intellectual property – Growing Forward

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When your brand is attacked, it can have a devastating impact on your company’s reputation and your ability to attract customers. It’s therefore important that you know the appropriate response to take. Here are just a few ways in which you brand can come under attack and how you can protect it.

A customer is badmouthing you online

Negative online reviews and defamatory tweets can be enough to bring down a business. Many consumers now research a company online before choosing to buy from them – if bad reviews and hostile social media comments are the first thing that show up on Google, you may fail to win over their trust.

When faced with online criticism, be apologetic and respond directly to the review or social media message if possible (on social media, you may want to message them directly as well as replying publicly). Encouraging happy customers to leave positive reviews may meanwhile help to outweigh any negative criticism.

Your intellectual property has been stolen by someone else

Intellectual property is a major part of a brand’s identity and may include your brand name, your logo, a slogan, company images or text from your website. If another company is claiming ownership of your intellectual data, it could cause your customers to mistake them for your company.

This could be something that you can legally dispute – especially if you’ve trademarked or copyrighted this content. By hiring a law firm that deals in corporate litigation, you can make a claim against the company that has stolen your intellectual property. If an online fraudster is using your intellectual property for malicious purposes, you may even be able to get police involved.

Another company is attacking your brand

Brand wars have become more common in the age of social media with large brands attacking one another on Twitter. This is usually done in jest and can sometimes encourage healthy competition. However, sometimes it can get more serious, such as accusing you of bad behavior.

Respond to these brands accordingly. If it’s a light-hearted attack, you may be able to respond with a similar light-hearted retort. However, if they’re uncovering unsavory truths about your business, you may need to come clean.

A media outlet has attacked your brand

An attack from a newspaper, magazine or major online publication can be serious. Word could spread and you could find that business is severely affected.

Taking on the media by yourself is not recommended and you may want to hire a PR company to help try and recover your reputation. Such a company may be able to help you find journalists to argue your case and spread good information about your brand.

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If you have recently obtained a qualification in law, you are very aware that the life of a lawyer isn’t all fast cars, luxury vacations, and having money to burn. But, if you are looking for lucrative law practice areas, there are some that are very popular right now. So let’s go through the main ones, and and how each one works.

Litigation

This is an area where many practitioners can command very lucrative salaries. There are so many lawyers that make a fantastic living from this, such as Benedict Morelli, and it consists of various legal and factual issues. Litigation attorneys need to be incredibly skilled at managing a team of attorneys, who need to go over high amounts of electronic documents, which can consist of millions of emails, and analyse draft and laws as well as the skill of arguing motions on a never-ending basis in court. Litigation cases tend to last years, even decades.

Intellectual Property

Lots of businesses needs advice securing patents, especially with new technology and also trademarks for brands. So for various companies that are starting out, as well as businesses that are well established, this means they need lawyers who are able to implement the appropriate lawsuits. Between the years of 2013 and 2015, the federal courts saw the highest number of patents filed. It is a very hot area right now. In addition to this intellectual property litigation is another area that is worth investigating. It is similar to litigation cases, but involves the rights to technology or medicines. The outcomes of these cases can result in over hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, and can bring a company down.

Healthcare

Again, with so many issues relating to healthcare, especially in the United States, and with more people having health insurance and getting involved in disputes with their care providers, this means that the demand for healthcare representatives has shot up in recent years. Also, there are new laws and regulations that are continually coming into effect, especially in the digital areas of healthcare. This includes things like data privacy, as well as the digital records of patients’ healthcare information, and how this is protected.

Corporate Law

Generally, this describes different areas of work on behalf of companies. It can encompass lots of different aspects, making it a varied and interesting career as a lawyer. You could assist clients in merging with other companies, drafting agreements or bylaws, or helping businesses to secure adequate capital. There are also capital market attorneys, especially in the growing economy, there is more of a demand for these. This consists of helping companies to issue stock, structuring private placement financings, and issuing equity within the capital market. As the area practice is so diverse, this is quite a complex subject, so you need to know, in addition to federal and state laws, securities and disclosure law, as well as contracts.

Law is definitely a lucrative career prospect, if you know where to look. Have a look at these four areas, and see if these are areas you would like to practice.