The Reading List (No.7)

I was kicking around the idea of putting Atlas Shrugged on this week's Reading List, but that would be too self-indulgent.

This 1,100 page behemoth is almost behind me, and the themes are timeless. I totally get why the Tea Party caused this masterpiece to make a comeback. But you don't have to be super into politics to get into this book. If you have an extra couple of months to burn, read it (or read it again). For now, though, we'll stick with the exciting (and timeless) world of non-competes.

Forbes.com has an interesting article on Cloud storage and what considerations corporations must look at when housing trade secrets in the cloud. There have been some high-profile security breaches, including with the ubiquitous Dropbox (which I use). This is an emerging phenomenon, and I don't think it's a particularly smart idea to keep the highest level secrets in the cloud. The general, day-to-day stuff, sure.

Fisher & Phillips (a current rival of mine) has a post on Mediation in competition cases. I agree with one of the main points that mediation, to be successful, has to occur early. Too much money gets spent in discovery and feelings start to harden once lawyer bills have to get paid.

I always enjoy Rob Radcliff's blog, Smooth Transitions. A wealth of interesting posts awaits you, but I liked his comments on what clients should consider when approaching a trial. Rob has one post where he asks rhetorically what the "upside" of a trial is. I would add one point to this. If a client has been bullied around by a competitor, it may be necessary to take a case to trial simply to prove that the adversary can't extort a settlement. One case I am defending right now on appeal is, without a doubt, one of the most pointless, nonsensical, and abusive lawsuits I have seen in 15 years. It simply is about a big company trying to squeeze out a small competitor, and the merits of the case aren't close. If we were to settle - which I am sure we could, even for relatively low consideration - the next lawsuit would be right around the corner. We will have gotten out of one suit, only to wait for them to (try to) push us around again.