” haunted staff on the contracts.

“This is not like a normal contract where you have a set number of hours and that is what you work,” Lopez told HuffPost. “Because they don’t have many hours, the company can call at any time and say to staff that they are working at any time.

“Those on these contracts are moved from one place to another and it is uncertain. The whole thing is just so uncertain.”

I think this is the new zero-hours contract. It is so similar
Henry Chango Lopez, Independent Workers Union of Great Britain

“It is only in the company’s favour. They assume that people can work anytime and any place but that is not always the case,” he said. “I think this is the new zero-hours contract. It is so similar.”

However, the Resolution Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank on living standards, told HuffPost that ‘short or small hours’ contracts provide benefits to employees they would not receive if they were self-employed. 

“Those who are employees might have less control over the work they do, they also have more benefits,” Resolution’s Dan Tomlinson said. “They will get sick pay and they will get holiday leave and the big difference is that they have the right to the national living wage.”

Yet the Foundation said while the latest data showed the number of people employed on zero-hours contracts is at an all-time high, growth was slowing. 

Negative press coverage of the deals could lie behind the slow down, Tomlinson said. And for those firms keen to distance themselves from bad publicity, ‘short or small hours’ contracts are one of their options. 

Guardian/HuffPost

“If businesses are looking for new ways to have flexibility within their workforce that aren’t zero-hours contracts one of the options they might choose is a [short or] small hours contract,” Tomlinson said.

And that’s a view echoed by the Trades Union Congress.

“There’s been a lot of negativity publicity around the use of zero-hours contracts and a lot of employers do not want to be labelled as a zero-hours employer,” the TUC’s Hannah Reed told HuffPost. 

“The reputational risk of using a zero-hours contract is increasing. Some employers think they can remove the risk by moving to a short hours contracts.”

The TUC added that people working on ‘short hours’ contracts experience similar issues to those on zero-hours deals.

“Individuals on short hours contracts often face many of the same problems and abuses as those on zero-hours contracts,” Reed added. “They are expected to be at the beck and call of an employer and they have no certainty over whether they can meet their household bills.”

The TUC is calling for those working regular hours in practice to be guaranteed those hours in a written contract and for those who are expected to be flexible, to be entitled to premium pay.

Last month, Santander was found to be using ‘short hours’ contracts which guaranteed staff just 12 hours work each year. The bank was criticised for a “new low” by an MP.

PA Archive/PA Images

Shopworkers union Usdaw pointed out that ‘short hours’ contracts were nothing new for its members – but contracts it has seen in the past tend to include minimum hours on a weekly, rather than annual basis.

Just this week, food chain McDonald’s replaced all of its zero-hours contracts with ‘short hours’ deals providing four to 16 hours, or full-time employment, after staff told bosses they couldn’t access loans or mortgages without guaranteed work.

Zero-hours deals were made controversial in their use by firms such as Sports Direct, which was described as “Dickensian” in its employment practices before it launched a full review, eventually ditching the deals and offering casual staff guaranteed hours. 

PA Wire/PA Images

And a government review into zero-hours contracts in 2014 paved the way for a ban on exclusivity clauses which prevented staff from working elsewhere – but it stopped short of ending the loophole of ‘short hours’ contracts. 

Cordant Group declined to comment.

The University of London said “The University values the work of Cordant’s security staff who are a professional, dedicated and diligent group of individuals. 

“We’ve always been impressed by their calm and measured responses to sometimes very difficult situations.

“Security staff are not employees of the University but of one of our suppliers, Cordant Services.

“We do not intend to comment on the employment arrangements of another organisation except to say that we understand that Cordant have already responded to the issues that have been raised by their staff.” 

*Ismail is a pseudonym.

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