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Just a quick post to trumpet the virtues of the Exchange Wireless Connector and how it’s helped us at Cuyler Burk.

I chose my SmartPhone, a Treo 700w, because my previous PDA (a Dell Axim) was Windows Mobile based, and I was familiar with it.  I also knew that Cuyler Burk,  as an all Microsoft shop — sure, we have a few Linux boxes (this blog is sitting on one) — that Exchange 2003 would support my phone out of the box.  I didn’t realize how cool it is.

Now, any calendar item I add at the office shows up on my phone automatically.  Any contact I add to my phone pops up in Outlook and I don’t have to do anything.   Mail just streams to the phone without me having to hit send/receive (like I do with my IMAP based mail accounts) and I can send to internal mailing lists, which is something I can’t do through our internet gateway…

Over the past year many of our attorneys have gotten Windows Mobile based phones.  Deployment takes only a few minutes — copy and install the remote certificate and type in their username and password, and they’re off.  They love that their secretaries can schedule calls and appointments and they just shows up on their home screen as upcoming events.

To sweeten the deal, this was all bundled with Microsoft Small Business Server 2003, so we didn’t have to spend an extra thousand bucks on the Blackberry Connector.

Plus — if the phone is broken — just get a new one… since everything is stored in Exchange, the new phone will automatically sync itself up and all your contacts, speed dials, appointments, etc. are right back to where you expect them.  Gone are the days of losing your address book when you lost your phone.

So, if you’re running SBS2003, I would highly recommend taking a look at a Windows Mobile based device for your next phone — you might wonder how you lived without it.  I know I do.

(This sounds a bit shill-y, but I can assure you I’m a big fan of this technology.  Next time, I’ll rant a little bit about my Treo 700w.)

Let me start by saying that I am never surprised by the generosity of my co-workers.  So, what I have to say here reveals nothing new about our staff.  The only thing that is new is this blog.  I plan to take full advantage of this forum to acknowledge all things good about Cuyler Burk.  

After hours of coordination and shopping, today, our staff delivered a large carload of groceries and homemade baked goods to help an area family celebrate tomorrow’s holiday.   Knowing my co-workers, their generosity will be repeated in a couple of weeks when they begin shopping for children’s toys to fill the wish list of yet another local family.    

I am proud to be associated with compassionate and caring people.   And I thank them for showing their thanks by giving back to their community.

Former Cuyler Burk file clerk, Andrew Durkin, had another 59 seconds of fame last week as one of his compositions “Anger Management Classes” (as performed by his band, Industrial Jazz Group) was featured as bumper music on NPRs Talk of the Nation.

Imagined Monologue: “An Inarticulate, Self-Consciously Ironic Voice of His Twentysomething Generation Makes an Opening Statement for His Client in a Corporate-Fraud Case.”

“Over the next few weeks, the prosecution is going to trot out a lot of so-called “experts” and “witnesses” and “my bitter ex-girlfriends”—kidding! Except how crazy if Kelly or Jennifer actually did come in and was like, “You should totally vote guilty…”? Anyway, I urge you to ignore them as you would a call on your cell from your parents badgering you about getting a real job, until you finally go to law school more out of resentment and desperation than any real desire to study the justice system and make a difference, even though, sure, given the choice of making a difference or not, I’d take the former, but still …”

I was recently asked by the Chair of the Dispute Resolution Section of the New Jersey Bar Association section to comment on New Jersey’s Mandatory Continuing Legal Education program. Here goes….

From what I read, it seems a fait accompli that the Supreme Court of New Jersey will require more rigorous MCLE. In the absence of clear metrics defining the specific problems we are trying to address, what our goals in addressing them are, and how we might measure success and failure (and the cost of same), I suggest the Court refrain from significant changes. Let’s fix what’s broke, if anything, once we know what it is, and how we would know success if we were to achieve it. In my view, it would not reflect a failure on the part of the Committee if its recommendation, upon reflection, were to be to continue to study with a focused effort on the “what’s broke” question.

As a licensed attorney in this State for 22 years I have appreciated NJ’s decision to go a path different than many neighboring states as a breath of fresh air. It implied a grown-up trust in the Bar to do what’s required to deliver ethical high-quality service synonymous with New Jersey’s legal tradition. In the past, when consideration of more stringent CLE requirements has periodically come up, my experience, albeit anecdotal, was nearly universal that the lawyers I most respected for their energy, judgment, and ethical character felt that such requirements were, at best, unnecessary, and, at worst, ill-advised or absurd. I cannot think of an instance in which a practicing lawyer I respect greatly based on his or her work privately expressed enthusiasm for greater CLE requirements, and those people in general give freely of their time to legal reform and charitable causes.

I admit to being instinctively uncomfortable with schemes with obvious feel -good effect, but which, upon reflection, offer little in the way of measurements of results against which to perform a cost-benefit analysis and I tend to see this as one of those. I have never heard, for example, how the quality of lawyering anywhere has been shown to have demonstrably increased because of mandatory CLE. Do the malpractice carriers have statistically-sound data correlating claims with the rigor of their CLE programs? (more…)

Who says that childbirth and work do not go together? I am proof that it does. One year and nine days after I joined the Firm as an associate, I was sitting at my desk completing a memo for the partner who sat next door on a day that would begin the life of child number two.

Child number one (referring to birth order only, of course) was already four and the nesting aspect of growing my family was no longer a novelty. There was work to be finished at the office so it really didn’t matter that I was already nine days late when I stumbled into the office on the Birthday.

Things get a little fuzzy after that.

Some nameless partner - who wasn’t even in the office that day - tells everyone that my water broke. (Not really - it was just old fashioned labor pains. ) I tried to walk it off at first. Then someone noticed my strange grunts and doubled over posture and decided it was time to send our paralegal my way to see if she could help. I was confused - since I had no project for her and I was not carrying a heavy box of documents - until she mentioned that she was a nurse offering to check my vital signs and, most importantly, to time my contractions. At five minutes apart, she thought it was time to call an ambulance - but I told her that my husband, who my girls and I sometimes affectionately call “Slow Joe” was on his way to take me to the hospital. The rest is history.

Child number two is now 7. At least one of the cases that was sitting on my desk on the Birthday is still on my desk calling for attention much the same way my daughter called for my attention 7 years ago. Though it’s often difficult to balance family and work and it sometimes feels like you are reliving the pains of labor or “splitting the baby”, Cuyler Burk has proven that there is room for both.

This blog is dedicated to all of the working mothers, including our dearly departed paralegal, Nancy Sauer, who came to my aid on September 18, 2000.

A few versions ago, MS Word came under fire for including personal information with every document. The registered user’s name, company and other info was available in the metadata of the document.

MS answered the hue and cry by giving users the option of removing this personal information. We think this is generally a good idea, tho it gets in the way try to collaborate using Tracked Changes.

Before saving a documents with tracked changes, make sure that the “Remove personal information…” option is UNCHECKED.

That will ensure that your tracked changes are saved and passed along; lest they be lumped together with all other changes, making user tracking impossible.

Are employees’ e-mails privileged if they’re sent to their lawyers from the office computer?

From Truth In Large-Firm Advertising:

“But I wonder whether Big Firm advertising has the same impact. I just cannot imagine MegaCorp Executive sitting at an airport and seeing Winston, the Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice bulldog mascot and then thinking to himself, “I need more ‘tenacity’ from my outside legal counsel. I think I’ll call Womble and ask them to defend the next class action lawsuit that gets filed against my company!”

OK, I know that really isn’t the point of Winston or any other Big Firm advertising campaign. They want to create a brand image that will separate them from the herd. But selling Big Firm legal services is not like marketing the latest smart phone. I am not sure I could even tell you what most of my Big Firm colleagues do on a daily basis, much less convince you to pay $400 an hour for it.

On October 7, 2007, the New Jersey Supreme Court heard oral argument in the matter of Sensient Colors, Inc. v. Allstate Ins. Co., et al. on the issue of whether a Complaint filed by an insured in New Jersey for environmental coverage for a New Jersey site, although filed after the insurer filed a similar action in New York, should proceed.

I. Factual and Procedural History

Following the receipt of a PRP letter from the EPA and a suit by a neighboring property owner for cleanup of environmental contamination arising from the insured’s Camden, New Jersey site, the insured (Sensient) put its insurers on notice. Zurich had issued a reservation of rights letter, but it then filed a declaratory judgment action in New York state court. Zurich is a New York company, and the policies were brokered by a New York broker. Sensient is also a New York company, with its principal place of business in Missouri. Zurich subsequently amended the NY complaint to include additional insurers. Less than two months later, Sensient filed its own declaratory judgment action in New Jersey state court, adding a claim against the New Jersey Property-Liability Insurance Guaranty Association (”NJPLIGA”) and alleging that Zurich had breached the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. Sensient moved to dismiss the New York action, which the New York court denied, and Zurich moved to dismiss the New Jersey case.

The New Jersey trial court granted Zurich’s motion to dismiss on comity grounds, deferring to the first-filed action in New York. Sensient appealed, and the Appellate Division reversed, finding that the two actions were not substantially similar because NJPLIGA could not be sued in New York and New York does not recognize a cause of action for breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. The Appellate Division further reasoned that even assuming that the two actions were substantially similar, the trial court had erred in not considering special equities that justified not deferring to the first-filed action, namely the fact that the site was located in New Jersey and the state had a paramount interest in the health and safety of its citizens and making sure there are funds for remediation of waste sites in furtherance of that public policy.
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