Making It Legal:

It’s been a while since I received one of those e-mails SCREAMING IN ALL CAPS from the Kingdom of Djibouti or Nigeria, or some such place, asking me, in the most solicitous of tones, to assist with a financial transaction. A money trade of sorts. Or to help dislodge some funds from a U.S. bank account that need to be routed through my account to send overseas. They always gave me a good laugh. The cynical New Yorker in me asked, “What tomato truck do you have to fall from to fall for that scam?” [For fullest New Yorker effect, pronounce tomato like "tuh-MAYD-uh"]

Well, apparently, the scammers are getting more sophisticated, and some of my bretheren at the bar have fallen for it. As reported in the California Bar Journal:

The scammers know how to delay confirmation that the cashier’s check is not good long enough to get the client trust account money into their own hands, says Ted Kitada, senior counsel for Wells Fargo & Co. They do that by changing the nine-digit MICR (magnetic ink character recognition) lines at the bottom of the check. The bank check may say Citibank, but the code recognizes the check as from, say, a Dallas financial institution.

“Wrongdoers deliberately put misinformation on the MICR line to cause the item to be misrouted,” says Kitada. “Misrouting causes a delay in the processing of the item.”

In defense of those attorneys who got conned, their practice sometimes includes international transactions (so the solicitation was not totally out of line). Also, their initial due diligence appeared to show that the overseas companies (Hong Kong, as reported) were legit.

The lesson: For any of you dealing with overseas payments by cashier’s check, beware. If you have to transfer any funds back overseas to a client, do not be pressured into returning the funds until you are absolutely, positively sure they are there . . .  and have had a few days to sit in your account quietly (without being returned).

For companies with employees, there’s a new rule in town (at least, in Chicago’s federal court): Under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, women cannot be fired from their jobs for needing time off for infertility treatments.

As reported in the Wall Street Journal online, the ruling involved “a secretary who was laid off after taking time off for in vitro fertilization, then asking for more [time off for a further procedure]. Without ruling on the merits of her case, the court last month set a precedent by giving Ms. Hall a green light to sue her former employer for pregnancy-related bias.” Apparently, the plaintiff had been singled out for absenteeism as a result of seeking in vitro fertilization treatments.

For now, the decision applies only in Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin, as it’s the first time a case like this has made its way to a formal (public) court hearing. However, other jurisdictions could pick up on it and adopt it in their own.

Writer and humorist Ambrose Bierce (1842-c1914) once wrote of litigation: “[It is] a machine which you go into as a pig, and come out of as a sausage.” The sentiment still holds true today.

The New York Times reported on a recently released study of civil trials, which indicated that plaintiffs who settled their cases before trial ended up recovering more ($$$) than those plaintiffs who took the case through trial. In other words, proceeding to trial ended up being a mistake for the majority of plaintiffs surveyed. It was a mistake for only 24 percent of defendants. As reported,

In just 15 percent of cases, both sides were right to go to trial–meaning that the defendant paid less than the plaintiff had wanted but the plaintiff got more than the defendant had offered.

According to the study’s co-author, Robert Kisner, “the vast majority of cases do settle– from 80 [percent] to 92 percent by some estimates.” So, depending on which side of the fence you’re sitting, make sure you accurately assess your chances for success. After all, half a loaf is better than none.

Let’s face it. Not all of us are independently wealthy. Sometimes we need financing from others to help convert our dreams into tangible reality. But is it legal to give someone a “piece of the action” for finding a source of capital?

The answer, writes my colleague, Steve Furnari, Esq., is an unequivocal “no.” Read his terrific piece on “When Raising Investment Capital, Can You Pay Someone to Do it for You?” to guide you on how to go about doing this the right way.