I have taken a few
weeks off of blogging. Honestly, I felt like I needed the
break, but I am excited about getting back on the saddle and
writing again.
Since it has been a few weeks, let me give a brief update on what
we have been up to. Alerding Castor Hewitt has had an
exciting beginning to 2010. On January 1, Bill Boncosky
joined us. Bill is a business attorney / technology and SaaS
law attorney working with privately held companies, primarily in
technology industries. Bill has spent the...
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Keeping
up with software clients can be a challenge for technology legal
counsel.
The software as a service industry evolves quickly, time-lines are
condensed, and the playing field yesterday can look decidedly
different than it looks today. The name of the game for a
SaaS company is to stay ahead of the pack and become known as THE
leader in its industry.
I recently read an article in Entrepreneur magazine about Search
Engine Optimization titled
What You Don't Know About
SEO.
What I DO know...
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I know that as your friendly neighborhood Indiana technology
counsel, I usually post wonderful things about privacy
litigation (look to see my blog on the Supreme Court taking up
a case of privacy expectation in texting) and other fun cyberspace
law, but today I'm going to digress for just a bit. Indiana
Senate Bill 192 has recently been introduced by State Senator Sue
Errington (D-Delaware County) and would govern how a hospital
applies visitation rights in a domestic partnership situation
(
www...
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Alerding
Castor Hewitt, LLP is proud to announce the addition of Indiana
technology lawyer Bill Boncosky to the firm.
The former General Counsel for ExactTarget, Bill has tremendous
experience as technology counsel for one of the most successful
technology start ups based right here in the heart of
Indianapolis. A company that had just over a dozen employees
when he joined, Bill has substantial experience in licensing
agreement negotiations, ASP Law and Cloud Computing Law serving in
that role...
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Google announced in its blog today that Los Angeles has officially
switched to using Google Apps for e-mail and collaboration.
34,000 city employees will now be using the Google cloud to do
their work and, more importantly, their communication. This
is a substantial development in cloud computing law. This
will highlight the pros and cons of cloud computing for the
future,and is likely to shape the success of other municipalities
going the same way. Data issues and privacy litigation...
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Interesting case (2009 WL
4261214) came across my desk. Not related to Indiana Internet
litigation, but interesting conundrum. The basic facts are
that client wanted to send e-mail response to his attorneys.
In adding the second attorney, he inadvertently sent it to a
third party. Through several forwards, it ends up at his
opposing counsel's desk. That counsel wants to use it in
litigation. Ultimately, the Idaho District Court found that
it was an inadvertent production and made the...
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A colleague of mine brought to my attention two recent federal
cases in which the courts elected to deny motions to compel
electronically stored information (ESI). In
Kay Beer
Distributing v. Energy Brands, Inc.,the Eastern District of Wisconsin determined that, among
other things, Kay's request for every e-mail with their name in it
was too broad. The court also considered in its
determination the fact that Energy Brand's counsel had
offered to work with Kay to do more directed keyword...
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So
you've launched your company and hired a web-developer to breathe
life into the idea you've poured your heart and soul into
developing over the past several months, perhaps even
years...
Maybe you never even thought to ask the question, but at
the end of the day who actually owns "your" website? You or
the web designer?
Indiana software litigation in a ruling by the Supreme Court of
Indiana,
Conwell v. Gray Loon Outdoor Marketing Group,
points to the fact that hiring a contractor for the...
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Here
at Alerding Castor Hewitt, LLP, often times we work with clients
who have software that inherently transcends state and national
borders.
Not just brick and mortor storefronts, many of our clients
have customers nationwide and around the world.
Such is the realm of cloud computing law, and it's up to us as
technology legal counsel to answer the inescapable question of what
state, federal, or even country's law applies should a lawsuit
arise.
Well, if you haven't contracted for this simple...
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The following post by Pat Horgan
of Palidan Associates was printed on the
E-Sourcing Forum a couple of weeks ago. Even
though the post applies particularly to sourcing professionals, the
concepts are excellent for most contract negotiations.
NEGOTIATING TIPSContract Document Control
In contract development, the party that controls the physical
production of the contract document and the wording changes during
negotiations generally has a distinct advantage. This is
particularly true in long or...
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According to a recent
Gartner research report, worldwide SaaS
revenues are expected to grow 18 percent in 2009 to reach $7.5
billion. The report further stated an expectation for SaaS
industries through 2013 when worldwide revenues are expected to top
$14 billion for enterprise application markets.
Gartner listed the top SaaS market segments for 2009 as
follows:
1. Content, Communications and
Collaboration (CCC) - $2.6 billion
2. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) - $2.3 billion
3. Enterprise...
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The Federal Trade Commission has published its Final
Guide Concerning the Use of Endorsement and Testimonial in
Advertising (16 C.F.R. Part 255) (link to notice-
www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm).
This Guide addresses in detail the use of blogging endorsements for
products. Under the new Guide, bloggers will be required to
disclose the material connection they share with the seller of a
product or services. These guides are not law, but are rather
administrative interpretations of law to...
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There is a great four part series on
the
SpendMatters blog which walks
through one industry expert's story of the rise of
Iasta as a global leader in eSourcing
markets. This was fun for me to read. I am going on my
ninth year of representing Iasta as it's Business law / SaaS law
counsel and have loved seeing them grow from a modest Midwest
auction software provider to a global SaaS eScouring leader.
It is definitely worth a re-post on The Business & Culture
Blog.
The article is by Jason Busch,...
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Yesterday I had the honor of
moderating the plenary panel on Funding Innovation in Indiana at
the TechPoint Innovation Summit. This was just a great
event.
The panel members included Michael Brown of Battery Ventures -
Boston, Michael Arpey of Credit Suisse - New York, Steve Hourigan
of the 21st Century Fund, Mathias Schilling of BV Capital - San
Francisco, and Bob Compton, a serial entrepreneur most recently
founding Vontoo, LLC. I want to thank the members once again
for their participation....
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This article is just too good and
deserves a repost on the Business & Culture Blog. I am an
Indiana technology lawyer focusing on entrepreneurial law, SaaS
business law and technology law. As such, this article hits
home as it lies at the intersection of social media and legal
process. The article is by Robert Ambrogi and posted on the
IMS
Expert Services blog. I will repost it in 3 parts - all
are worth reading.
What happens in Vegas stays in
Vegas. The same is not true of what happens...
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One aspect of any litigation, be it internet litigation, software
litigation, any any other type, is the production of documents in
discovery. Accompanying this necessary procedure is the fear
and stomach-wrenching possiblity of the inadvertent production of
privileged materials. Nothing will make an attorney or a
client go pale faster than realzing that they've produced to
opposinig counsel a correspondence between client and
attorney. The proliferation of electronically stored
information...
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As an entrepreneurial law firm we partner with our
clients at a unique level (at least unique as compared to most
business law firms). The attorneys at Alerding Castor Hewitt
seek to partner with our business clients providing more than mere
legal services, but serving as full service general counsel.
This means assisting in areas of business such as capital
structuring and private equity, development of business strategy,
and general business operational consulting. We also have
created our
P...
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One
of the business law firms located in downtown Indianapolis,
Alerding Castor, LLP began in April of 2007 and has now recently
added Brian Hewitt as partner. Under
the new name, Alerding Castor Hewitt, LLP, I couldn’t be more
enthusiastic to be a part of this legal team. What I find exceptional about this firm is that we
work as a team in order to provide our clients with outstanding
legal counsel.
While I practice mainly on the transactional
side of the law, working with clients on such...
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This ticks me off. I
understand that in a struggling economy the State needs to make
budget cuts, but instead of cutting spending in areas that
ultimately do not lead to economic improvement, our State
representatives are
considering cutting spending in an area that
have been the lifeblood of the State for the last quarter century –
technology.
This may have a huge impact on my clients as my law practice
centers on Indiana technology businesses – helping technology
businesses get innovations to...
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I am a HUGE fan of
Compendium
Blogware. If you have not considered the value of
business blogging as a tool for search engine optimization (SEO),
you need to. Here is the value received by my SaaS law /
Entrepreneurial law firm over the last year.
I started the Business & Culture blog (powered by Compendium)
about 12 months ago. Key search terms for my blog are listed
on the right side of this page (e.g., Angel Investor Group,
Private Equity Attorney, Funding Law). I landed my first
client as...
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