Insights

Washington, D.C. – January 19, 2016: Crowell & Moring LLP is pleased to announce the publication of its fourth annual "Litigation Forecast 2016: What Corporate Counsel Need to Know in the Coming Year," and its second annual "Regulatory Forecast 2016: What Corporate Counsel Need to Know in the Coming Year."

Washington, D.C. – May 19, 2015: Crowell & Moring LLP is pleased to announce that it has secured 64 attorney rankings for 53 individual attorneys in the 2015 Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business guide. The prestigious rankings are driven by independent interviews of clients and members of the legal community at peer firms.

Washington, D.C. – March 9, 2015: Crowell & Moring LLP is pleased to announce the firm's partnership has elected Angela B. Styles, partner and co-chair of the firm's Government Contracts Group, to succeed Kent A. Gardiner as chair of the firm. 

On Tuesday December 1, new amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure went into effect. These amendments are designed to streamline discovery and notably: (i) introduce a new proportionality standard defining the scope of discovery (replacing the former relevance standard); (ii) require greater specificity when objecting to a discovery request; (iii) speed up litigation with shorter timelines; and (iv) establish sanctions for spoliation of electronically stored information.

Since the economic downturn in 2008, the legal market has been in a constant state of change. Companies are demanding budget predictability, shared risk and reward, improved efficiency, more transparency, and a new way to define value, and law firms have rushed to respond. Firms cannot rely on the billable hour as they once did. This development has led to the rise of Pricing Departments whose job it is to manage value-based billing arrangements, profitability, and legal project management. Law firms and in-house counsel need to understand each type of alternative fee arrangement, its strengths and weaknesses, how to accurately scope and budget an engagement, and how to manage it once it has begun.

In conjunction with his remarks at the White House Summit on Cybersecurity at Stanford University last week, President Obama signed Executive Order 13691, entitled "Promoting Private Sector Cybersecurity Information Sharing." Published in the Federal Register today, the Order is intended to encourage and facilitate cybersecurity information sharing, both within the private sector and between government and the private sector. One of the many issues President Obama raised at the Summit is that, because a large majority of the nation's critical infrastructure is privately owned, cybersecurity is necessarily a shared public-private mission. Another is that cybersecurity must balance the exigency of security against the privacy and civil liberties of the American people.

Stephen McBrady, a Washington, D.C.-based partner in the firm's Government Contracts Group talks with Compliance Week about new requirements for government contractors to disclose previous violations of labor and employment laws when submitting a bid. Under the proposed rules, contractors would need to obtain data about their sub-contractors. "That brings up a whole host of other issues," said McBrady. For example, it's not unusual for one company to have a sub-contractor that is its competitor on the next contract up for bid. That raises concerns about confidentiality. Among the other concerns, McBrady notes, "Is it reasonable to expect that a small business prime contractor will be able to analyze and collect the labor law compliance information from its large sub-contractor?"

Stephen J. McBrady, a Washington, D.C.-based partner in Crowell & Moring's Government Contracts Group, discusses trends in government contracts litigation and their potential impacts. In particular, he notes that a recent Federal Circuit decision upholding the dismissal of an $80 billion overbilling suit against Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. may affect strategy for contractors and the government, as they can now potentially agree to toll the statute of limitations for the Contract Disputes Act, which establishes the procedures for handling claims related to federal government contracts. "Because the statute of limitations was jurisdictional, it could not be waived, or tolled my mutual agreement," McBrady said. "In that respect, Sikorsky is a game-changer."

Asset-based financing is a key source of credit for small and medium-size companies and for some larger, publicly traded companies as well. In contrast to equity financing where ownership in the company is diluted, asset-based financing allows companies to use their own assets to generate cash flow.

Two days of workshop-style learning on value-based fee structures and the management skills and tools to support them, valuable take-home resources, and opportunities to network with other attendees

Contract negotiation skills and contract dispute experience are two great things that work even better together.  Some common contract provisions frequently generate litigation, either because they are unclear as drafted, or because they operate in an unexpected and undesirable way.  At Crowell & Moring, our corporate lawyers and our commercial litigators take a collaborative approach, using integrated corporate and litigation strategies to draft and structure contracts to reduce the likelihood of disputes.