Personal Injury & Medical Malpractice

Expert Analysis

• Avoiding Inadvertent Privilege Waivers In E-Communications

  

  Attorneys at WilmerHale highlight recent developments in privilege law, the significant challenges raised by nontraditional working arrangements popularized during the pandemic, and ways to avoid waiving attorney-client privilege when using electronic communications.

• How Anti-Terrorism Act Extension Affects Mainstream Cos.

  

  Expansion of the Anti-Terrorism Act to include secondary aiding and abetting claims, in conjunction with a stream of pro-plaintiff legislation, is increasing both liability and loss-of-reputation risk for private companies and banks operating in troubled foreign regions, say attorneys at Skadden.

• Limiting Employer Liability For Secondhand Virus Exposure

  

  While the law on secondhand exposure to workplace hazards like COVID-19 varies from state to state, employers can make educated guesses about the scope of liability and the steps needed to protect workers and limit claims from third parties, say attorneys at McGuireWoods.

• Opinion

  Don't Cancel Your Summer Associate Programs

  

  While pulling off an effective summer associate program this year will be no easy feat, law firms' investments in their future attorneys should be considered necessary even during this difficult time, says Summer Eberhard at Major Lindsey.

• How Hollywood Can Inspire Courtroom Presentations

  

  As attorneys patiently wait for jury trials to resume, they can explore three effective transition techniques commonly used in movies to bring their courtroom PowerPoint presentations to the next level, say Adam Bloomberg and David Metz at Litigation Insights.

• Trial By Webcam: Tips From A Firsthand Experience

  

  Initially incomprehensible, it turns out that conducting trial by video is reasonable and relatively convenient, as long as lawyers do not try to recreate the courtroom experience, say Wheeler Trigg attorneys Joel Neckers and Peter Herzog, who recently participated in an online bench trial in United Power v. Tri-State before the Colorado Public Utilities Commission.

• 5 Ways To Reduce Post-Pandemic Legal Malpractice Exposure

  

  History suggests that legal malpractice claims will rise following the current economic downturn, and while a certain percentage of the claims will be unavoidable, there are prophylactic steps that law firms can take, says John Johnson at Cozen O'Connor.

• Leaving The Tort System Behind Via Corporate Risk Transfer

  

  With an increasingly litigious tort environment for corporate defendants, companies holding legacy liabilities would do well to investigate a capital markets solution for transferring their risks, say Mark Hemmann at FARA LLC and Peter Kelso at Roux Associates.

• Telework Transition Holds Key Lessons For Public Agencies

  

  Public agencies’ shift to remote work arrangements due to the pandemic highlights important lessons on policies, protocols and workplace safety that can help them prepare for challenges as telework becomes the new norm, say Oliver Yee and Alysha Stein-Manes at Liebert Cassidy.

• 6 Considerations For Medical Staff's Virtual Peer Reviews

  

  Today's need for social distancing creates unique challenges for hospitals in ensuring that medical staff peer reviews can proceed properly and fairly using remote hearing procedures, says Ron Ravikoff at JAMS.

• Opinion

  Credibility Concerns About Virtual Arbitration Are Unfounded

  

  Concerns that videoconferenced arbitration hearings compromise an arbitrator's ability to reliably resolve credibility contests are based on mistaken perceptions of how many cases actually turn on credibility, what credibility means in the legal world, and how arbitrators make credibility determinations, says Wayne Brazil at JAMS.

• New Risk Of Whistleblower, Retaliation Claims In Health Care

  

  Pandemic circumstances put health care facilities in a bind — they must continue to treat their patients, protect patient privacy, and ensure they have sufficient staff who are ready and willing to work, while also protecting themselves from the heightened threat of whistleblower and retaliation lawsuits, say attorneys at Pepper Hamilton.

• A Lawyer's Guide To Client Service Continuity Planning

  

  Ensuring uninterrupted client service and compliance with ethical obligations in a time when attorneys are more likely to fall ill means taking six basic — yet often ignored — steps to build some redundancy and internal communication into legal practice, say attorneys at Axinn.

• Virtual Meetings Could Be Fertile Ground For Legal Discovery

  

  Many remote meeting technologies include recording features as default settings, raising three primary concerns from a legal discovery and data retention perspective, and possibly bringing unintended consequences for companies in future litigation, says Courtney Murphy at Clark Hill.

• How Courts May Interpret COVID-19 Waivers Of Liability

  

  As businesses begin to reopen, they may seek to release themselves from negligence claims for COVID-19 infections through contractual waivers of liability, but whether a waiver is enforceable varies significantly by state, says Jessica Kelly at Sherin and Lodgen.