Low-Cost Background Checks Ruin Lives
An enraging story by the Associated Press spells it out: computers used by background checkers mix up two people with the same name. Blameless woman gets tagged with a criminal record that isn’t hers, can’t get work and ends up homeless.…
What the Judge Rakoff Decision Says About Investigating Settlements
Federal District Court Judge Jed Rakoff shook up the securities bar with his widely reported rejection of a settlement between the Securities and Exchange Commission and Citigroup. The decision and order has thrown into turmoil decades of what…
Thinking About Divorce? The Essential Checklist
It happens all the time. A divorce lawyer calls us and says his client is thinking of suing her husband for divorce, but knows very little about the family’s finances. What are the sources of income? Where is the money invested?…
Apple’s Directors in Focus
Now that Steve Jobs is gone, attention turns to Apple’s Board of Directors (1), a group that’s been criticized in the past for being too deferential to Jobs, as made clear in this Wall Street Journal Story. Steve Jobs was a business…
Shock! Rogue Trader was Polite and Well Educated
Police have arrested another suspected rogue trader at a big investment bank, a man named Kweku Adoboli who is alleged to have lost $2 billion for UBS in unauthorized deals. A story about Adoboli in the Wall Street Journal describes him…
Can You Hear Me Now? You’re Fired.
Getting fired is never pleasant, and it’s even worse when it comes as a complete surprise. Getting fired as a surprise while you’re driving your car must be really awful. That’s how Yahoo! Inc. reportedly fired its CEO Carol…
A Fact-Finding Test for Lawyers
Law schools have known for years that they turn out lawyers without training on how to gather facts. What’s changed recently is that law schools are starting to think this isn’t such a good idea. My colleague Peter Tillers, with…
Talk Isn’t Cheap Even When Offline
A quick reflection on the executive at Allstate, who according to the Wall Street Journal lost his job in part because of profanity-laced comments about a superior to colleagues in a bar. How did the Journal get the story? Not by crawling around…
The Courage to Investigate
There was a letter in this week's edition of Barron's that said, "Lawyers look backward to precedent. Innovators assiduously look forward and avoid precedent. The two mindsets are antithetical." The letter is about why lawyers at the SEC can't…
The Match.com Suit and the Risks of Online Dating
I have no feeling on which way the new lawsuit against Match.com, reported here at the Huffington Post will (or should) turn out, but the case highlights a feature of online dating that has puzzled me for some time. According to the report,…
