Gerry Riskin

Firm/Organization: Gerry Riskin
Blogs: Amazing Firms, Amazing Practices

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Watch this episode of Daniel Pink’s Pinkcast, featuring Steven G. Rogelberg, winner of the 2017 Humboldt Research Award and author of The Surprising Science of Meetings: How to Take Your Team to Peak Performance. The video will take less than three minutes of your life, and can improve endless numbers of minutes and even hours in the lives of you and your colleagues. As always, I invite you to contact me with your…
It is great to see another news item on The American Lawyer website that puts a spotlight on the mental health and wellness of those employed in law firms. In this case, the focus is on how Paul Hastings LLP – like several other major firms recently – has upped its game a notch in the area of parental leave. Dan Packel’s article reports that the international law firm – based in Los Angeles and…
I extend my sincere congratulations to Brandi Hobbs, Director of Client Service & Strategy at Poyner Spruill, who in early June was named Sales & Service Executive of the Year in the small firm category by the Legal Sales and Service Organization (LSSO). The LSSO’s Sales & Service Awards “salute the efforts and results from individuals/teams who have helped their firm drive revenue.” Specifically, the Executive of the Year Award recognizes “a leader who…
In what can be described as an incidence of the criminalization of analytics – possibly the first on the planet – the Government of France has banned the reporting of statistical analysis of the decisions of individual judges. The maximum penalty for contravention of the new law is five years behind bars. The Artificial Lawyer notes that “owners of legal tech companies focused on litigation analytics are the most likely to suffer from this new…
An article in the ABA Journal reports that the New Mexico Supreme Court is considering licensing legal technicians to provide civil legal services. Los Alamos lawyer George Chandler, a member of the New Mexico Commission on Access to Justice, said, “Justice should be accessible to everybody, and lawyers are priced out of reach of as much as 80% of the population[…]. I want to improve access to justice for people who don’t qualify for legal…
A study conducted by Wolters Kluwer indicates that a strong and growing record of investment and use of legal technology by law firms is associated with higher profitability. Wolters Kluwer is a global information company that offers software, research and learning technology to the legal, business, accounting, and healthcare industries (among others) in more than 150 countries. The company surveyed more than 700 professionals in law firms, corporate legal departments and business-services firms in Europe…
A study conducted by the law firm Fenwick & West LLP found that in 2018, women comprised more than one quarter of all general counsel at large public technology companies such as Apple and Intel in the Silicon Valley 150 (SV150), and in major companies in the Standard and Poor’s 100 (S&P 100). In its review of the study’s findings, Corporate Counsel, a publication of LawNow, reported that “S&P 100 companies were more likely…
In early April, Ernst & Young (EY) announced that it had acquired the legal outsourcing service provider Pangea3 from Thomson Reuters, increasing the intensity of the accounting giant’s assault on the legal services industry. Robert Ambrogi at Above the Law warns that the move “does not bode well for law firms.” Pangea3 was originally established in 2005 to provide legal outsourcing to law professionals in India. A profile on Wikipedia reports that today the company…
The Artificial Lawyer reports on the completion of the first-ever U.K. residential property deal using blockchain technology rather than traditional property-transfer methods. The deal was managed by the law firm Mishcon de Reva, which describes its work as “cross-border, multi-jurisdictional and complex,” and this specific deal as the first “end-to-end digitised residential property transaction.” The Artificial Lawyer explains that in effect, the deal was carried out on “a blockchain-based platform, and completed via working alongside…
Update May 3, 2019: Congratulations to Cheslie Kryst, who has won the Miss USA Pageant and will now move on to compete for the title of Miss Universe! . A civil litigation lawyer in Charlotte, North Carolina, Miss North Carolina has been attracting media attention, as well as invitations to speak and to serve as host at charitable events, for reasons that seem at first to be unrelated to her legal practice. Not only is…