Tag: San Francisco

You can arrange to have legal research and writing done by a variety of services. One might think that nowadays in the democracy that we live in all the laws would be easily accessible to any ordinary citizen, but unfortunately that’s not true. Of course, you might be able to do some kind of limited legal research on your own but that’s all. For instance, if you know the number of a specific law you’d like to read, then you might stand a chance. However, if you are searching to find how a genuine law applies to your area of concern, then you’d have to read hundreds of pages until you find it and that simply won’t do.

Outside legal research is very useful especially when you want to research a whole area of law. In case you know how the law is organized, you might try, otherwise don’t waste your time as you won’t succeed. There is only one reason why our laws are so arduous, concealed and complex and it is because it gives power to legal professionals such as lawyers and legislators. This is how they get work which we could have otherwise done by ourselves. Consequently, if you need to understand a specific area of law concerning your business or rights, then you’d better consult a professional who will do your advanced search, or else you might waste many hours in vain trying to do it by yourself.

Generally you can try to cope without legal researchers. Often there are times when you can learn how to do legal research on a certain topic and you might be quite successful at it. For instance, I once fought for saving some of the last wetlands in the San Francisco bay. As our campaign lacked money for legal researchers we did it by ourselves. However, in our case there has already been much pioneering environmental work done, so it was not that difficult to do advanced legal search; we even managed to find the existing endangered species laws we needed. Legal research can easily frighten you and make you quit when you try it for the first time, that was the situation with us. However, we were determined to succeed and didn’t give up. After all, if you put some considerable efforts into fighting with the legal system, then even you, an ordinary citizen can take part in the democratic process.

When you’re shipping legal documents with a courier company, there is an entirely new set of concerns which accompanies their shipping that you don’t have to worry about when you’re simply shipping a package or a non confidential document of some kind. If you’re shipping legal documents with a San Francisco delivery company of any kind, then it becomes extremely important that you find ways to legally protect yourself and your company from any kind of loss or action being taken against you by investigating what type of legally binding confidentiality options you can pursue with your courier company before they ever take delivery of your documents.

Any courier company that deals in legal documents on a regular basis is going to be used to the requirements enforced by the companies shipping those documents, and are usually very willing to sign any type of confidentiality agreement that you or your lawyers might require of them. In fact, if you ever ask a courier company to ship some legal documents for you and they tell you that they will not do so or that they have any kind of company policy against signing these types of documents, then you would be well advised to simply go elsewhere to try and find someone else to move your legal paperwork for you.

You should in fact require the signing of two separate confidentiality agreements whenever you are shipping something of a highly sensitive nature with a courier company. The first you should have signed is one between you and the company itself, something that would be signed by the owner, a manager, or an account representative of the courier company and by someone from your own organization. Secondly, you should have another confidentiality agreement which will be signed by the driver who will actually be handling the documents in order to ensure total protection of your company’s legal information.

Signing confidentiality agreements and non-disclosure statements is a regular part of doing business in today’s business world, and any company which balks at such is giving themselves away as a company that it may not be worth doing business with. If you are shipping any kind of legal documents, be sure to insist on binding and comprehensive confidentiality agreements with the company that will be carrying your papers for you. If you don’t, you potentially leave yourself open to large amounts of liability.

Following the global financial crisis, businesses are facing increased regulatory compliance pressures. To tighten regulatory oversight in the UK, the UK government restructured financial regulation and divided the Financial Services Authority (FSA) into two regulatory bodies — the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulatory Authority. Across the pond, the US enacted the DoddFrank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which changed the American financial regulatory environment and almost every part of the nation’s financial services industry. In the wake of these sweeping regulatory reforms, companies in regulated industries, such as finance and healthcare, must be hyper-diligent with their compliance programs.

Today, industry regulators in the UK and US are aggressively investigating any allegations of corruption and bribery, particularly related to foreign jurisdictions. Subsequently, the number of investigations and litigations has increased significantly, and companies face heavy fines for noncompliance and even risk criminal prosecution.

When an investigation occurs, corporate legal departments often need to provide huge amounts of information to satisfy regulator requests. The traditional ways of gathering and collating this information and reviewing it for relevance are no longer feasible. Legal departments need to have the ability to review information quickly and cost effectively, so they can respond efficiently to regulatory notices.

Law firms may not be the ideal choice to manage large volumes of information and data in a timely and cost-effective manner. Collecting and ESI processing, forensic analysis, storage, database management, hosting, and software configuration and maintenance are non-legal services that can be provided by non-legal specialists. Legal outsourcing providers (Legal Process Outsourcing) are better positioned to handle these tasks because they typically offer advanced technology and more focus on these skill sets, which are now essential for both litigation and regulatory investigations. Seasoned LPOs are geared up to provide exactly this type of predictability of costs and time lines for disclosure and can work to a fixed budget. This provides more certainty and allows clients to control costs particularly in complex investigations or litigation cases.

At the same time, the courts are mandating a wider and deeper review of electronic documents in legal proceedings as well as an explanation of what steps parties have taken to recover potentially relevant e-documents. Again, LPOs are well-equipped to provide end-to-end data management, allowing clients to confidently outsource document management and review work in regulatory matters. Some clients are even setting up panels of LPOs and requiring their external law firms to work collaboratively with these LPOs to ensure that the potential cost savings are properly and appropriately realized.

The global financial crisis has forced corporations to develop new strategies to cost-effectively and efficiently handle investigations and litigation. As more companies look to manage the associated costs and risks resulting from regulatory scrutiny, document review and e-discovery are likely to be growth areas for LPOs.

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