The First Seminole GC

Great article by Sue Reisinger at law.com titled How the Seminoles' GC Helped Land $965 Million Hard Rock Deal.
Seminole GC, Jim Shore, was the first Seminole to ever graduate from law school. Take a minute to read a little about him and the great negotiating he did to win his tribe the Hard Rock corporation.

Fire a paintball gun, keep your job

Who knew that there's no public policy reason against rehiring a Garden State Parkway toll-taker who fired a paintball gun at a vehicle in a fit of road rage. Read the New Jersey Law Journal's article for all of the details on the NJ's Supreme Court's decision that was upheld by an appellate court. Personally, I feel we should all leave our paintball guns at home.

Hot Legal Blogs and the Like

Take a look at Kelly Talcott's article about the freshest legal news on the blogosphere. She pulls together some good places you need visit on the web to keep up with your legal news. Of course, we love Law.com for great legal updates and news as well.

New eDiscovery Software on the Block

Exterro has come to the table with it's flagship product Fusion, which combines BPM with collaboration capabilities and centralized management in an intergrated environment.

Read Law.com's piece Exterro Gets E-Discovery Down to Business

Update: GCs Operating Without Licenses

As promised, I tried to track down the "survey" mentioned by Corporate Counsel in their recent story about GCs operating in states where they are not licensed. The story said "...past surveys by ACC of its membership suggest that [the number of in-house counsel in this situation] could be in the hundreds or even thousands."

As it turns out, there is no such survey (ha!). In a conversation with the reporter an ACC staff member [identity protected] said that we have seen anecdotal evidence that at least some of our members are in this situation, and suggested that it could be "hundreds or thousands," but "we just don't know."

Certainly, it's more exciting the way Corporate Counsel wrote it, but is it accurate? I'll let you be the judge. Here's a link to the story again.

In the News: GCs Operating Without Licenses

According to Corporate Counsel magazine, they've found 8 GCs from Fortune 250 companies who are not licensed in the states in which they are practicing...and they name names. They also spoke to some of the folks on the list, including ArvinMeritor's Vernon Baker who said "you got me" (as a joke, apparently). The story also references an unnamed ACC survey that "suggests" that the number of unlicensed attorneys could be in the "hundreds or thousands." Read the full story here.

In the meantime, I'm going to try to track down the mystery survey.

New York Moves on MJP Rules

The New York State Bar Association House of Delegates proposed important amendments to the rules of professional conduct in New York, and specifically proposed a new Rule 5.5, which was formerly the state's Unauthorized Practice of Law rule, but would be amended to include new multijurisdictional practice (MJP) reforms. New York's proposed Rule 5.5 would permit a lawyer who is not admitted in New York the ability to provide legal services “on a temporary basis” if their services “arise out of or are reasonably related to the lawyer’s practice” in a lawyer’s home jurisdiction. See the full article on this development.

In completely unrelated, but welcome news to all you Zamboni drivers out there, a Superior Court judge has ruled that:

a) Zamboni machines are not motor vehicles
b) therefore, an inebriated Zamboni driver cannot be convicted of drunk driving

See the full story on (where else?!) law.com.