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Doug Park

Breaking Down The Silos That Separate Business People And Lawyers

by Doug Park March 3, 2010

In many companies, business and legal operate as separate silos. On the business side, there is business development, corporate development, marketing, finance, and human resources. On the legal side, there are in-house attorneys and outside counsel. Business sees legal as a cost center, not as a value driver.  Unfortunately, this separation of business and legal [...]

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The Risk Of Using Location Based Services: Higher Insurance Premiums

by Doug Park February 23, 2010

Do you use location based services, such as Foursquare, Twitter, or Facebook? If so, you may start paying a price in the form of higher home insurance premiums.
Why? Because social media, geolocation, and location based services alert others as to your location. Specifically, people can figure out when you are or are [...]

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Why Strategy, Law, And Organization?

by Doug Park February 18, 2010

Good business lawyers understand that legal problems are necessarily business problems. Yet, understanding the law, by itself, is insufficient to understand and solve complex business problems.
In this short post, I advance a simple argument: A combined Strategy, Law, and Organization lens provides superior solutions to difficult business and legal problems. Examples include mergers [...]

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Intellectual Property Rights, Merger And Acquisition Strategy, And Transaction Costs

by Doug Park January 21, 2010

Do the transaction costs of allocating intellectual property rights in collaborative R&D influence merger and acquisition strategy? When it is difficult to write intellectual property agreements, does it makes sense for managers to turn to a merger or acquisition as the solution? The answers have consequences for how business strategy and legal strategy interact.
What [...]

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Why Consult A Business Lawyer Early In A Business Transaction?

by Doug Park January 18, 2010

Business lawyers often argue that involving a lawyer early on in a transaction is cheaper than fixing a problem later. Clients sometimes want to negotiate a deal on their own and then have a lawyer write it up. The concern might be cost or the attorney’s grasp of the business issues. Further, an attorney who [...]

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Do More New Lawyers Mean Lower Wages For Lawyers?

by Doug Park January 13, 2010

Do more lawyers mean lower wages for lawyers? The legal blogosphere has been abuzz since Mark Greenbaum argued in the Los Angeles Times that too many new lawyers drives down lawyers’ wages. However, Mr. Greenbaum’s argument is based on misunderstandings of competition in the legal industry.
To summarize, Mr. Greenbaum contends that there are too many [...]

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Compensation and Reputation Risk Under New SEC Disclosure Rules

by Doug Park January 11, 2010

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) new disclosure rules mandate disclosure of material adverse risks created by compensation policies. A prominent corporate attorney’s recent analysis of compensation program design and risk focuses on process, but completely ignores reputation risk.
Reputation risk based on the amount of compensation, regardless of adherence to established procedures, is “reasonably likely” [...]

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Apple Acquires The “i-phone” Trademark In China

by Doug Park January 7, 2010

Apple has finally ended its iPhone trademark problem in China by acquiring the rights to the “i-phone” mark from Hanwang Technology. The acquisition ends a dangerous intellectual property and marketing situation for Apple.
As I wrote in an earlier post, because of an apparent oversight in coordinating its marketing strategy and trademark strategy, Apple faced the [...]

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What Venture Capitalists See For 2010: IPOs, M&A, But Not Cleantech

by Doug Park January 5, 2010

What do venture capitalists like in 2010?  Not cleantech.  But they are optimistic about more big IPOs and mergers and acquisitions coming through.
An article in the New York Times discusses the technology sectors that VCs are bullish on.  VCs are excited about startups developing applications for the Android, less so for iPhone application companies. VCs [...]

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Pfizer, Alternative Fees, And Competition

by Doug Park December 30, 2009

Companies are increasingly forcing their outside counsel to offer an alternative fee for legal work. Pfizer is the latest example. The pharmaceutical giant recently formed the Pfizer Legal Alliance, a group of nineteen law firms who will provide legal services for the entire year for a flat fee.
Pfizer’s general counsel, Amy Schulman, leads the company’s [...]

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