Initially, I will state for the record the apologies of your
friendly, neighborhood Indiana Technology Lawyer for not posting a
blog in a while. I know that you, my loyal readers, have been
waiting with bated breath in the hope that I would again grace
cyberspace with my knowledge and wit. And, alas, I have
failed to deliver. In my defense, this little technology law
firm has been experiencing exponential growth and prosperity, which
has dictated more work for yours truly. But, that is...
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All securities offerings fall into one of three classes:
1. Registered,
2. Exempt, or
3. Illegal.Private offerings of securities are just that – “private”.
The key for any private offering is that the offerer may only
solicit investors through private methods. There are all
sorts of rules around what constitutes private solicitations and to
whom the solicitations can be made, but in general "private" means
that which is not public. If a business attempting a private
offering makes a...
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I have said it a million times since learning the lesson myself in
a failed entrepreneurial effort a couple of years ago, the CEO of
any entrepreneurial venture must understand the importance of
managing cash flows and how to use cash flow analysis for the
strategic growth of the company.
Trust me, I am all into the Six Sigma approach of throwing a couple
of innovators together, rolling out a v1 product as quickly as
possible, and slowly scaling the company from hobby phase to a
successful...
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The first caveat is that I'm sorry I haven't posted anything
recently. Work here at Alerding Castor Hewitt has been going
like gangbusters and yours truly has been up to his distinguished
eyeballs in work. Trust me, however, I'm now dutifully
committing myself to continue providing insight and humor as your
Indiana Internet Litigation guru.
Second caveat is that this post actually has nothing to do with
privacy litigation, software litigation or really any other
technology law issues. ...
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Your friendly neighborhood litigation attorney at Alerding Castor
Hewitt, LLP with a final post for the year to all of our business,
Indiana internet litigation, and technology law
clients. Saturday, December
25th will no doubt be a date of celebration in many
homes. As you spend time with your
family, remember how special the day is and all of the changes that
have taken place in the last 20 years.
Some of you might wonder what I mean exactly. I’m not referring to Christmas. And for those...
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I hope that you all had a thankful and fulfilling turkey day.
Your friendly neighborhood technology legal counsel stuffed
himself horrendously. But, I digress. I know that I owe
you all part 2 of my discussion of the legal landscape of corporate
blogging, and I promise that I will get that posted in the near
future, but two recent opinions in some non-Indiana Internet
litigation piqued my interest and I had to talk about them.
Both rulings involve application of the liability...
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It has been said a million times already on this blog – a CEO,
especially one which is seeking funds from private equity
investors, needs to understand finance. Often a basic
knowledge of sources and uses and cash flow analysis is enough, but
in many early stage investment rounds, savvy investors expect the
CEO to know the company's internal rate of return (IRR) - and
why it matters.
I meet many entrepreneurs who have served as VPs or middle managers
before embarking on their entrepreneurial...
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Alerding Castor
Hewitt, LLP is a business law firm that works with many
technology start-ups in their formation stages and in assisting
with the legal aspects of dealing with private equity
investors.
The entrepreneurial spirit of our clients is inspiring, and I am
looking forward to attending
Techpoint's 2010 Innovation
Summit that will be held in downtown Indianapolis today.
An annual event that Alerding Castor Hewitt is proud to sponsor, it
will feature keynote speaker Nicholas Carr who is a...
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Next week I am moderating the plenary panel at TechPoint’s
Innovation Summit entitled
Funding Innovation.
Check it out:
TechPoint
Innovation Summit
Also check out the
sponsors page. I
counted today, and
nine Alerding Castor
Hewitt clients are sponsors of the Summit. That is
awesome.
This year’s panel members represent private equity investors, angel
investor groups, successful entrepreneurs and grant funding
organizations which look for funding and investment opportunities
in Indiana...
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FIRM GEARS UP FOR MUCH ANTICIPATED INNOVATION SUMMIT
Alerding Castor Hewitt, LLP is no stranger to the
technology community - here in Indianapolis and in other domestic
and international markets. The firm highlights its
position in the Indianapolis market by a commitment to this
year’s Innovation Summit as the Plenary Panel Sponsor for the
second year in a row. The Summit is taking place on October
27th in downtown Indianapolis.
David Castor, Founder and Partner of the firm, will serve...
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So I have been a bit behind in blogging these past few weeks.
With the new addition to my family (my 3rd son), life has been
hectic. But, I am back and ready to role.
As a general update, Alerding Castor Hewitt continues expand as
technology legal counsel in SaaS law, funding law and
entrepreneurial law fields. We have some exciting new
Internet-based and SaaS clients. This month we helped a
client negotiate a stock purchase deal and have handled no less
than thirty SaaS or software licensing...
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Ok, I'll admit it. I was in a rut. Although I found
numerous interesting tidbits through-out cyberspace, I could not
find anything that piqued my interest enough to put aside the
billable hours of a technology legal counsel for a few moments to
blog about it. But, lo and behold, a college student with a
sense of panache, an aspiration for humor, decent journaling
skills, and access to PowerPoint and the Internet has become my
muse.
For those of you that don't know, 2010 Duke graduate...
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I guest lectured at Purdue’s Entrepreneurship Capstone course again
last week. I love it – for an hour I talked about my
experience in entreprenuerial law, business law and funding law to
Seniors in Purdue's entreprenuership concentration program on
issues consider when structuring a new company. Honestly, I
thought I had them bored out of their minds (yes, there was that
one Greek letter wearing frat guy who was asleep about 10 rows
back), but I was impressed when we got to the Q&A time...
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Another
post that doesn't quite fit neatly into Indiana Internet litigation
or privacy law, but that intrigues me. BusinessWeek, passing
along a Tim Greene article from NetworkWorld (found here:
www.networkworld.com/nwlookup.jsp),
is reporting that the U.S. military has issued an essay in which it
urges its expertise in defense be put to use in protecting civilian
networked infrastructure, such as power grids, financial
institutions, etc. The essay from Foreign Affairs sets out
the concept...
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I don't often blanket repost other blogs that I see, however, in
this instance, I think it is appropriate. Venkat, writing for
Professor Goldman's blog, writes an excellent analysis of the
recent ruling in the
In re: Easysaver Rewards Litigation(S.D. Cal. August 13, 2010). This is a very interesting case
in that it covers several different, more traditional causes of
action and analysis. I'm interested to see what ramification
this case is going to have on SaaS law and privacy
litigation....
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Back in October, 2009, I posted about the new endorsement /
testimonial rules set out by the Federal Trad Commission (
blog.alerdingcastor.com/blog/alerding-castor/0/0/ftc-makes-changes-to-blog-law).
There has been some development since that time, but mostly
everyone is still watching and waiting. The FTC did
threaten to pursue Ann Taylor back in April, but otherwise, it has
been relatively silent.
That is, however, until now. On August 26, 2010, the FTC
reached a settlement with Reverb...
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I was reminded today of something told to me by a friend last
year:
Good people who are smart
ask good questions
Bad people who are smart ask bad questions
Good people who are not smart ask bad questions
In business we are always looking for answers – but what we
really want are good answers. Today the issue is never
whether we have enough data (we arguably have too much), it is
whether we can properly utilize that data to make better
decisions. I see this especially in my Internet Law /...
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I probably hate the word "policy" as much as any word in the
English language, but I think company policies can be helpful - in
both giving employees information on what is available to them and
what conduct is expected of them.
In the last couple of years I have noticed a rise of social media
policies in company employee handbooks. Most larger companies
have Internet use policies stating that employees may not use
company time or computers for personal Internet usage. The
main goal here is to...
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I recently caught a glimpse of the logo for one of our SaaS Law
clients, ExactTarget, while flipping
through the television channels. It was
an episode of TLC’s “American Chopper” that first aired last
Thursday for a bike built for Window World. The bike was unveiled during the ceremonies
surrounding the Indianapolis 500.
ExactTarget’s logo appeared briefly on the side of the pavilion and
again on one of the race cars.
As cheesy as it might sound, I was excited to see one of our
client’s...
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The ACH litigation team had its first ever (as far as I'm aware)
litigation retreat this weekend, and as I reminisce on our time, I
am struck by the realization that to be a successful business, you
have to allow your team to envision and strive for excellence with
you. This weekend we had some great discussion and
"vision-casting" on the areas of privacy litigation, Indiana
probate litigation, business law, Internet litigation, banking law,
SaaS litigation, and several other areas where we are...
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