Legal Current

The Aspire to Lead Conference was recently held in Minneapolis.  Hundreds of omen and men from around the region met for a day full of speakers and networking that seeks to empower women to take more active leadership roles in their careers, communities and day-to-day lives.

Matt Wallaert is a behavioral scientist working at the intersection of technology and human behavior.  He spoke about where the diversity and the role of gender in the workplace. 

Do you store your family pictures and videos in the Cloud?  Would your family be able to access those files if you passed away?  Federal and state governments are scrambling to update estate laws to protect all your selfies and family cat videos against legal fights that could develop over rights to digital assets.

Tyler Newby of Fenwick & West discusses who actually has the rights to your selfies (and more) when you die.

Since passage of the Dodd-Frank Act overhauling federal securities laws, the Securities and Exchange Commission's whistleblower program has been gradually growing in scope and significance. In 2015, the SEC received more than 4,000 tips.

But some recent developments may be “blowing the whistle” on the whistleblower program itself.  Jonathan Shapiro of Baker Botts LLP discusses some recent developments with the whistleblower program.

Happy National Customer Service Week!

Customer Support is an important connection between Thomson Reuters and its customers.  Thomson Reuters has a long history of commitment to provide outstanding customer service.

Lea Harpster, vice president of customer support, discusses the Thomson Reuters philosophy and approach to customer support, and the many dedicated team members who provide it.

Intellectual property have become somewhat of a staple for the US Supreme Court in recent years.  Two particular cases that are waiting to hear if they will make the docket for the 2016-17 court docket have the potential to break new ground for intellectual property rights.

Wayne Stacy of Baker Botts discusses the cases.

A bicycle is fun, but how can it help global poverty, economic development and health care?

The day two keynote at Vantage EMEA in London for Elite had little to do with legal technology and practice management.  Or did it?

It had everything to do with the importance of listening to customers, of applying sound business principles, and how sometimes the simplest solutions can be the most impactful.

F.K. Day is founder of SRAM Corporation, one of the world's largest bicycle component suppliers, including to Tour de France teams.

He is also co-founder and president of World Bicycle Relief and explains how business principles are helping some of the world's most pressing needs.

The Vantage EMEA 2016 User Conference is underway in London.

The two-day conference bring together Thomson Reuters Elite users from across Europe, Africa and the Middle East.  

Elizabet Hardy, Vice President of Product Management and Eric Sugden, Chief Technology Officer discuss what will take place at Vantage, including the release of Elite 3E version 2.8

Keeping track of information by business name can quickly become a difficult exercise. Business name changes or mergers can permanently alter how information is tied to a particular business name, complicating how to identify and store information.

Thomson Reuters has created PermID -- or Permanent Identification -- which creates a unique reference —which will never change over time—to a piece of information. It can be thought of as a permnanent "bar code" for information that  helps customers and partners handle data management challenges, eliminate mapping inconsistencies, reduce operational risk, and streamline end-to-end workflow processes across various platforms. 

Thomson Reuters is providing an open license to PermID, providing any organization or enterprise with descriptive metadata and tools for working with PermID.

This year, more than half of Americans will use Facebook.  More than 360 million people are members of LinkedIn.  If you're not using social media to help promote your practice, you may be missing on an important channel for reaching prospective clients. 

A new white paper from FindLaw, "From Novelty to Necessity: Pragmatic Social Media for Law Firms". discusses the real impact that social media can have on an attorney's brand.  A recent FindLaw survey found that consumers are likely to hire an attorney who has an active presence on social media.

Sean Sands, a digital marketing experts, discusses how social media can benefit solo and small law firms.

In discussions with firms at ILTACON 2016, one thing stands out in the world of knowledge management: in an era of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence, knowledge management can help firms gain a competitive advantage.