Red flags and white whales: Beware of problem clients

Your gut-feeling gets self-refined with the ageing and the gained experience, so never dismiss it plainly. Here are some red-flags about clients demanding legal aid:

* Continuous requests of assurances and predictions about the cost of the legal services. The risk is that of micro-managing and excessive focus –> Make sure the client can agree to a realistic timetable and a reasonable fee.

* Seek for revenge since these may lead to arguable tactics.

* A matter out of your legal range of expertise.

* Having changed lawyers more than twice –> either your previous colleague screwed things up or the cllient did.

* A consistent history of alcoholism, DUIs, drug use, gambling, a weak job one or financial issues.

* reticence or impulsivity and rejection of your second-thoughts/questions. Likewise, passivity can be a red flag too.

* Failure to follow a lawyer’s advice, or provide him/her with the due information.

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In-house counsel survival guide

The key take-aways I brought from this article are:

• being an in-house for a company selling a product you like is a totally different story and helps you a very lot,
• in-house lawyers and firm lawyers differ also in terms of personality, where the latter tend to have a bigger ego. Within a corporatioon, in-house are merely a cost-centre, while sales are the star and the profit-centre.

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#MillennialGCs: To Be Young and In-House

How to deny that bad feeling when counterparties are suprised you are a legal counsel in your 20s?
Indeed, millenial can bring a lot to companies by, for example, allowing more flexibility and work-from-home policies.
This, in turns, leads to more transparency and social responsibility.

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Artificial Intelligence Beats Big Law Partners in Legal Matchup

In terms of accuracy and prediction, the AI scored 87%, while human lawyers (fromm DLA Piper, Allen & Overy ,Eversheds Sutherland, Pinsent Masons, Berwin Leighton Paisner, Bird & Bird, DAC Beachcroft, Kennedys and more) scored 62%

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Encourage Your Team to Draw During Brainstorming Meetings

For three reasons:

• Firstly, any idea requiring spatial layouts is better represented with pictures than with words,
• Secondly, sketching involves a large amount of the brain,
• Thirdly, it can be handy to have another mean to express yourself
• Forthly, misunderstandings in drawings can bring new prompts.

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Facing privacy suits about facial recognition

Collection of such personal data is on the rise, especially at platforms and tech companies like Facebook and Apples.
Cases and legislation is increasgin too, therefore companies are recommended to keep an eye on it.

The case in this article reverts on (among the other points) whether collection of biometric data from photos stored online can be included in the range of application of the law of Illinois.

Watch out: similar legislation is currently enacted in Texas, Illinois and Texas and similar one is being discussed in New Hampshire, Connecticut, Alaska, Montana and Michigan.

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To Poach, or Not To Poach, That is the Question.

These are no-go’s:

• a non-solicitation clause/agreeement,
• the relationship with that employer,
• the importance of the to-be-poached employee to his/hercurrent employer,
• who contacted who first.

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Before a Difficult Conversation, Vent a Little

Another golden management tip of the day: make sure you have expressed all of your concerns and that your mind is free.

The more you vent, the less emotional and impulsive you will be about them later on.

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Transitioning from Outlook to Gmail: 3 tips

Some tips:

Outlook folders –> Gmail labels

Outlook rules –> Gmail filters

And more

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Legal software – Justly

New Zealand platofmr to take care of your will.

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