Source: https://www.controllingcorporatelegalcosts.com/category/how-law-works/
Timestamp: 2020-04-04 14:35:55
Document Index: 597380582

Matched Legal Cases: ['art 2', 'art 1', 'art 1', 'art 3', 'art 1', 'art 5', 'art 4', 'art 3']

Understanding How the Law Works Category Archives — Managing Legal Published by Chicago, Illinois Business Attorney - Joel A. Webber, P.C.
Managing Legal Cut Your Company's Legal Spending and Prevent Legal Problems
Articles Posted in Understanding How the Law Works
Access to Legal Analytics Technology Expands Beyond Big Cities and Elite Law Firms to Main Street (Part 2 of 2)
In Part 1 of this two-part series of posts, I described — how “judges’ personal foibles and idiosyncrasies — I mean their distinctive, well-informed, jurisprudentially ingenious perspectives — can drive litigation outcomes more than any objective view of the law or evidence would seem to warrant”.
From there I compared the relatively new (circa 2006) legal analytics technology to a courtroom grapevine that colleagues and I used in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office in the 1980s to ascertain such personal foibles and idiosyncrasies when our case was assigned to a particular judge for trial.
By this time legal analytics is old news — at least among the largest law firms and for specific categories of major business litigation. But recently this technology has moved beyond just big cities and elite law firms to Main Street and to small law firms.
Witness the example of Gavelytics’ announcement a few weeks ago.
Gavelytics — the legal analytics company — announced a new partnership with a company called “CourtCall”. In my own courtroom experience, CourtCall has functioned as a conference call service — just that this one involves judges and is deemed a formal court appearance for the participants (there’s a video offering feature too apparently).
My first experience with CourtCall came when I had a case in a small city. Until then, my experiences doing conference calls with judges and lawyers — in place of an actual visit to the court — had been confined to the well-equipped federal courts, who have their own, ample facilities for such things.
The fact that Gavelytics has partnered with CourtCall tells me that this legal analytics offering is not confined to big cities and elite law firms. It’s now coming to small cities and small law firms.
Posted in: Legal Technology and Understanding How the Law Works
Updated: November 5, 2018 9:48 am
Access to Legal Analytics Technology Expands Beyond Big Cities and Elite Law Firms to Main Street (Part 1 of 2)
In a recent post I wrote that judges’ personal foibles and idiosyncrasies — I mean their distinctive, well-informed, jurisprudentially ingenious perspectives — can drive litigation outcomes more than any objective view of the law or evidence would seem to warrant:
“My introduction to this came when I was a prosecutor in Manhattan. When my colleagues and I brought a felony case we knew all of the personalities among the judges on the trial court to whom that case might be assigned.
“And our prosecutors’ grapevine functioned well. We had either firsthand experience — or readily available, reliable accounts of a professional colleague — to inform the way we argued law or handled evidence before any particular judge.
“Some judges tended to disbelieve police testimony. Others would never impose a greater sentence than the law absolutely required. Some were meticulous on evidentiary objections. Others were relatively loose on such rulings. Some were temperamental. Others were reasonable.
“Learning the judge’s personal idiosyncrasies was always my first order of business when I was assigned to a particular judge for trial.”
This is the outlook of every lawyer assigned to try a case before a particular judge: Who is this person who’ll be calling the shots on my case, and how have they handled cases like the one I have before them now?
Updated: November 5, 2018 9:53 am
Why Can’t They Say “Yes” or “No”? Understanding How Lawyers Talk to Business People (Part 3 of 4)
In the third of this four-part series, I address another situation in which the legal system’s subjective and arbitrary character constrains your lawyer from answering “yes” or “no” to your questions.
A judge’s personal idiosyncrasies distinctive, well-informed judgments may drive the outcome more than an objective view of the law or evidence.
My own introduction to this came when I was a prosecutor in Manhattan. When my colleagues and I brought a felony case we — collectively — knew all of the personalities among the judges on the trial court to whom that case might be assigned.
And our prosecutors’ grapevine functioned well. We each had either firsthand experience — or readily available, reliable accounts of a professional colleague — to inform the way we argued law or handled evidence before any particular judge.
Some judges tended to disbelieve police testimony. Others would never impose a greater sentence than the law absolutely required. Some were meticulous on evidentiary objections. Others were relatively loose on such rulings. Some were temperamental. Others were reasonable.
Learning the judge’s personal idiosyncrasies was always my first order of business when I was assigned to a particular judge for trial.
In the last few years lawyers and code-writers have begun to create — via software — what my prosecutor colleagues and I had by word-of-mouth.
Updated: October 29, 2018 3:45 pm
A higher court overrules a lower court, and the lower court then throws a judicial tantrum and refuses to follow the higher court’s holding offers an argument for why it need not abide by the higher court’s ruling.
Updated: October 22, 2018 9:52 am
Why Can’t They Say “Yes” or “No”? Understanding How Lawyers Talk to Business People (Part 1 of 4)
One of this blog’s goals is to help business owners and executives make better management decisions through a practical understanding of how the law works.
This four-part series takes up the question: Why can’t my lawyers say “yes” or “no”? Why can’t I get a straight answer?
With all my attorneys’ conditions and caveats — how can I make a business decision?
Lawyers give guidance based on what the legal system has decided … so far. That legal system is made up of people. And any person’s judgment contains — to a greater or lesser extent — a subjective or arbitrary element.
Put another way: What lawyers tell you lacks the objectivity we associate with physics or chemistry — due to the human factor.
My qualifications required law school, licensing by state and federal courts, then years of analyzing cases, statutes, and regulations, then years of arguing to judges and juries in courts, and then years of negotiating deals.
So I’d like to think that I offer business clients more than my self-indulgent whims.
But it’s not empirical science.
Yet every business client wants actionable legal guidance — advice on which they can base decisions — despite the effect of individual quirks and biases within the legal system.
Updated: October 20, 2018 7:16 pm
How Lawyers Deliver Their Services to Business (30)
Managing Your Lawyers (10)
The Billable Hour Business Model (5)
How Legal "Ethics" Rules Protect Lawyers' Competitive Turf (5)
Legal Industry -- How it Can Actually Help its Business Clients (4)
“Ethics” Rules Shape the Legal Services Market: To Protect Clients? Or Just to Protect Lawyers? — An Effective Barrier to Needed Innovation — Part 5 of 5 April 3, 2020
“Ethics” Rules Shape the Legal Services Market: To Protect Clients? Or to Protect Lawyers from Unwanted Competition? — Lawyer-Client Matching Service is “Illegal” — Part 4 of 5 March 30, 2020
“Ethics” Rules Shape the Legal Services Market: To Protect Clients? Or to Protect Lawyers from Unwanted Competition? — A Smartphone App that “Practices Law”? — Part 3 of 5 March 26, 2020