Posted on 01/26/2009 1:28:39 PM PST by Gracey
Edited on 01/26/2009 1:30:08 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
I told ya so !!!!! Wonderful story.
Way back in the day when I was a legal secy one of the young lawyers complained to the top dude that I was making more than he was ... and the sr. partner replied: she’s worth more to me than you are! next.
In the case of a professional consulting practice, the only things of any value as collateral are usually: (1) the brand name of the company and any of its products, processes, etc.; (2) the company's accounts receivable; and (3) if applicable, any real estate the company might own.
This is probably why you hardly see any big, publicly-traded professional consulting companies.
Arbitration can be a very good process because, while expensive up front, it is over rather quickly and the decisions are usually made by a person familiar with that field. For instance, a dispute between a construction contractor and a subcontractor would most likely be decided by someone who had worked in that field. It is basically a privitized form of dispute resolution.
The problem comes when the parties are not of equal bargaining power and 1 party can dictate what arb. board would be used. That can make things grossly unfair to the weaker party.
Mediation is a great tool that promotes a spirit of compromise. Quite often it will be used to settle a case that otherwise might have gone to trial.
Very few cases make it all the way to trial. If it does, it’s usually because it’s a case with bad facts or if someone made a mistake. The courts very much encourage arbitration and mediation. Many courts require the parties to go to mediation, although it can’t force them to participate in good faith.
Are you a lawyer? If so, I'd like to send a Freep-mail with a general question (not professional legal advice!) about a very specific type of mediation process.
I honed in on that also. Interesting. Guess we’ll be calling all the banks “Bank of America” literally.
Now that’s worthy. All or most divorces should have to go to arbitration also. As someone stated, it’s costly up front, but it’s caput quickly.
yes, I am—unfortately sometimes! Please feel free to send me a message—although as you already know I can’t give professional advice! But I’d be happy to do what I can. I won’t even bill you for it! :)
Unfortunately it just means more unemployed lawyers.
End of ESQ.
Cool site. Looks to be good for a belly full of laughs, just when we need it with the doom and gloom,negative Obama Osama on the news constantly.
Now if only the news media (with the exception of a few) would go by the wayside also. Wouldn’t it be cool if the NYT and SF Chronicle and LA Times went out of business. Then PMSNBC,etc.
Heller Ehrman did my first private placement years ago. Good attorneys. They took mostly equity to help us, and did well for themselves as a result. I guess that sort of flexibility has its risk, however.
what a dumb way to run your law firm. If you don’t have a least 6 months of expenses on hand, you might be broke. Lines of credit are nice, but should used for cash flow not everyday expenses.
If I read the paper right, what happened at Heller was a lot of the partners were leaving to join other practices or start their own practices, and there was a serious problem with client confidence.
Thelan has been in trouble for years - their demise is not surprising - I heard they had been searching for a law firm to merge with since ‘04 - way before the current credit crunch.
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