Kerrigan on The Financing of Intangible Assets

In an ambitious and relatively short book (290 pages) titled, "The Financing of Intangible Assets: TMT Finance and Emerging Technologies" (LexisNexis), editor and author Charles Kerrigan of CMS law provides a treatment of financing of intangible assets in the technology, media and telecom sectors.  The book has wide breadth and selective depth in its coverage of the subject matter.  Moreover, it is a practical book which discusses mitigating risk and anticipating potential issues, including focusing on potential problems that may arise with new and emerging technology.  The book first opens with five chapters that provide an overview of various relevant agreements and the role of players in the field.  The second part covers security and regulation, such as “Taking Security over Intellectual Property Rights,” and “Restrictions on Assignment, Floating Charges.”  The next ten chapters cover financing in various industries, including Software, Telecoms, Gambling, Music, Biotech and Healthtech, Publishing, Advertising and Adtech, Technology, TV Broadcast Media and Media Technology, and Film.  The next ten chapters ambitiously highlight specific countries’ law concerning the subject matter, which are each authored by practitioners from those respective countries, or Mr. Kerrigan in collaboration with law firms in the geographic area.  Finally, the book ends with ten chapters generally dedicated to an area of new technology involving finance, such as Digital Money, Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence.  This book is helpful as a resource for those who desire an overview of the field and those who need a relatively detailed treatment of a specific area.  It is a welcome addition to the resources concerning the topic.

The Tide Turns: Rising Legal Services Employment in the United States

The legal services market in the United States contracted since the Great Recession.  However, there have been reports of a rebound.  CBRE, a commercial real estate firm, has released a report concerning legal services and real estate in the United States.  Part of the report concerns rethinking how square footage in law firms can be used more efficiently, including increasing collaboration space.  Another part of the report examines legal services employment—attorney employment--across the United States. 

The top five major legal services employment markets are 1) New York City; 2) Los Angeles; 3) Miami; 4) Chicago; and 5) Washington DC.  San Francisco is ninth.  The report states that there has not been much growth in most of the top ten major legal services employment markets except for Los Angeles (experiencing low double digit growth between 2015 and 2017) and San Francisco.  The report states that this is likely due to the growth in the media and tech industries.  In the highest growth markets category, Austin and Atlanta were the leaders in attorney growth.  Austin added more than 10%.  Austin is well-known for its tech industry.  According to the report, the cities of Austin, Atlanta and Kansas City added 10% or more growth in attorney positions since 2015.  The report also discusses the cities with largest decline in law degrees awarded.