How do find out about rival firms, their dealings and weaknesses? It doesn’t require hiring spies or engaging in corporate espionage. It just takes time and the appropriate resources to engage in competitive intelligence (CI). It isn’t hard to do and in fact, it may be a critical component of your professional future.

What is Competitive Intelligence?

The Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals describes CI as a systematic and ethical program for gathering, analyzing and managing external information that can affect your company’s plans, decision and operations’.  So what does this mean to a law firm? It is about understanding competitive and complementary firms, potential clients and industry trends so that you can make smart marketing decisions and ensure your share of legal dollars from a client’s legal budget. Law firms need to know what is happening around them in order to bring in new client business and survive.

Know Your Competitors

Competitive intelligence does require reading between the lines, but there is an amazing amount of potentially helpful information that can be easily mined from the internet. CI can start with news and basic research and evolve from there. A researcher can discover what a rival’s strategy is by watching for news stories regarding their business.

They can unearth information from their company website, marketing materials, creating and examining lists of publications from a law firm, their charitable contributions and advertisements. From all this, you can extrapolate their business strategy.

Know Your Potential Clients

A firm can also use this information to make better decisions about romancing new clients. Beyond looking at their website and directories, you can also review state business records, SEC filing of the company if it is public, obtain news about its executives and look for complaints and settlements the pertain to the company. You will get an idea of their needs and what their management is thinking.

If a company has kept the same legal council for the last decade, they may not be a smart place to expend effort in possibly doing business. However if this same company has a new CEO, perhaps they might be positioned to look to a new firm. If you notice a certain company changes law firms with the seasons, then they may be too much of a liability to pursue. All of this information can be discovered through competitive intelligence.

Stand by you Ethics

The one thing that competitive intelligence is not is unethical. CI does not involve dumpster diving or dealing in lies. It is not unlawful espionage. It should not be undercover work. Most of what a law firm needs to know is available publicly. What is not readily unearthed on the internet can often be found simply by making a few phone calls and asking the right people questions.

Most major corporations have CI experts on staff, but the legal business is slow to follow suit. Likely this is because CI work is not generally billable to clients and must be budgeted in elsewhere. However, these days the competition is stiff and payoff can be huge, so adding competition intelligence to your firm’s work may be worth adding into the budget.

A great way source of competitive intelligence is seeing the legal documents your competitors or companies in similar industries are drafting. You can search over 10 million legal documents and clauses for free at RealDealDocs.

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No matter how good both parties’ intentions are when entering into a legal agreement, unforeseen circumstances can throw things off track. If this prevents one of the parties from fulfilling his end of the deal, it may be considered a “breach of contract.” Legal obligations are created in a business contract, and they must be fulfilled by the both parties. Depending on the specific terms of the contract, a breach may occur when one party fails to perform on time, does not perform in accordance with the agreement’s terms, or does not perform at all. Usually, a breach of contract will be categorized as either “material” or “immaterial” in order to decide the appropriate “remedy” or legal solution. Generally, both oral and written contracts are legally enforceable, so caution should be taken in entering into handshake agreements. It’s always wise to make sure your agreements are in writing to ensure that the contract terms and details are not “remembered” differently, or even forgotten.

A breach of contract is defined as a failure to fulfill the duties under the agreed upon terms. A contract can be breached if:

· One party does not perform as promised· One party does something making it impossible for the other one to perform the duties of the contract· One party makes it clear that he or she will not perform the contract’s duties.When one or both parties breach a contract, the other party is entitled to various types of remedies. Here are most common remedies sought: · Consequential damages – The breaching party pays the non-breaching party an amount that brings that party back to the same position they would have been in if the contract was performed.· Punitive damages – The breaching party makes a payment to the other party as punishment for breaching the contract.· Liquidated damages – This type of damages is agreed upon as part of the contract itself, before signing. It stipulates that if one party breaches the contract, that party must pay a specified amount.· Nominal damages – This minimal amount is provided in the event that the non-breaching party wins the case but suffers only minimal financial losses. Other remedies for breach of contract may include:· Specific performance – In some circumstances, a court can require the breaching party to perform their duties as agreed upon in the contract. · Rescission – Neither party is required to perform the contract’s obligations, as if there were no agreement signed. If one party has performed some of his duties, the court tries to bring that party back to the same position he or she was in before the contract. The statute of limitations on filing a breach of contract lawsuit varies by state. If a party does not file within the state’s specified time limit, he or she loses the ability to seek damages through a breach of contract lawsuit. It’s impossible to completely lay out all the circumstances that may arise in the course of doing business. In some cases, it may even be necessary for compelling business reasons to breach a contract – effectively written contracts can provide valuable guidance and predictability to the parties and, if necessary, to the courts in determining where they stand. To see free examples of actual legal documents and clauses click here.

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Attorneys and legal assistants researching information have many tools that weren’t available twenty years ago. Gone are the endless days in the library stacks because much can be done remotely from the comfort of your own office. However, just because more material with better technology is available, does not mean that it’s time-saving in the end. Understanding the resources available and right resources to utilize, however will save you time, frustration and end the end, money. Even more important than being acquainted with your resources and also having a plan.

Legal Research - Making a Plan

Start with a brief write up of what you hope to find. It is easy to get sidetracked as more information comes to light, so having a written goal to refer to will help you stay on topic. Then decide how exhaustive will your search be. Keep in mind how much information is really necessary. If you are working on a case for someone else and they really only want an overview, you don’t want to waste time. If your client will be put off by certain charges such as Lexis or you need to worry about the amount of hours you bill, you’ll need to keep that in mind as you develop your plan.

Now you can make a list of where you know you should start looking for the appropriate information. What jurisdiction is your case in? Will you need to examine federal or state, court or administrative decisions? Is it necessary to look at regulatory or legislative sources? Or will you need to look at a combination of these resources?

Supplement this list of resources with thoughts from the expert attorney on the case if there is one or consult a reference librarian. The librarian of course cannot help you interpret the text, but the librarian or an expert attorney may be able to direct you to the most recent articles and the books that are considered “bibles” of the topic into which you are delving. You can then add to your plan and adjust it as you go. If you stay organized, you will be more likely to be successful in your search.

General Legal Research

If the research that you need to do is not specifically legal, there is a tremendous amount of resources that are now available over the internet. Most public libraries offer their catalogues online, giving patrons the opportunity to not only check the stacks without leaving the office, but in come case, giving them access to online databases. With a library card, patrons to some libraries can log on remotely and use even the for-pay databases.

If your research requires data on public figures, businesses, associations and similar information, with the right library access, you can do it all from your home or office. Digging up this type of information may be helpful in investigating the background of clients, an expert witness or the opposition.

Make a plan, talk to experts regarding available material, learn what is available at the law library, the public library and online and get to researching. To see actual examples of actual legal documents & clauses be sure to visit RealDealDocs and search for free.

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More than ever before, real estate brokers are promoting the use of buyer agency agreements — a contract stating that the broker will represent the buyer as his agent and that the broker’s job is to find a suitable property for the buyer.

Because these agreements are legally binding and give the broker specific authority, buyers should fully understand their rights and responsibilities before signing on the dotted line.

These agreements are promoted as giving buyers a stronger level of representation due to the fiduciary relationship they create. Once the agreement is signed, the broker must champion the buyer’s interest every step of the way.

Three types of buyer agency agreements are used by today’s realtors:

1.Exclusive buyer agency agreement (or exclusive right to represent)

With this completely exclusive agency agreement, the buyer is legally bound to compensate the agent at the time when the buyer purchases any property of the same type as described in the contract. Regardless of whether he or she locates the property, the broker is entitled to payment. Even if the buyer finds the property on is own, the agent is still owed payment.

2.Exclusive-agency buyer agency agreement

Similar to an exclusive buyer agency agreement, this exclusive contract is between the agent and the buyer. But with this type of agreement, a limit is placed on the broker’s right to payment; the broker is entitled to payment only if he or she actually finds the property that the buyer purchases. Therefore, the buyer is free to locate a suitable property with no obligation to pay the agent.

3.Open buyer agency agreement

This is a nonexclusive agency contract between a buyer and a broker permitting the buyer to enter into similar agreements with an unlimited number of other brokers. Only the broker who actually locates the property that the buyer eventually purchases is entitled to compensation.

Before entering into a buyer agency agreement, there are some important considerations for the broker and buyer to discuss. First of all, the broker should make the same disclosures to the buyer that he or she would make to a seller in a listing agreement. The buyer should fully understand the three types of agency available and the parties’ rights and responsibilities under each of them. This means that the broker should clearly explain the specific services provided to a buyer-client entering into each type of agreement.

In addition, the matter of compensation must be discussed in detail. For instance, buyer’s agents may be paid a flat fee for services, an hourly rate, or a percentage of the final purchase price. In some cases, an agent may request a retainer fee upon signing the agreement, in order to cover the initial listing and promotional expenses. This retainer fee may be applied as a credit toward any fees due at the time of closing. A buyer’s agent also may be compensated by sharing the commission that the seller pays.

Buyer agency agreements provide agents a comforting level of reassurance that their efforts will not go unrewarded, motivating them to work even harder for the buyer. Of course, for buyers they must balance provide financial guarantees to agents against the risk of limited or poor performance. To search millions of legal documents & clauses for free visit RealDealDocs.com

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