Four Steps To the Future Of Law: Part 1

By Joyce Brafford

I was recently very fortunate to participate in Law Firm Retreats at the NCBA’s Annual Meeting in Asheville. As always, the Annual Meeting was jam-packed with interesting and educational programs. But Law Firm Retreats was a new program, and I wasn’t entirely sure how it would be received or what type of content to expect. I was, in a word, impressed. The Law Firm Retreats were moderated by Camille Stell, vice president of client services at Lawyers Mutual of NC. Camille spent her time as moderator talking about and initiating conversation around the future of law.

“The Future of Law” is a term that we’ve all heard, but the meaning can vary from setting to setting. For the purposes of Camille’s talk, the future of law meant strategic thinking for law firms. She went on to define four areas of strategic thinking: strategic recruiting, strategic planning, business development and future legal market planning. Each of these four categories has important implications for the future of your firm. But what do these phrases mean?

Strategic recruiting: the careful consideration of your firm’s present and future needs, and hiring to fill the gaps in your current staff to meet those needs.

Strategic planning: consideration of the current economic, political, social and technological climate and assessing how those factors will effect the achievement of your firm’s goals.

Business development: the assessment and development of referral sources which you systematically reinforce over a designated period time and with specific goals set at the beginning of the period.

Future legal market planning: analysis of trend lines in legal customers and legal needs in contrast with your current abilities, and the development of strategy to address needs you’re not currently able to meet.

In the next four parts of this series, we’ll explore each of these areas, and how your firm can rise to the opportunities facing the legal market in the next five to 10 years.

If you have any questions about how your firm can be prepared for the future of law, please contact me in the Center for Practice Management at [email protected].

 

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Make the Most Of Summer With the NCBA Member Benefits App

By Josh McIntyre

Three things begin happening between May and June that let me know summer is here:

  • I have to wait at least two minutes till the AC kicks in before I can stand to drive my car.
  • Parking on Franklin Street in downtown Chapel Hill is readily available.
  • The number of automatic reply emails from NCBA members is significantly higher than usual.

When I receive those messages I always hope that our members are taking a break from work and heading somewhere fun on vacation, whether it be to a local beach or out of the country. But then I wonder if they used their NCBA Member Discounts to get the best travel or entertainment deals possible and if they downloaded the newest way to access those benefits in the NCBA Member Benefits App.

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Academic Freedom In Interesting Times

By William Joseph Austin Jr.

A 50th anniversary came and went this past fall without fanfare or commemoration. But for several weeks in October and November of 1966, Andrew Marvell’s poem, “To His Coy Mistress,” written circa 1650’s, was a “national sensation.”[1]

On Oct. 17, 1966, the television station WRAL reported that a UNC English instructor had assigned his students to write a paper on seduction using this 17th-century poem.[2]  Subsequent investigation by a departmental committee determined in November that the instructor, Michael Paull, had not given the students that assignment, but asked them to use the poem to explain imagery and six figures of poetic speech.[3]

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Libations and Litigation Are Twin Passions for NCBA Member Deborah Sperati

NCBA Members In Focus 

Ask Deborah Sperati if she would rather run a craft brewery or practice law as a partner at Poyner Spruill, and she answers with a question: “Why choose when you can do both?”

As co-founder, legal counsel and chief cultural officer of Koi Pond Brewery in Rocky Mount, Sperati blends her passion for craft beer and her 18 years of experience as a civil and commercial litigator. A North Carolina native who grew up in Greenville, Sperati earned her law degree from UNC School of Law and has practiced for 18 years. At Poyner Spruill, she leads the Brewery, Winery and Distillery Practice Group, which offers her critical insight into the challenges facing the state’s growing group of beer, wine and spirits artisans. Here, she offers some insight on how she keeps these dual pursuits alive.

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Avoiding the Bullseye: Cybersecurity Lessons From the Target Litigation

David M. Furr is a member of the North Carolina Bar Association’s newly created Privacy and Data Security  Committee, which begins work in the upcoming bar year. 

By David M. Furr

Traditional retail in the United States has had two distinct issues negatively affecting its survival in this decade. First, the proliferation of E-commerce companies has severely reduced the profitability of the traditional brick and mortar businesses as shoppers’ habits are fundamentally changing. In the first four months of this year, nine retailers have filed for bankruptcy — Payless Shoes, hhgregg, The Limited, RadioShack, BCBG, Wet Seal, Gormans, Eastern Outfitters and Gander Mountain — with the closing of hundreds of stores.1  Many other retailers are shuttering stores at such a record pace that 2017 is being bannered as the year of retail bankruptcies.2

Second, retail has been particularly hard hit by cybersecurity breaches because of the wealth of Personal Identity Information (PII) collected and, unfortunately retained, by the retailers. The 2013 massive compromise of retail giant Target’s systems has been litigated in the courts and subject to an extensive Multi-State Attorney General task force action that has produced record payouts to plaintiffs.

The purpose of this paper is to use the Target litigation as a backdrop of the cybersecurity measures a business must have in place if it is to protect adequately the PII of its lifeblood — the customers. While common tort and specific statutory theories serve as the foundation for these claims, the sophistication of the Plaintiff counsels’ deep dive into the actual technology facts serve as an important road map to safe cybersecurity.

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Talking To All Generations: Manage Your Online Reputation

By Matt Cordell

When I have the opportunity to give advice to law students and young lawyers, one of the things I try to impress upon them is the importance of their reputations, including their “online reputations.”

Usually the comment is quickly met with a knowing nod. Everyone seems to know that their reputation is important. However, having witnessed many lawyers of all ages impair their professional reputations online, I have begun to realize that many of us fail to recognize some aspects of maintaining our online reputations, and I have begun to be much more specific in my advice to younger lawyers.

Older lawyers, I have observed, often seem to understand some of the things that younger lawyers may miss, but older lawyers can have their own blind spots in this area. In this short piece, I would like to describe a few observations about lawyers’ online reputations and suggest that young lawyers and older
lawyers can learn much from one another regarding this topic. (There are, of course, plenty of exceptions to my generational generalizations.)

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In the Aftermath Of a Cyber Attack, What Do You Tell the State Bar?

By Joyce Brafford

Your law firm’s security has been breached, and you see that a scammer is trying to steal client funds. It may be wire fraud, a phishing attack or something totally different. But you know that the firm’s security is being tested against a bad actor. You must take action. What should you do, and what are your ethical obligations?

I reached out to Deanna Brocker of the Brocker Law Firm in Raleigh, and she shared some practical advice for anyone who finds themselves in this situation. The Brocker Law Firm concentrates in professional and occupational licensing, ethics and disciplinary matters. The firm also advises and represents professional clients in various related areas, including prospective ethics counseling, private ethics opinions, expert witness testimony, firm disputes, North Carolina State Bar grievance defense and attorney discipline defense.

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Lessons Learned From the Former ‘Fat Boy’: Tackling Childhood and Adolescent Obesity

By Russell Rawlings

Rumor has it the incidence of childhood and adolescent obesity has reached epidemic proportions in this country. That would stand to reason, considering the fact that obesity has also become rampant within the adult population.

In other words, the kids ain’t driving themselves to the grocery store.

I am neither a physician nor a psychologist, so nothing I would ever say about weight and wellness should ever be mistaken for professional advice, especially when it comes to childhood and adolescent obesity.

But I have lived through both, and although it has been nearly 40 years since I experienced my transformative weight loss, I will never forget what it was like to be young and overweight. I will never forget what it was like to be the “fat boy.”

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What ‘My Cousin Vinny’ Got Wrong: Public Defenders Fulfill Gideon’s Promise Day In, Day Out

By Kearns Davis

Fred Lind, Chief Public Defender for Guilford County, recently shared a letter from a juror:

Last week I had the privilege of serving on a jury for a case defended by Mr. A. Brennan Aberle. I was so impressed by his performance on this case I felt I had to put something on the record. At the start Mr. Aberle promised a defense based on facts and reason, and he delivered on that promise. …

I am often worried that justice is only for those who can afford it, but Mr. Aberle’s effective defense of his client reassures me that the freedom of ALL residents of Guilford County is well-protected by your office. I don’t believe a better defense could have been purchased at any price.

“My Cousin Vinny” (1992) is a legal film classic. But its caricature of a stammering, timid, poorly prepared public defender reinforced a stereotype that is widely shared but wildly wrong. As those who appear regularly in criminal court know, public defenders are experts. It is the public defender who spends every day in the same courthouse, working with judges and prosecutors and handling the cases that are staples for indigent clients. One United States district judge, who observes skilled, experienced counsel every day, describes the Federal Public Defender’s office in his district as, “lawyer for lawyer, the best trial law firm in the State of North Carolina.”

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One Car Crash, Two Miracles and the Many Wonders of BarCARES

By Jeff Bradford

I’m presently in my fifth year on the board of directors for BarCARES, a wonderful non-profit that provides a wide array of confidential counseling services to lawyers and their families.

My BarCARES story began on July 15, 2009. I was driving home from a nurse expert deposition in Greensboro when I met Gerline. I met her at about 5 p.m. in the left-hand lane of Highpoint Road, between a Toys R Us and a Bojangles’. I was traveling about 45 mph when she turned out of the opposite left-hand lane, through the turn lane, and directly in front of me. I had no time to react. I just hit the brakes, decelerated maybe 5 or 10 mph, and then slammed into her. My airbag deployed as I caromed across several lanes of traffic to my right, pushing her along with me. It was extremely frightening. We ended up directly in front of Bojangles’.

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