Integrating Your Business and Legal Needs

My law license says that I am an Attorney and Counselor at Law. I take those words very seriously. They mean different but important things to me. As your attorney, I am your advocate, and it is my job to present your claim, defend you against other people's claims, and advance your position in negotiations and dispute resolutions, and before judges, juries and other authorities.

As your counselor, my job is to give you the best independent legal advice, but it's something more, too. As your counselor, I strive to work in a closely integrated way with you and your personnel and with your other independent support professionals (e.g., accountants, financial planners, engineers, etc.) so that we all keep our focus on the most important concern, which is advancing your business goals in the most time- and cost-effective, legal and successful manner.

I believe that this is how a lawyer should work with his clients. A client shouldn't be just a file reference or an identifier on the accounts receivable list. I also believe that this is the best way for a client to make use of a lawyer. I shouldn't be just another vendor, albeit one with a specialized license, that you turn to only when you have no other choice because "it takes too much time to make him understand" or "it costs too much." Both of our times will be best spent, and the expense will be less overall and more cost-effective, too, if we work together intimately from the start.

Protecting Your Trade Secrets

A tremendous part of your business information is and has to be confidential. If your competitors can acquire your internal business details like your pricing or costing models, or how you design and organize your projects, they can gain a dangerous advantage over you by exploiting weaknesses they find and by copying unique processes you developed on your own.

However, sometimes you must reveal some of your confidential information if you are to move forward. Employees and contractors can't do their jobs without access to your information. Many ventures will not succeed if your partners or customers don't know how the product works. Sales personnel can't sell things that they can't describe sufficiently. These are major reasons why you should have strong, comprehensive agreements that will protect your trade secrets as much as reasonably possible. "Strong" doesn't have to mean "too verbose" and shouldn't mean "crammed full of legalese". You want protection that is strong, definite, and clearly and easily understood.

For more information on Protecting your Trade Secrets, Click Here .

Cloud Computing Strategies

When I was a boy, color television was so new that programs advertised that they were "in color!". Houston had four television stations, all VHF. Cell phones? Smart phones? The internet? That was science fiction. My children have grown up in a world where things I thought of as futuristic are ordinary, and things I took as commonplace are extinct. Your children will grow up in a world where things you thought of as futuristic were obsolete before they came along, and things you took as commonplace are barely remembered.

This is the natural evolution of human progress, and that progress is reflected in how the IP world is changing. When I entered into technology law there was no IAAS, PAAS or SAAS. There wasn't even DSL. But in the past few years, and with increasing speed, the growth of the Cloud and its rising importance in the tech field, as well as the use, transmission and assimilation of information is revolutionizing every industry on the planet.

Your legal representative should be someone like you, who embraces that revolution instead of opposing or being afraid of it, and who is eager and ready to design and implement new strategies and solutions for you and your customers. I am eager to work with you in developing your part of that horizon in the most effective and cost-efficient way to serve your legal needs and your business goals.

Disputes and Dispute Resolution

Everyone wants business relationships to succeed. No one signs a contract hoping it will fail. But, sometimes, things just don't work out. Some disputes can be resolved without going to court, but it often takes a legal representative to resolve it. Why?

You (and the other side) are often too close to the problem to see a workable middle ground. Some people simply won't listen to you because they're convinced they are right, or they just don't care what your position is. Often, you don't want the dispute to end the relationship, but if the two of you keep spending your time arguing, it poisons the relationship. Letting your representatives deal with the problem allows both sides to keep moving forward on the things that are working.

Even if your representative can't resolve the problem through informal negotiations, there are still options short of filing a lawsuit that your representative can provide for you.

  • Pre-lawsuit mediations
  • Revising or replacing the agreement that the two sides can't continue working with, and integrating what you were doing into the new agreement in a way that doesn't short-circuit your progress so far.
  • Mini-trials - Set aside the parts of the problem that both of you agree upon and concentrate only on the parts you can't see eye to eye about.

For more information on Disputes and Dispute Resolutions, Click Here .

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