Personal Injury & Medical Malpractice

Expert Analysis

• What Plaintiffs Can Do If J&J Succeeds In Bankruptcy Strategy

  

  If Johnson & Johnson is successful in its proposed divisive merger — a company split where all liabilities are shifted to a new company that files for bankruptcy — J&J tort plaintiffs will need to stick together to use the Bankruptcy Code's tools, including its voting mechanisms, to exert leverage on the debtor company, says Edward Neiger at Ask.

• 3 Attorney Ethics Considerations For Litigation Funding

  

  The growth of the litigation finance industry has generated questions on the obligations of counsel when their clients are seeking outside capital to fund litigation, which litigators must understand when providing information to a third-party funder and discussing legal strategy with a client, says Matthew Oxman at LexShares.

• How OSHA's 5 Cooperative Programs Can Benefit Employers

  

  The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s recent renewal of a 20-year regional partnership with the Builders’ Association highlights how OSHA's cooperative programs can help employers educate and protect their workers — and bolster their defense against workplace safety citations, says Patrick Bickford at Ausley McMullen. 

• How ABA Opinion Shifts Alternative Biz Structure Landscape

  

  A recent American Bar Association opinion approving lawyers' passive investment in nonlawyer-owned firms eliminates a hurdle for law firms wishing to scale their practice through alternative business structures, but aspiring investors should follow a few best practices, say Hilary Gerzhoy and Deepika Ravi at Harris Wiltshire.

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  Embracing ESG: HPE Counsel Talk Effective Board Oversight

  

  Governance teams can more effectively shape board oversight of environmental, social and governance issues by ensuring organizationwide agreement on the most relevant issues, building a materiality framework that reflects stakeholder input, and monitoring the integration of ESG into operations, say Rishi Varma and Derek Windham at Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

• Opinion

  Justice Gap Demands Look At New Legal Service Models

  

  Current restrictions on how lawyers structure their businesses stand in the way of meaningful access to justice for many Americans, so states should follow the lead of Utah and Florida and test out innovative law firm business models through regulatory sandboxes, says Zachariah DeMeola at the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System.

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  Embracing ESG: Leidos GC Talks Social Responsibility

  

  Recent criticisms of corporate commitments to stakeholders such as employees and communities — implicitly opposing environmental, social and governance initiatives — are fundamentally flawed and display a serious misunderstanding of contemporary investor priorities and dynamics, says Jerald Howe at Leidos.

• Lessons In Crisis Lawyering 20 Years After 9/11

  

  Dianne Phillips at Holland & Knight recounts her experiences as in-house counsel at a liquefied natural gas company in the tumultuous aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, and details the lessons she learned about lawyering in a crisis, including the importance of careful forethought and having trusted advisers on speed dial.

• Why Structured Data Is Increasingly Important To Your Case

  

  During discovery, legal teams often overlook structured data — the rows of information found in financial ledgers and similar corporate systems — and consider it secondary to emails and other anecdotal evidence, but this common mistake could mean litigators are missing key elements of a dispute, say consultants at Alvarez & Marsal.

• Calif. Cos. Face Tricky Hurdle In Workers' Comp. Recovery

  

  California employers suing negligent third parties to recover workers’ compensation benefits paid out on behalf of their employees must consider how the potential for reimbursement could be hindered by a loss of consortium claim from an injured worker’s spouse or partner asserting entitlement to separate recovery of the settlement funds, says Saerim Luciano at Pearlman Brown.

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  Embracing ESG: AIG Counsel Talks SEC Risk Alert

  

  As the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission responds to the changing landscape on environmental, social and corporate governance investing, including with its recent risk alert, it is imperative that the regulator take a measured approach, says Kate Fuentes at AIG.

• What The Judiciary's Font Recommendations Can Teach Us

  

  The D.C. Circuit's recent soft prohibition on Garamond and the ensuing debates about courts' font preferences should serve as a helpful reminder of a larger point — every departure from convention in legal writing carries some level of risk, says Spencer Short at Stradley Ronon.

• How Court Ruling, DOE Guidance Change DeVos' Title IX Rule

  

  A Massachusetts federal court's recent ruling in Victim Rights Law Center v. Miguel Cardona, striking down a controversial provision of the Trump administration's Title IX regulations, and subsequent Department of Education guidance will have a significant, immediate impact on Title IX investigations at higher education institutions nationwide, say attorneys at Hunton.

• Texas Negligence Case Holds Lessons For Construction Cos.

  

  The Texas Supreme Court's recent decision in JLB Builders v. Hernandez, finding that a general contractor was not liable for a worker's injury, means that contractors can enforce workplace safety policies without exposing themselves to litigation, as long as they draft their contracts carefully, say Travis Brown and Samuel Crecelius at Cokinos Young.

• Chlorpyrifos Lawsuits, EPA Ban Signal Risk For Companies

  

  Recently initiated lawsuits in California concerning the pesticide chlorpyrifos, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's newly announced ban of the chemical, mean that entities applying pesticides to crops or managing public water systems should prepare for more litigation, say Jason Meyer and Austin Elig at Gordon Rees.