The Litigation Counsellor®

Advice on becoming a trial attorney from Joseph DiNardo, Esq.

As all lawyers practicing today will tell you, the legal community is not immune from the ever-evolving world of technology and constant, demanding communication. The challenges of becoming a successful trial attorney today have intensified at a rate that lawyers practicing just twenty years ago couldn’t have fathomed. Attorneys looking to start their own firm in the current climate must not only be good lawyers, they must market themselves as a brand through diversified media platforms. Today, an advertisement in the phone book is both antiquated and ineffectual.

Although U.S. courts are typically slow to adopt technological innovations, there has been a recent push to allow the admission of wearable device data into evidence.¹ Most prominently, it has been discussed in the context of personal injury litigation as a means to show notable changes in a plaintiff’s physical fitness or behavior after an injury. For instance, a plaintiff could support claims that their activity levels decreased after an injury by utilizing several months or even years’ worth of data compiled from an exercise tracker, such as a Fitbit or Jawbone or the much-anticipated Apple Watch.

StubHub, the burgeoning online ticket exchange for sports and entertainment, is suing the Golden State Warriors and Ticketmaster for antitrust violations in the Northern District of California. StubHub alleges that the Warriors and Ticketmaster have unlawfully colluded to restrain competition by telling season ticket holders that they can only resell their tickets through Ticketmaster.

A Cornerstone Research report on securities class actions in 2014 pointed out a stark decline in the value of settlements. Settlements fell 78 percent to $1.07 billion in 2014 from $4.85 billion in 2013. This represents an 84 percent drop below the prior nine-year average.

On Thursday, February 19, 2015, LinkedIn unveiled its newly enhanced platform of business-to-business lead generation products. The launch follows the $175 million acquisition of Bizo, a company devoted to helping advertisers reach businesses and professionals, in August 2014. LinkedIn utilized Bizo’s team and technology, as well as partnered with AppNexus, to bring to life what the company promises is a suite of products that will provide “a faster way to reach, nurture, and convert high-quality leads on and off LinkedIn.”

Last Sunday night, 60 Minutes aired a story on wood flooring products retailer Lumber Liquidators and its laminate flooring products that purportedly contain formaldehyde levels that exceed acceptable standards for consumer products in the US. The laminate flooring products,

On Monday, November 3, 2014, Stryker Corporation announced it would pay at least $1 billion to settle cases brought by thousands of patients over injuries sustained by faulty hip implants manufactured by its subsidiary, Howmedica Osteonics Corp.

On June 23, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision that dealt a near-fatal blow for plaintiffs in securities class action suits by making it harder for investors to collectively sue corporations for fraud. In an opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts, the court unanimously held that defendants at the preliminary class certification stage could refute the plaintiffs’ presumption of reliance on an efficient market if they can show that an alleged misrepresentation did not affect the company’s stock price.

One of the lesser-known sections of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (“Affordable Care Act”), colloquially known as ObamaCare, provides expansive amendments to the False Claims Act (“FCA”).¹ While these amendments are not retroactive,² they will most likely increase the amount of FCA-based claims in the future.

By Joseph Twarog, Esq.