Wisconsin Law Journal – WI Legal News & Resources Wisconsin Legal News & Resources

The re-election of President Barack Obama can mean only one thing: Obamacare should move forward with all due speed.

Tagged with: Barack Obama health care Obamacare

While 95 percent of law firms now have a website, not all are getting the biggest bang for their Internet dollars.

Tagged with: SEO

Lawyers care about an expert’s credentials, how the expert’s opinions support their case, and the expert’s ability to withstand cross-examination. Experts care about their reputation and how to balance objectivity with assisting their client’s case. Jurors just want to figure out what the heck is going on.

Tagged with: Expert witness

Do you know how much employee absences are costing you? In the U.S., the average employer cost for unplanned absences is $1,000 per employee each year. This is the second-highest benefit cost to employers after medical benefits.

Tagged with: Sick leave

Social media websites are a relatively new phenomenon, and employer policies that establish what employees may post on those websites have been the (moving) target of labor disputes and litigation.

Tagged with: NLRB Social media

The Solicitor General is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to ignore the front of the line in the Defense of Marriage Act petitions for certiorari and instead agree to hear the last one filed.

Tagged with: Defense of Marriage Act DOMA Elena Kagan Supreme Court U.S. Supreme Court

Who knew that appellate law would be one of the fastest-developing areas of practice across the country this fall?

Tagged with: 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals

It seems there are new apps released every day for iPad-using lawyers.

Tagged with: apps iPad

The first lawsuits have been filed by plaintiffs claiming they have experienced symptoms of meningitis or contracted the bacterial infection after receiving contaminated steroid injections distributed by a Massachusetts-based company.

In many ways, lawyers are like professional athletes: competitive, performance-driven and motivated by achievement.

Tagged with: Social media

It’s a question most lawyers face sooner or later: How much should I charge? Furthermore, how should my fees be structured?

Tagged with: Attorney fees

Being a successful solo or small-firm attorney means focusing not only on the practice of law, but also on business and finances.

A client may tremble with fear or fume with annoyance when asked to produce electronic data but it’s up to the legal support team to talk the client down from the ledge.

Tagged with: Discovery e-discovery Securities and Exchange Commission

The authors of “Twitter for Small Business — a Guide to Get Started” should know a bit about how to use the ubiquitous social-media service to its maximum potential; the guide is published by Twitter itself.

Tagged with: Practice Management Twitter

At this point, nearly every company law firm has a website, and for good reason.

Tagged with: Web site website

The IRS paid out a whopping $104 million to a whistleblower last month for his help in exposing a $20 billion dollar tax evasion scheme by UBS bank.

Tagged with: IRS tax fraud whistleblower

When the results of a LinkedIn survey regarding outdated office equipment and practices pinged around the internet last week, I quickly zeroed in on the most crucial item: 27 percent of 7,000 respondents predicted that formal business attire such as suits, ties and pantyhose are likely to vanish from offices in the next five years.

A federal magistrate in North Carolina has ordered Twitter not to alert any person about the existence of a search warrant for information associated with a Charlotte man who tweeted about assassinating President Barack Obama.

Tagged with: search warrant Twitter

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed a lawsuit in federal court in Denver alleging that a large retail food company refused to accommodate and unlawfully fired a receptionist at its headquarters because she had bipolar disorder.

Tagged with: EEOC

In the most anticipated decision of the U.S. Supreme Court’s last term, the fate of the American health care system hinged on the meaning of a single word: “penalty.”

Tagged with: Affordable Care Act Antonin Scalia health care Supreme Court U.S. Supreme Court

The Wisconsin Supreme Court held recently that a law firm could pay a paralegal a percentage of the gross proceeds from cases on which the paralegal worked.

Tagged with: OLR Supreme Court

Relationships matter, goes the familiar marketing maxim. And communications are the key to a successful collaboration between a lawyer and the in-house legal counsel who hires the lawyer.

Tagged with: Practice Management

The large number of highly qualified, competent attorneys seeking in-house positions makes today a buyer’s market for employers.

Tagged with: hiring

Intellectual property is one of the most complicated areas of law. Love it or hate it, at some point or another every in-house lawyer is going to be faced with some type of IP dispute.

Tagged with: Intellectual Property Practice Management

For the first time since the American Bar Association began conducting surveys of legal malpractice insurance claims in 1985, insurers have reported a higher percentage of claims involving real estate than any other area of law.

Tagged with: ABA American Bar Association

A U.S. District Court judge’s recent decision upholding a $675,000 verdict in a music downloading case should prompt Congress to step in and review the governing statute.

Tagged with: Court of Appeals

In a second victory for the biotech industry in one year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has reinstated its ruling that a company’s isolation of human genetic material, and its process for using that material to determine the effectiveness of certain cancer therapies, meet the threshold test for patent-eligibility.

Tagged with: ACLU DNA Supreme Court

There’s been a dramatic shift in how psychologists view happiness.

Tagged with: marketing

When it comes to electronically stored information, “[t]he fuss is about money. Discovery is expensive, and electronic discovery is really expensive.” A.L. Brown, “The Manageable Challenge of Electronic Discovery,” formerly posted at www.rkmc.com. Nevertheless, courts have split on which e-discovery costs may be awarded to a prevailing party under 28 U.S.C. §1920(4).

Tagged with: certiorari e-discovery

The American Bar Association adopted new ethical guidelines for lawyers regarding online marketing and staying aware of current technology at its annual meeting this month.

Tagged with: American Bar Association marketing