freelance

Here's an excerpt of a piece I wrote for the Connecticut Law Tribune about how clerical and administrative jobs in law firms are changing due to technology as well as being reduced in number:

Technology has allowed people to work together in different offices around the country on labor-intensive cases like class actions.

There's no typing pool anymore.

The clerical and administrative work on legal cases has changed to tasks like legal work by paralegals, basic document review, and creating the formatting on legal documents.

The result is that some law firms have reduced the number of people they employ in clerical roles or the administrative work has changed from taking dictation and filing hard copies in accordion folders to specialized roles like paralegals who can bill for the legal work they do, and jobs in quality control, client satisfaction and retention, practicing attorneys and legal consultants say.

Another trend, they also say, is that administrative professionals are becoming much more efficient in how they spend their time.

Part of Boston-based legal consultant Jeff Coburn's work is interviewing the legal clients of his law firms' clients to find out their satisfaction levels. One thing he has learned is that larger firms are under more pressure from their Fortune 1,000 clients to cut costs, said Coburn, managing director of Coburn Consulting.

"The last five years or so there's been a huge pressure on in-house legal counsel to get accountability for the legal department, which you never used to have 25 years ago," Coburn said. "It was like a black hole. They spent what they spent."

According to a survey conducted in March and April 2013 by legal consultancy Altman Weil, 89.7 percent of managing partners or chairs from U.S. law firms with 50 or more lawyers said that the legal market trend of having fewer support staff is permanent (238 firms answered the survey).

The vast majority of respondents also identified price competition, improved efficiencies in legal practice, more commoditized legal work and more contract lawyers as permanent trends.

The survey also reported that 38.6 percent thought they would have fewer support staff in five years, 41.6 percent thought they would have about the same, and 18.9 percent thought they would have more.

Eric A. Seeger, a principal with Altman Weil out of suburban Philadelphia, said the industry standard has changed to have one secretary for every three lawyers or even one secretary for every four or five lawyers.

Clerical jobs that were cut in the five years or so since the Great Recession also won't be restored, he said.

Twenty years ago, overtime for secretaries would be put on the bills for intensive matters like mergers and acquisitions or litigation, Seeger said. "You would be hard-pressed to get away with that today," he said. "I think that corporations that examine their legal fees and have billing guidelines pretty much uniformly say that we expect the law firm overhead to be included in the rates that are charged."

"Clients want templates," Coburn said for his part. "They want systems [that] ... get to the heart of it, which is a document, a jury trial, an opinion or the cost of a merger situation."

The biggest costs for law firms are the people they employ and the spaces they use for their offices, Seeger said. Reducing staff means not only that law firms save on labor costs but also potentially space costs if they can move into smaller spaces, he said.

"Some of it is driven by clients applying pressure and the fear that more clients will apply pressure," Seeger said.

The types of clerical services that are being automated include data processing, word graphics and document management, Coburn said.

An excerpt of a piece I wrote for the Connecticut Law Tribune: 

A libel lawsuit being prosecuted by a Connecticut law firm against a California-based legal practice is showing some of the perils of using legal blogs.

Karl D. Shehu, whose Shehu LLC law firm is based in Waterbury, filed a lawsuit alleging defamation by San Diego-based attorney William Adams, of Norton Moore & Adams.

One key ruling so far in the case has been that the Connecticut attorney having a blog and the California lawyer having a blog is not enough to maintain a cause of action under the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act (CUTPA). Another key ruling is that it is insufficient to maintain a CUTPA cause of action if the attorneys are in competition to have their websites appear at the top of search engine results.

According to court papers, Adams sent two emails to Shehu LLC and two officials at the Connecticut Bar Association, Alice Bruno and Bill Chapman, alleging that Shehu spammed his blog, commented on an article with mass-produced, irrelevant remarks, and otherwise "'used a dishonest ruse.'" The subject line allegedly read: "'Your Spam is a professional ethics violation.'" Adams further alleged, according to court papers, that the conduct was unethical and violated American Bar Association professional responsibility rules.

In Shehu's lawsuit, the Connecticut attorney alleges Adams made the comments knowing they were false and with the intention of causing harm to Shehu's reputation and career as an attorney.

In a third email, Adams allegedly contacted the bar association officials again and stated he had no evidence that anyone at the Shehu law firm had personal knowledge of the comments, and he concluded that the comments were "'part of an internet marketing campaign by Shehu LLC.'"

I'm blogging several times a day about products liability for Law.com. Each day I cross-post an excerpt of the day's blog I find most interesting.

Mass torts cases must not be aggregated, and plaintiffs must provide facts to support their claims through expert reports, in order to avoid having nonmeritorious cases clogging the court process, says the federal judge presiding over the federal Asbestos Multidistrict Litigation for 5.5 years.

Asbestos MDL-875 has been the largest MDL in terms of claims and cases, wrote U.S. District Judge Eduardo C. Robreno in an article published in the Widener Law Journal.

The consolidation of large number of cases not only raises due process issues by forcing parties to litigate or settle cases in groups, but incentivizes “the number of cases that can be filed, not the relative merit of the individual case,” Robreno said.

Asbestos litigation has grown to over 186,000 cases and more than 10 million claims. Only 2,979 cases are still in the MDL.During his tenure presiding over the MDL, Robreno reported he decided 528 summary judgment motions, 59 issues of substantive state law, 16 issues of federal substantive law and 16 issues of federal procedural law.

Consolidating cases also did not work to resolve the MDL, Robreno said, adding it was an open question whether a national MDL was necessary to resolve the claims.

One of the reasons aggregations of cases did not work to resolve the cases was that class certification was rejected by the Third Circuit and then the U.S. Supreme Court, Robreno said. The first asbestos MDL judge, Judge Charles R. Weiner, tried to settle the claims of 250,000 to 2 million individuals who had been exposed to asbestos. The settlement was rejected on appeal because of the “Supreme Court's concerns over the manageability of such a mixed and large class, as well as the inability of the class mechanisms to deal with the issue of future claimants,” Robreno said. Federal legislative fixes also failed.And when aggregation failed, the court and the parties did not return to the task of handling the cases on an individual basis, Robreno said. “This stage of litigation led some litigants to refer to MDL875 as a 'black hole,' where cases disappeared forever from the active dockets of the court,” he wrote.

While, “as a matter of judicial culture, remanding cases is viewed as an acknowledgment that the MDL judge has failed to resolve the case, by adjudication or settlement, during the MDL process,” Robreno said he turned away from that mindset and set a “rigorous schedule” for hearing summary judgment motions and issuing decisions.

Due to bankruptcies by the companies that made asbestos, litigation has shifted to bankruptcy courts and to the makers and suppliers of components that contained asbestos, including manufacturers or suppliers of brakes, turbines and packing. “In sum, the time between the filing of motions for summary judgment and the panel's issuing a remand order was 74 days,” he said.

More than 600 cases have been remanded to 59 districts. Most of those cases resolved without the need for a trial on the merits.

There also is an issue of fraud in asbestos fraud, Robreno said, with doctors acting as litigation consultants and making positive findings “often upwards of 50% and in some studies as high as 90%, suggesting that the readings may not be neutral or legitimate.”

A recent documentary is highlighting the issue of racial bias in the juvenile justice system. In reporting a piece for the Connecticut Law Tribune, I learned that Connecticut is widely praised for making great steps in improving its juvenile justice system. But statistics show that, despite those reforms, racial bias hasn't been erased. More kids of color than white kids are sent into the system and sent into the system for longer.

Here's an excerpt of the full piece: 

By most accounts, Connecticut has made tremendous progress in reforming its juvenile justice system. But there's one serious problem remaining: racial disparities in the youths who are sent to juvenile lockups.

That's the thrust of a recent Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network documentary, a production sponsored by the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee and paid for with federal funds.

According to the documentary, police are 3.24 times more likely to write incident reports when they find a black juvenile misbehaving than when they have similar encounters with white kids. Latino juveniles are 2.4 times more likely to have incident reports filed about their actions than their caucasian counterparts.

Further, the documentary reported, prosecutors are far more likely to transfer black juveniles charged with serious, Class A and Class B felonies to adult court than their white counterparts. And the state Department of Correction is four times more likely to place a black youth who committed a serious offense in a secure juvenile facility than a white youth, and three times more likely to put a Latino teen in such a facility than a white teen.

The documentary, "The Color of Justice," focuses on data presented in a 2011 report by the state Office of Policy and Management. The report found that racial disparities were present in half of the 18 points in which decisions are made in the juvenile justice system.

"We've … accepted the data and we own it and we're each trying in our separate agencies or venues" to address the issue, said Superior Court Judge Bernadette Conway, the chief administrative judge of the juvenile division.

Cathy Jackman, the independent producer and editor of the documentary, said Connecticut is one of the states considered to be at the forefront of addressing the issue of racial bias in the juvenile justice system.

"I think that the state was actually very courageous in exposing themselves," said Jackman, who noted that while the documentary was government-sponsored, she retained editorial control. "The Office of Policy and Management did not have to reveal these numbers."

Marc Schindler, executive director of the national Justice Policy Institute, said Connecticut has implemented many best practices to reform juvenile justice. For example, the state has aggressively worked to move most 16- and 17-year-olds out of the adult court system, increased community-based programming, and reduced its reliance on incarceration when dealing with juvenile lawbreakers.

Connecticut is a "true turn-around story in many respects," Schindler said. "Through the '80s and '90s, Connecticut was known unfortunately for having a quite dysfunctional system for young people who got in trouble with the law." And this was in a state that is one of the wealthiest in the country, he said.

Given the success in improving other aspects of the juvenile justice system, Schindler said he's "optimistic" Connecticut will make progress on racial disparities.

The documentary emphasizes that racial disparities often are not the result of overt prejudice but stem from implicit bias.

"We only use a small portion of our brain consciously," said Conway, the juvenile judge. "When we interact with people we make unconscious, instantaneous judgments we may not be aware of."

Connecticut homeowners who still haven't been paid by their insurers over damage from Superstorm Sandy are running out of time to sue their insurers, I reported for the Connecticut Post and the Stamford Advocate.

Here's the full story:

Homeowners whose insurance companies still have not paid them for Superstorm Sandy damage and may need to sue their insurers will soon run out of time to do so.

Even though Connecticut law provides for six years for lawsuits to be filed over broken contracts, the state has a law on the books that lets insurers limit the time in which disputes about homeowner policies can be taken to court.

And it is industry practice to include in standard homeowners' insurance policies a time limitation on lawsuits, according to several Connecticut attorneys.

Ryan Suerth, a Hartford-based solo practitioner who represents policyholders in insurance disputes, said going to court is a "last-ditch effort" because no one wants to hire a lawyer after already going through a long process to try to get paid by one's insurer after a disaster.

But Suerth said "the only person who is going to look out for the policyholder" is the policyholder.

The law used to let insurers limit homeowners bringing lawsuits to within a year of disasters, but it was changed in 2009 to 18 months. Now homeowners' insurance disputes can't go to court unless they are started within "eighteen months next after inception of the loss," according to the statute.

"The moral of the story," says Leonard Isaac, an insurance litigator with law offices in Waterbury and West Hartford, is that "if your policy has a limit that's the minimum provided by Connecticut law, the lawsuit has to be served on the insurance company within 18 months of when your loss took place. That means it has to be delivered by the marshal to the insurance company by that time."

Policyholders thinking about taking their insurance company to court can't show up on a lawyer's doorstep a week before the deadline, Isaac said, because time has to be allowed for the lawsuit to be served on time to meet legal deadlines.

Isaac said he has had people consult him after major storms, particularly winter storms, when they've run out of time to sue. After major storms, many people think the "insurance company is moving slowly but they're moving," but then it can be too late to seek legal recourse, he says.

The National Flood Insurance Program, which is administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, only allows for lawsuits to be filed within a year of a policyholder's loss, Suerth added.

Gerard O'Sullivan, program manager of the Insurance Department's consumer affairs unit, recommends that consumers who are having problems with their insurance claims call the department. It will see if they can mediate the claim and bring it to a conclusion without the need for litigation, O'Sullivan said.

Gregory Podolak, an attorney representing policyholders with Saxe Doernberger & Vita in Hamden, suggests policyholders crack open their policies and see if they have a limitation-of-suit provision in there.

If they are running up against a deadline, policyholders can see if their insurers will agree to "toll" that part of the contract, Podolak said. An agreement to temporarily put on hiatus the requirement that policyholders only can go to court within 18 months of when Sandy struck would allow insurers to avoid premature lawsuits, he said. That's especially the case if "you are adjusting your agreement in good faith and cooperation," Podolak said.

Isaac suggests that policyholders can use public adjusters to help negotiate with their insurance companies.

Michael McCormack, who represents policyholders as well as insurance industry clients in regulatory proceedings with Hinckley Allen & Snyder in Hartford, said that insurance companies limit the time in which lawsuits can be brought because they "don't want to be subject to a claim six years down the road. They want to have notice and resolve claims."

Not all claims against insurance companies are limited, but in these situations, things get more difficult quickly. Policyholders can still sue over truly wrongful behavior by insurance companies like acting in bad faith, McCormack said, but such behavior is rare and is harder to prove.

Suerth said he finds it unfair to allow contractual limitations on the six-year statute of limitations because it "doesn't help the policyholders and there are other insurance policies out there that don't have any limitations at all."

There are other insurance issues arising out of Superstorm Sandy that people may not be aware of, attorneys said.

Many policyholders are not aware that, without going to court, they can invoke a clause in their polices if they're in a dispute over the value of their loss, McCormack said. Connecticut law requires that disputes over the amount of loss in standard homeowners' police go to an outside neutral process called appraisal.

Insurance companies don't always advise their insureds that a dispute over the value of loss can be taken to this form of arbitration, Isaac said.

"Instead they say this is all we're going to pay. They say take it or leave it," Isaac said.

The appraisal process is more consumer-friendly because it's less expensive than litigation, McCormack said.

Isaac estimates that half of the disputes he sees are over the value of the loss.

Both the policyholders and the insurance company get an appraiser, and there is a neutral umpire to make a final determination on the claim's value.

Both parties pay for their own appraiser, and a neutral umpire is paid by both sides to decide the dispute over the value of the claim, O'Sullivan said.

Natural disasters like Sandy are a reminder to make sure people have the insurance coverage they want, insurance experts say.

"One of the important things of any catastrophe like this" is for people to determine if they are comfortable with their deductibles and to understand that flood insurance is separate from a homeowner's policy and must be obtained separately, O'Sullivan said.

Michael E. DiGiacomo, a forensic accountant with BlumShapiro in Shelton who often is called in to evaluate claims, said that his impression of Sandy is that many businesses did not have the proper insurance coverage in place to recover for their losses.

For example, businesses wanted to keep their insurance costs down and forewent coverage of the interruption of their businesses, DiGiacomo said.

"Sandy just brought that to light because of how devastating it was," DiGiacomo said.

In light of Sandy it might be a good idea for businesses to go over their policies with their brokers to make sure they have the coverage they want, DiGiacomo said.

Here's an excerpt of a story I wrote for the Connecticut Law Tribune about the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford's oral history project documenting Jewish lawyers and judges in Connecticut:

When Gerry Roisman graduated law school in 1962, one of the partners at the law firm where his mother worked as a legal secretary said he would help Roisman find a job.

As he sat in the partner's office, Roisman listened as the lawyer called up a senior partner at one of the major law firms in Connecticut and extolled Roisman's credentials.

But "the thing turned from positive to negative, and he hung up the phone and he looked at me square in the eye and said: 'They would love to hire you. Your credentials are great, you're bright and you have all kinds of positive things going for you," including contacts in Greater Hartford, Roisman recounted.

The partner continued with the bad news, Roisman recalled: "But the answer I got was, 'My clients wouldn't like it and we're gonna pass.'"
The only thing objectionable about Roisman? His Jewish identity.

Roisman's story is going to be one of many that the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford is documenting for an oral history project of Jewish lawyers and judges in Connecticut.

Estelle Kafer, the historical society's executive director, said the group continues to seek contributions of stories and experiences of Jewish lawyers. The project will culminate in the publication of a scholarly journal and an event on May 14 to celebrate the project.

The society has documented the rich histories of the Jewish members of other professions, including doctors who formed Mount Sinai Hospital because they could not get admitting privileges at other hospitals. "I think the general public doesn't realize the discrimination they faced," Kafer said.

Roisman said he also faced discrimination when he tried to represent banks. After law school, Roisman had a general practice that included criminal, personal injury, commercial, tax, estate planning, immigration, and family law fields. Roisman also was a leader in getting Connecticut to adopt no-fault divorce. Now his West Hartford practice focuses on family law and working with his son in the sports law field.

"Every [law] office I know of in the city of Hartford has overcome those biases and prejudices, but it was very real coming out of law school," Roisman said.

The first Jewish lawyer in the Hartford area practiced in the 1890s, so the goal of the project is to bring that history "forward for 110 years," Roisman said.

The first Jewish lawyers in the Hartford area were the product of Jewish immigration from Germany in the latter part of the 19th century. The numbers grew after a second wave of Jewish immigration from Eastern European countries in the early part of the 20th century, said Hartford Superior Court Judge A. Susan Peck, who is among those working on the history project.

Many Jewish lawyers worked their way out of extreme poverty and somehow managed to go to Ivy League law schools, Peck said.

There was a period in the 1940s, '50s and '60s in which Jewish lawyers weren't accepted in some law firms. As a result, Jewish lawyers began to form their own firms. Among them was Rogin Nassau and Schatz & Schatz, Peck said.

"Now these law firms, as the profession has evolved and as Jews have established themselves as valuable members in these professions … have merged into larger law firms," she said.

I wrote a piece for the Connecticut Law Tribune about Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker looking to duplicate its lobbying success in New York's capital in Connecticut. The firm has opened a new office in Hartford, the second one in Connecticut. An excerpt of the piece:

Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker is looking to duplicate the lobbying success it's had at New York's capital at Connecticut's seat of government, firm leaders said. In early January, the national law firm announced the opening of a new office in Hartford that will focus in part on governmental relations.

Wilson Elser "has the most successful lobbying firm in Albany," said David A. Rose, the partner responsible for forming the law firm's governmental relations practice in Connecticut. According to the New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics, Wilson Elser has more than 160 lobbying clients in Albany.

As for the goals in Connecticut, Rose noted that Wilson Elser does not have a "niche lobbying practice" like some other firms.

"We're a law firm," Rose said. "As long as we can ensure there's not a conflict with any existing clients we're hopeful to work with as many and varied" lobbying clients as Wilson Elser does in Albany.

Rose has been involved in governmental affairs for 21 years either as a governmental lawyer or lobbyist. He worked as senior counsel for two Connecticut House speakers: Democrats Moira Lyons and James Amann. In 2007, he went to work as assistant counsel for then-New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer and stayed on through the tenure of Gov. David Patterson and then through the transition of Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

While there are a lot of similarities between Hartford and Albany, Rose said that "Connecticut has a much more transparent government" that is easier to access as a lobbyist or as a regular citizen. Unlike in Albany, anyone can walk into the Capitol building in Hartford without having to pass through metal detectors, he said.

If you spend enough time in the building, you will run into state leaders just by virtue of using the common elevators and corridors, Rose said.
"You have to be at the Capitol," Rose said, to have the opportunity to meet with top lawmakers, including the happenstance meetings in which elevator speeches for clients can be rolled out. There's nothing that beats the in-person interaction to "tell your client's story," Rose said.

An excerpt of my piece for the Connecticut Law Tribune about the legal impacts of Superstorm Sandy:

 Superstorm Sandy struck a less-devastating blow to Connecticut than it did to New Jersey and New York. Still, the Oct. 29, 2012, hurricane cut a wide swath in terms of affecting the state's legal community.

There are expectations of litigation over insurance coverage. Attorneys working for governmental agencies have helped to put into place better disaster planning. And there have been pro bono efforts to assist storm victims.

As of May 2013, 47,002 residential-property claims were reported in Connecticut as a result of the storm. There were also 4,460 commercial-property claims, 2,772 flood claims, and 1,212 business interruption claims, according to the Connecticut Department of Banking & Insurance.

Disaster Litigation

While it's been nearly 14 months since the storm hit, Sandy-inspired litigation will take a while to fully develop, said Ryan Suerth, of Ryan Suerth LLC in Hartford, who represents policyholders. He explained that it often takes more than a year for policyholders to learn that their insurance claims have been denied or that they will get less money than they had hoped.

"Any major weather is going to lead to litigation, just for the reason there is a lot of damage and not all of it gets covered by insurance," Suerth said.

Michael McCormack, a Hinckley Allen attorney who chairs the Connecticut Bar Association's Insurance Law Section, said he has seen few Sandy-related claims being filed in court so far. One reason, he said, is "the insurance companies responded quickly. They worked with policyholders as best as they could." Secondly, he said, many consumers lack flood insurance, meaning that instead of making a claim on their homeowner's policy they must apply to Federal Emergency Management Agency's National Flood Insurance Program.

But Regen O'Malley, an insurance defense lawyer with O'Connell, Attmore & Morris in Hartford, predicted that Sandy will ultimately result in more legal activity than did 2011's Tropical Storm Irene. One insurance issue that often prompts legal disputes is the question of whether property damage was caused by rain or flooding.

"It really depends upon what the policy says [is covered] for those types of claims," O'Malley said. "And with [Hurricane] Katrina and now Sandy, there might be multiple causes. There might be wind, flood, storm surge and something else."

For some policies, coverage is denied if multiple factors caused damage and some of those factors are not listed in the policy.

 Gregory Podolak, of Saxe Doernberger & Vita in Hamden, explained that some homeowner polices cover only "named perils." The most common of these include lightning, fire, rain, windstorms and theft. But exactly how these terms are defined in a specific policy can have a dramatic impact on a consumer's "coverage position," Podolak said. Many policies have specific deductibles and coverage limits related to specific named perils, he added. And Legal issues arise when there are multiple perils that could have caused property damage, he agreed.

Another insurance issue arising from Sandy is business interruptions caused by the loss of electric power. Some parts of the state lost power for a week or more, and businesses filed claims seeking lost revenues for days they could not operate.

"What Sandy and Irene have done is highlight some of the issues that don't come to the forefront as often," Podolak said.

Cases that do go into litigation may involve claims of bad faith by insurers and violations of the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act and the Connecticut Unfair Insurance Practices Act. There also may be litigation against insurance brokers and agents for allegedly not recommending sufficient coverage, attorneys said.

An excerpt of the piece I wrote for The Connecticut Law Tribune on the Children's Law Center of Connecticut, which is celebrating 20 years of protecting children this year:

After 6-year-old Ayla was murdered, Judith Hyde heard a voice inside her head. The message: Create a children's legal advocacy center to represent young children in family court.

Hyde had founded the Child Protection Council of Northeastern Connecticut, which included a small program to provide supervision for court-ordered visits between parents and their children. During one of those visits, Ayla Rose Moylan was shot and killed by her father, who was apparently upset by his former wife's plan to remarry. The visit supervisor, Joyce Lannan, was shot too and ended up blinded in one eye.

Out of Ayla's death and out of Hyde's intuition came the founding of the Children's Law Center of Connecticut, an organization whose core service is providing legal advocates to children in highly contentious family court cases. Hyde wrote in a piece of literary writing that she shared with the Law Tribune that, after the shooting incident, she felt tired and wanted time to recuperate. But the voice inside pushed back, telling Hyde: "Now is the time when you will have people with you to make this happen."

Twenty years later, the center represents children in eight of Connecticut's judicial districts with plans to expand into Norwich next year if funding stays steady, according to Executive Director Justine Rakich-Kelly. The organization has been celebrating its 20th anniversary with a series of events this year, including its annual gala held on Dec. 6.

Read the full story here.

I wrote a piece for The Connecticut Law Tribune on a law professor who has gone from reforming tax codes in China, Zambia, Vietnam and Gambia to proposing changes to how taxes are divided between states in which multistate corporations do business.

A story excerpt:

Richard Pomp has drafted tax codes in China, Zambia, Vietnam and Gambia.

One lesson he learned as an academic consultant is that it's a good idea to get the business community invested in the new tax rules. Another lesson is that a smaller country's taxing powers more closely parallels the circumstances in a state like Connecticut than in a big country like the United States.

A developing country "can't control its environment, [is] really at the mercy of forces outside of its control, [is] outgunned and outmanned" by the law firms and accounting firms hired by global corporations, said Pomp, a professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law.

Because a state government faces similar challenges, Pomp decided to parlay his international tax work into studies of state taxation. He was interested in how state governments with their modest powers figure out how to fairly tax businesses that operate in their jurisdiction and in many others as well.

The professor's expertise in state taxation has proved useful as he spent 383 hours on a pro bono project as the hearing officer for the Multistate Tax Commission on proposed changes to the Multistate Tax Compact.

The compact was developed after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states could tax interstate commerce through state income taxes. The commission is the administrative arm of the compact.

It was a national, non-partisan association known as the Uniform Law Commission that first came up with a way to fairly divide the taxable income for multistate corporations among the states in which those corporations do business. That model law, the Uniform Division of Income for Tax Purposes Act, was developed in 1957.

According to Pomp, the act provided the states with a fair way to tax multistate corporations by using a formula based on what percentage of its property, payroll dollars and sales totals that a corporation has within any single state's borders. (Connecticut never bought into the act, Pomp said. Instead, it bases its taxes on a single factor—the percentage of a company's sales that come from Connecticut.)

However, Pomp said, the taxing model has become antiquated over the last half century, with the economic shift away from manufacturing and toward service industries, as well as the development of the Internet and the digitalization of what used to be tangible property.

As a result, many states have moved away from the Uniform Division of Income for Tax Purposes Act, and have adopted their own tax-computing formulas, often for the purpose of economic development and attracting business to their states. "As the economy gets more complicated, everyone realizes that this model act that goes back to 1957 is hardly a model anymore," Pomp says.

When the Uniform Law Commission decided against updating the model law, the Multistate Tax Commission decided to step into the breach. Pomp's report to the commission suggests changing the formula for taxing multistate businesses by allowing each state to weigh the factors of sales, payroll and property however it chooses. He does, however, suggest giving the percentage of sales a company has in a state twice the weight of the other factors.

The Multistate Tax Commission's executive committee is slated to debate Pomp's report on Dec. 12. Pomp said he hopes that some of his suggestions will provide food for thought even though he proposed changes to the commission's own recommendations. Shirley Sicilian, general counsel for the Multistate Tax Commission, said during a recent press conference on Pomp's report that the goal of the model revisions is to provide something for state legislatures to draw on as they modernize their own tax laws.