Think Twice Before Responding to That RFP; Trump Hearing Highlights Courts' Tech Woes; Franchise Groups Sue Over California's AB5 Law: The Morning Minute
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November 19, 2020 at 06:00 AM
5 minute read
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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING
INDECENT REQUESTS FOR PROPOSAL - So, you just got an RFP. Time to drop everything, assemble your A-team and feverishly get to work on your pitch—after all, this could net you a lucrative new client, right? Well…maybe. Probably not, actually. As Patrick Smith reports, a lot of law firms aren't nearly as selective as they should be when deciding which RFPs to jump at and which ones to let go, resulting in headaches and heartache for no good reason. "In my experience, 70% to 80% of the time when a company issues an RFP, they already know who they are going to do business with," said Guy Alvarez, CEO of legal marketing consulting firm Good2BSocial. "You are trying to get everything right, but it is really just a big waste of time." He's not kidding. Nancey Watson, a Toronto consultant and author of a book called, "The Silver Bullet—How RFPS Are Won," told me when I wrote on this topic for ALM's Mid-Market Report recently that she's even seen companies send out RFPs to competing law firms simply because they were "ticked off" at their existing outside counsel and wanted to give them a bit of a scare. Don't hate the players, hate the game.
I.T. PHONE HOME - On Tuesday afternoon, not long after Donald Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, delivered his argument at a hearing on the president's challenge to Pennsylvania's election results, about 8,000 members of the media and public listening in on the proceeding via telephone suddenly heard nothing. Had stunned silence fallen over the Williamsport courtroom after Giuliani delivered a masterful opening salvo in his first federal court appearance in decades? lol No. It was an IT glitch—something, as Victoria Hudgins reports, courts across the country have grown accustomed to, if not necessarily comfortable with, in recent months. Experts said courts are often ill-prepared for the system overload that can occur when a hearing draws a large crowd of virtual spectators. "Now because the technology allows for so much participation it's just a matter of controlling the access and anticipating the demand," said CourtCall CEO Bob Alvarado. "You can't have unlimited demand for all proceedings but as courts anticipate it there are levers they can pull."
NOT AS EASY AS 1-2-3 - DLA Piper; Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner; Marks & Klein; and Grant Nigolian sued the State of California, Attorney General Xavier Becerra, the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement and other state agencies Tuesday in California Southern District Court. As Alaina Lancaster reports, the Independent Franchise Owners Association and other plaintiffs are seeking to be exempted from the state's AB5 law, which requires employers to use the "ABC test" to determine if workers are independent contractors or employees. The case, first surfaced by Law.com Radar, is 3:20-cv-02243, International Franchise Association et al v. State of California et al. Stay up on the latest litigation with the new Law.com Radar.
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