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AT&T Sees NY Network Upgrades Wrapped Up By 3Q, SF By 4Q – WSJ.com

May 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment
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AT&T Inc. (T) is expected to wrap up its network improvements for New York by the third quarter, with San Francisco to follow three months later, according to the company’s operations chief.

The Dallas telecommunications giant is working to upgrade its network in the two key media markets, which were hit by intense traffic primarily caused by the Apple Inc. (AAPL) iPhone. But the company has been delayed by component shortages and zoning issues, which have been particularly cumbersome in San Francisco.

The improvements are critical to AT&T repairing the reputation of the network, which suffers from the perception that its coverage lags behind rival Verizon Wireless. It also will enable the company to offer additional features, such as tethering for the iPhone, which allows a handset’s cellular signal to be used like a modem.

Other AT&T smartphones allow tethering.

“It’s taking longer than we’d like,” said John Stankey, chief executive of AT&T Operations, in an interview with Dow Jones. “The dynamics of San Francisco are different.”

The New York improvements are proceeding on schedule, he said, adding that the work in San Francisco is roughly 90 days behind as a result of the logistical complications.

Last month, the company said the number of dropped calls on its third-generation, or 3G, network fell 6% in Manhattan and 9% in the New York metropolitan area, but acknowledged that San Francisco was behind. Earlier Wednesday, Ralph de la Vega, who runs AT&T’s wireless and consumer businesses, told investors that the New York metrics have “improved significantly.”

via CORRECT: AT&T Sees NY Network Upgrades Wrapped Up By 3Q, SF By 4Q – WSJ.com.

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Supreme Court Justices Consider Courts’ Role in Arbitration | National Law Journal

April 27, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The U.S. Supreme Court’s pro-arbitration trend appears intact after oral arguments Monday in a key case asking whether it should be courts or arbitrators themselves who rule on the enforceability of an arbitration agreement.

Consumer groups say the outcome of the case, Rent-A-Center, West v. Jackson, could determine whether courts have any role in overseeing arbitration clauses in labor agreements, which they see as biased toward employers. Business groups, for their part, don’t want courts second-guessing what they see as validly agreed-upon arbitration agreements.

“If companies win, this really will be a watershed case,” said Deepak Gupta, an attorney for Public Citizen, which asserts that arbitrators rule against consumers 94 percent of the time.

During the past two decades, the high court has generally ruled to strengthen the enforceability of arbitration agreements. On Monday, few justices appeared eager to change that trend, though several seemed to believe that courts should play some role in checking especially egregious agreements. Dallas lawyer Robert Friedman of Littler Mendelson, representing the business side of the case, urged the Court to continue its practice of “sending very, very complicated matters to the arbitrator” rather than the courts

via Law.com – Supreme Court Justices Consider Courts’ Role in Arbitration.

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Law.com – Discovery Failure Sinks Lockheed’s $37 Million Win

April 5, 2010 By

A federal judge has tossed out a $37.3 million trade secrets verdict for Lockheed Martin Corp. and ordered a new trial after finding that the aircraft company failed to turn over to a defendant competitor documents critical to the case.

U.S. District Judge Charles A. Pannell Jr. on March 31 ordered the new trial at the request of Texas military contractor L-3 Communications Integrated Systems, the defendant in the five-year-old case. Pannell said it was “probable” that the outcome of the trial would have been different if the jury had been given access to the information that Lockheed withheld.

In his order, Pannell also tossed out Lockheed’s motion for more than $16 million in legal fees.

Five years ago, in a race to the courthouse, Lockheed sued L-3 in U.S. District Court in Atlanta over what it claimed was a misappropriation of trade secrets associated with the design and construction of Lockheed’s anti-submarine bomber, which is used by navies around the world. Lockheed has large aircraft plants in Marietta and Warner Robins.

L-3, in turn, filed a separate antitrust suit against Lockheed in U.S. District Court in Dallas, claiming that Lockheed had filed the Atlanta suit to stifle competition. That case is pending.

The dueling cases are the result of a high-stakes feud between the two international defense contractors over a growing international market: the refurbishment of military aircraft, many of them originally designed and built by Lockheed, that are owned by governments around the world.

via Law.com – Discovery Failure Sinks Lockheed’s $37 Million Win.

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How To Work With E-Mediation and Special Masters in E-Discovery Cases || ESIBytes

January 26, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Listen to Allison Skinner from the Birmingham, Alabama based law firm Sirote & Permutt, Peter Vogel, head of E-Discovery with the Dallas office of Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP and Karl Schieneman, Director of Legal Analytics and Review with JurInnov, discuss e-Mediation and Special Masters in electronic discovery cases.

via How To Work With E-Mediation and Special Masters in E-Discovery Cases || ESIBytes.

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Apple May Release IPhone to All U.S. Carriers, Oppenheimer Says – BusinessWeek

January 25, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Apple Inc. may release the iPhone to all U.S. wireless carriers in the next 18 months, doubling or tripling the number of devices sold, said Tim Horan, a telecommunications analyst at Oppenheimer & Co.

T-Mobile USA Inc. will get the phone this summer, followed by Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp. in the fall, and Clearwire Corp. in 2011, Horan wrote in a note yesterday. AT&T Inc. has been the exclusive carrier since the iPhone debuted in June 2007.

“We believe AT&T’s iPhone exclusivity arrangement with Apple will be expiring by mid-2010,” Horan wrote. “For wireless carriers, customers are demanding the device and they need to remain competitive.”

Apple, based in Cupertino, California, rose $3.80, or 1.9 percent, to $201.55 at 12:36 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The stock more than doubled last year.

Representatives of Basking Ridge, New Jersey-based Verizon Wireless, Dallas-based AT&T, Overland Park, Kansas-based Sprint and Bellevue, Washington-based T-Mobile declined to comment. A call to Clearwire in Kirkland, Washington, wasn’t immediately returned.

via Apple May Release IPhone to All U.S. Carriers, Oppenheimer Says – BusinessWeek.

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More on How Lawyers Can Help in Haiti | Blog Watch

January 18, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Yesterday, Legal Blog Watch’s Bob Ambrogi discussed here some of the legal community’s relief and fundraising efforts for Haiti. On a related point, the Tex Parte Blog had a post yesterday afternoon interviewing author Ben Fountain, a former associate with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld in Dallas, who discussed other ways that lawyers may be able to help the situation.

Fountain first visited Haiti in 1991 and has since traveled to the island nation approximately 30 times. His fascination with the country developed in tandem with his career shift from lawyer to author, as described in this Malcom Gladwell piece in The New Yorker, and he has maintained friendships over the years that keep him in regular contact with Haitians. He tells Tex Parte he cannot reach anyone in Haiti now by telephone, e-mail or text. Fountain expects that Haiti’s recovery will be “long, difficult, expensive and complex,” and may not even occur in this generation.

Asked what lawyers can do to help the people of Haiti right now, Fountain offers a few suggestions:

1. Give money to charities such as Catholic Relief Services, which has a special page set up for Haiti; Save the Children; and the St. Joseph's Home for Boys. All three of these groups do great work, he says.

2. For those willing to go beyond a financial donation, Fountain suggests contacting the St. Joseph’s Home about volunteer opportunities. He adds that “lots of churches send aid missions to Haiti on a regular basis, so check that out. There is plenty of work even for unskilled (i.e., manually challenged lawyers) workers in Haiti.”

3. More broadly, Fountain says that the Haitian judiciary system is in the process of reform and renewal, and the United Nations is involved in that effort. He believes that the U.N. would be pleased to talk to any lawyer who was willing to help for an extended length of time.

via Legal Blog Watch.

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Can Tech Shows Boost a Firm’s Bottom Line?

December 9, 2009 By Leave a Comment

You can't help but wonder about an Am Law 200 firm that significantly cut or eliminated IT and litigation support staff attendance at this year's LegalTech and ILTA '09 conferences. The reasons vary, from “it wouldn't look right” to “we just have to cut expenses everywhere.”

Good thing these shows weren't held in Las Vegas. No firm would have sent its IT folks there for a week of blackjack and “Texas Hold-'em” parties. Not a chance. It just wouldn't send the right message; what with the layoffs, frozen salaries, and the elimination of bonuses. But these shows weren't in Vegas, and despite the beliefs of some (dare I say, many?), they aren't paid vacations for the technology staff.

Last year, law firms sent 1,320 people to the ILTA conference in Dallas. Of those, 735 came from firms with more than 250 attorneys. A year later, at a site near Washington, D.C., that for millions is a train ride away, law firm attendance dropped 47 percent, to 704 full-conference attendees. Firms with more than 250 attorneys sent only 376 folks, a drop of nearly 50 percent. These numbers don't include the attendees from corporate law departments, law schools, or the government, with ILTA's total attendance down 38 percent from the prior year.  And ILTA wasn't alone — almost all conferences in the legal arena suffered a drop in attendance due to the economy. LegalTech's double-digit growth over the last few years was arrested this year. According to Henry Payne Dicker, vice president of ALM Events, attendance for the New York show was down slightly from previous years.

We don't have data on what percentage of a firm's technology budget was saved by not sending some of its IT staff to this conference, but with ILTA's $1,025 fee (which included meals), and a deeply discounted hotel room, it couldn't have been much. And, there are firms (mine included) that will improve their bottom line by a lot more than what they spent on attendees of the ILTA '09 conference — because they realize that surviving (and hopefully flourishing) in these economic times is as much about exploring new efficiencies as it is about cutting costs.

[continued] Law.com – Can Tech Shows Boost a Firm’s Bottom Line?.

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