Indianapolis Bar Association CLE Follow-Up

On May 9, 2013, Brad gave a presentation sponsored by the Indianapolis Bar Association entitled “Working in the Cloud: Using Online Resources to Help Your Practice.” The presentation was designed to be an overview of various free or low-cost online services that attorneys can use in their practice. The following are links to some of the services Brad identified in his presentation:

Links from other presentations Brad has given on tech topics are here and here.

Brad A. Catlin
Price Waicukauski & Riley, LLC
Learn more about Brad and contact us
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Flat Fee Was Both Reasonable And Earned

In recent years, the Indiana Supreme Court has issued a couple decisions dealing with the reasonableness of attorney’s fees in the disciplinary context. It addressed this issue again in In re Canada, ___ N.E.2d ___ (Ind. 2013), Cause No. 82S00-1003-DI-145, but with one big difference: the Court found that this attorney acted properly.
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April 25, 2013 Indianapolis Law Club Presentation

On April 25, 2013, Ron Waicukauski and Brad Catlin presented an update on Indiana law to the monthly meeting of the Indianapolis Law Club. You can download a copy of his handout at that presentation here. An audio version of his presentation can be downloaded here.

 

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Business Cannot Be Penalized For Failing To Make Unemployment Contribution After It Has Moved Out Of Indiana

Sometimes, a case is decided a particular way because anything less would be an absurd result. But that doesn’t keep someone for arguing for the absurd result, as the State of Indiana proved in TPUSA, Inc. v. Unemployment Ins. Appeals of the Indiana Dept. of Workforce Development, ___ N.E.2d ___ (Ind. Ct. App. 2013), Cause No. 93A02-1207-EX-605.
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Governmental Entities Do Not Have Special Status In Trademark Disputes

If a governmental entity decides at a public meeting to brand something, should a private citizen be able to register the domain for that brand before it can be trademarked? This was precisely the issue before the Indiana Court of Appeals in Serenity Springs v. The LaPorte County Convention and Visitors Bureau, ___ N.E.2d ___ (Ind. Ct. App. 2013), Cause No. 46A03-1205-MI-214. The Court refused to carve out an exception to the normal rules governing trademarks and the governmental entity lost the suit.
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Manufacturer Not Subject To Personal Jurisdiction In Indiana

A Texas company with no relationship to Indiana manufactured a component of a piece of equipment assembled by another company. The assembled equipment was then sold to an Indiana company. An employee of the Indiana company was injured and tried to sue the Texas manufacturer. The question in Sebring v. Air Equip. & Engineering, Inc., ___ N.E.2d ___ (Ind. Ct. App. 2013), Cause No. 02A05-1211-PL-566 was whether Indiana’s courts had personal jurisdiction over the Texas manufacturer.
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Always Notify Your Carrier Of Potential Claims

It is frustrating to see lawyers bring unnecessary trouble on themselves, like the firm in Koransky, Bouwer & Poracky, P.C. v. The Bar Plan Mut. Ins. Co., ___ F.3d ___ (7th Cir. 2013), Cause No. 12-1579, did. The firm didn’t notify their carrier of a potential legal malpractice claim in a timely manner, so their coverage was denied.
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Criminal Defense Attorney Suspended For Operating Sting Against Police Informant

Last week, the Indiana Supreme Court issued an order disciplining attorney David Schalk for his role in a sting operation aimed at a police informant. The situation described in In re Schalk, ___ N.E.2d ___ (Ind. 2013), Cause No. 53S00-1104-DI-244, is strange, to say the least.
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Statements Of Agency Policy Are Not Legal Conclusions

The question of whether a witness’s statement constitutes an impermissible legal conclusion under Evid. R. 704(b) can occasionally be hazy. For example, in Wressell v. R.L. Turner Corp., ___ N.E.2d ___ (Ind. Ct. App. 2013), Cause No. 06A01-1301-PL-5, the parties disputed whether the description of the Indiana Department of Labor’s process for determining fringe benefits was a legal conclusion. The Court held that it was not.
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Links Of The Week – 4.21.13

If you are like me, then you cut and paste–a lot–as you write. That became a problem because the things I pasted in (especially things from the Web) would bring in their own formatting, messing my formatting up. But there is a solution!

I changed my default paste options in Word to “Keep Text Only,” unless I was pasting from somewhere else in the same document. Now, my formatting problems have gone away. If I want to keep the formatting from the original source, then I can simply use the “Paste Special” option of “HTML Format.”

If this all seems Greek to you, then you should read Deborah Savadra’s article, Pasting Without Fear In Microsoft Word.

And now for the rest of this week’s links:

  1. Raymond Ward points to a Florida case in which ambiguous punctuation (apparently caused by using a form offer of judgment without sufficient editing) prevented the award of attorney’s fees.
  2. Thomas Villecco has a nice article about using storytelling techniques in brief writing.
  3. Anne Curzan shares a story about how a grammar “rule” she enforced as a copy editor was not actually a rule. This should remind us all not to be pedants about grammar–at least until we’ve checked on what the rule actually is. (Hat Tip: The Volokh Conspiracy)
  4. Attorney at Work compiles answers to the question, “Do lawyers still need business cards?” Unsurprisingly, they all say yes.
  5. Alan Cohen describes 10 mistakes lawyers should avoid when buying and using smartphones. (Hat Tip: iPhone J.D.)
  6. I’ve seen a few different posts sharing their thoughts about the Boston Marathon Bomber Manhunt, like this one and this one. But I think that we should all accept the advice here.
  7. Finally, this has to my favorite lawyer website.
Brad A. Catlin
Price Waicukauski & Riley, LLC
Learn more about Brad and contact us

 

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