I greatly enjoyed my initial foray into blogging. Like Lost, those few of you who have actually read this might have wondered when the next season would begin. Here's my first for the new season. The topic: the intersection of residential mortgage lending and probate.
Scenario: Guy dies, owning a home; has two sons, no other heirs. The sons inherit the home by dad's will. Probate lawyer deeds home to two sons, who are 18 and 20; not minors, but no established credit. That deed would ordinarily trigger the due-on-sale clause of the mortgage, but for Garn St. Germain, a federal law that preempts state law and forbids the exercise of a due-on-sale clause in such an event. Sons continue to make loan payments, but worry about telling the bank that their Dad died because they don't want to lose the home. They live there and want to remain there, for now.
Question: What happens to the promissory note when Guy dies? I imagine there are two alternatives: (1) note provides that death is an event of default, which enables the bank to accelerate the debt; or (2) note is enforceable against the estate, but not in default. If death is an event of default, and the bank can accelerate the loan and foreclose the mortgage, doesn't that basically circumvent the protections of Garn St. Germain? (Recall that GSG prohibits the lender from enforcing the due-on-sale clause, which would be triggered by the deed conveying the home from Guy to sons, but does not apparently prohibit the lender from declaring a default under the note for the death of the borrower.) In the second case, suppose the bank does not make a claim against the estate? The head of our trusts & estates practice group tells me that he rarely, if ever, sees such a claim against an estate. His theory is that the note may be unenforceable unless such a claim is made. In that case, sons may not have to pay the note any longer, and the lender winds up with an unenforceable mortgage (because it is no longer supported by a valid debt).
I welcome your thoughts in the comments. Nice to see you again.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Monday, February 25, 2008
Thursday, February 14, 2008
It's Official: ConXPoint is Cool
Recent commenter Jay Arrowood, who advised me to check out ConXPoint, contacted me to let me know (as I suspected) that he works for them. He walked me through a demo of ConXPoint, and at first blush I am impressed. During our brief demo, I actually signed a document electronically, something I've been waiting to do ever since I heard that Bill Clinton did so awhile back. This feature alone makes ConXPoint worth considering for any firm that does a significant amount of transactional work.
In reaction to my fear that their offering was too expensive, Jay hastened to add that it's roughly comparable to Central Desktop. Depending on the number of users, it may be more or less expensive, but it's in the same ballpark. The user interface is not bad either: it doesn't reek of Web 2.0 goodness, but it's better than Same-Page and some of the others that I have tested.
They really ought to put screen shots & pricing up on their website, because these are not drawbacks for this program. In terms of functionality, it seems to have more of a traditional folder-and-tree organizational scheme, rather than a project management approach. These are my recollections from a one-hour web demo. I plan to try the program for a full 30 day test drive, although I'm NOT impressed that ConXPoint requires you to put down a credit card, and will proceed to charge you if you don't terminate your deal after 30 days. (If you guys want to lure users, there is NO better tool than the free, limited functionality account. I don't have any data to back that up, but I have to believe that it's true.)
After I've had my test drive, I'll report back with further thoughts.
In reaction to my fear that their offering was too expensive, Jay hastened to add that it's roughly comparable to Central Desktop. Depending on the number of users, it may be more or less expensive, but it's in the same ballpark. The user interface is not bad either: it doesn't reek of Web 2.0 goodness, but it's better than Same-Page and some of the others that I have tested.
They really ought to put screen shots & pricing up on their website, because these are not drawbacks for this program. In terms of functionality, it seems to have more of a traditional folder-and-tree organizational scheme, rather than a project management approach. These are my recollections from a one-hour web demo. I plan to try the program for a full 30 day test drive, although I'm NOT impressed that ConXPoint requires you to put down a credit card, and will proceed to charge you if you don't terminate your deal after 30 days. (If you guys want to lure users, there is NO better tool than the free, limited functionality account. I don't have any data to back that up, but I have to believe that it's true.)
After I've had my test drive, I'll report back with further thoughts.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Your Collaboration Suite Or Mine?
I posted recently about Central Desktop, my favorite collaboration suite, and about the potential of these products to really change the way attorneys can deliver services to clients. To my delight, someone actually commented on that post, referring me to ConXPoint, which is another collaboration suite, one which includes an e-signing capability (thus bringing us one step closer to a "transaction engine"). One beef that I have with ConXPoint right off the bat is the absence of screen shots & pricing information on their website. I find that those who don't include this information are more expensive and less refined of interface, as a general rule.
As I was contemplating these collaboration suites, a problem occurred to me. What if your client is using a different one?
In my review of these services, I investigated dozens of web-based, project management applications. I then test drove over a dozen products, including Central Desktop, Zoho Projects (incidentally, my second favorite and a very economical option), Same-Page (also very good, although the user interface could be improved), Joint Contact (which, although less appropriate for my needs, deserves an extra-special, honorable mention, since Wayne Bishop, its creator, is one of the nicest guys you'd ever want to meet; he bent over backwards to be of assistance to me during my trial), Project Lounge (which looks wonderful, but which is rather expensive; biglaw giant Jones Day is using it for their collaboration work), and @Task, just to name a few. Recently, Liquid Planner made my list of suites to investigate.
So now imagine it's next year and you've just spent all of your political capital, and then some, convincing your law firm to adopt a collaboration suite, such as one of the above. A short time later, by logging in to a single site, you are managing shared calendars, clicking through your to-do lists with great efficiency, planning projects and managing knowledge. You're really getting things done.
Then your biggest client calls to say, "We have just found a wonderful solution for getting things done." But it's one of the other suites. The corner office partner calls to berate you because his biggest client is using a third suite. Everyone is jumping on the collaboration bandwagon, but the problem is that there are too many bandwagons, and each is traveling in a slightly different direction. Your shared calendars don't inter-operate between suites. Your to-do lists are scattered across multiple sites. You consider going back to paper. I believe this could be a significant detriment to the collaboration suite industry, however, I believe there is hope.
One hope is common data standards, like RTF, vCard, iCal. This goes beyond my ability to really comment upon, as I am at best an amateur technologist, but it strikes me that it's possible. Consider the iCal format: if all calendar programs supported this, it would not matter whether you used Outlook, a collaboration suite calendar or Palm. Any project that you're a part of should have its own calendar, and because you can subscribe using the iCal format, your calendar should remain correct and up-to-date. Most contact managers can import and export contacts in the vCard format. My favorite, Plaxo, deserves an honorable mention here. Using Plaxo, you can sync contacts between several common applications. That's the type of thing that these collaboration suites have to consider in order for them to inter-operate. As far as I know, there is no common data standard for "tasks" (however, as I have posted before, "tasks" could be considered "events" of a different sort). I don't have all the answers, but I believe it's a good question.
I don't believe that collaboration suite purveyors have much incentive to use common standards anyway. Inter-operation may be a bad business model (at least in the short term). I'm no expert on the market, but if you get a customer to commit to your collaboration suite, you want them to stay, and making their data accessible to another application lowers the barriers to switching. That's how Microsoft Office became the de-facto industry standard. So what do you think? Your collaboration suite, or mine?
As I was contemplating these collaboration suites, a problem occurred to me. What if your client is using a different one?
In my review of these services, I investigated dozens of web-based, project management applications. I then test drove over a dozen products, including Central Desktop, Zoho Projects (incidentally, my second favorite and a very economical option), Same-Page (also very good, although the user interface could be improved), Joint Contact (which, although less appropriate for my needs, deserves an extra-special, honorable mention, since Wayne Bishop, its creator, is one of the nicest guys you'd ever want to meet; he bent over backwards to be of assistance to me during my trial), Project Lounge (which looks wonderful, but which is rather expensive; biglaw giant Jones Day is using it for their collaboration work), and @Task, just to name a few. Recently, Liquid Planner made my list of suites to investigate.
So now imagine it's next year and you've just spent all of your political capital, and then some, convincing your law firm to adopt a collaboration suite, such as one of the above. A short time later, by logging in to a single site, you are managing shared calendars, clicking through your to-do lists with great efficiency, planning projects and managing knowledge. You're really getting things done.
Then your biggest client calls to say, "We have just found a wonderful solution for getting things done." But it's one of the other suites. The corner office partner calls to berate you because his biggest client is using a third suite. Everyone is jumping on the collaboration bandwagon, but the problem is that there are too many bandwagons, and each is traveling in a slightly different direction. Your shared calendars don't inter-operate between suites. Your to-do lists are scattered across multiple sites. You consider going back to paper. I believe this could be a significant detriment to the collaboration suite industry, however, I believe there is hope.
One hope is common data standards, like RTF, vCard, iCal. This goes beyond my ability to really comment upon, as I am at best an amateur technologist, but it strikes me that it's possible. Consider the iCal format: if all calendar programs supported this, it would not matter whether you used Outlook, a collaboration suite calendar or Palm. Any project that you're a part of should have its own calendar, and because you can subscribe using the iCal format, your calendar should remain correct and up-to-date. Most contact managers can import and export contacts in the vCard format. My favorite, Plaxo, deserves an honorable mention here. Using Plaxo, you can sync contacts between several common applications. That's the type of thing that these collaboration suites have to consider in order for them to inter-operate. As far as I know, there is no common data standard for "tasks" (however, as I have posted before, "tasks" could be considered "events" of a different sort). I don't have all the answers, but I believe it's a good question.
I don't believe that collaboration suite purveyors have much incentive to use common standards anyway. Inter-operation may be a bad business model (at least in the short term). I'm no expert on the market, but if you get a customer to commit to your collaboration suite, you want them to stay, and making their data accessible to another application lowers the barriers to switching. That's how Microsoft Office became the de-facto industry standard. So what do you think? Your collaboration suite, or mine?
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Change is Good
Change starts when someone sees the next step.
— William Drayton
(I saw this on the FranklinCovey quote of the day iGoogle gadget, and I like it.)
(I saw this on the FranklinCovey quote of the day iGoogle gadget, and I like it.)
Monday, January 28, 2008
The Transaction Engine (Part I)
The ultimate combination of law and technology will be the creation of Transaction Engines: expert systems that allow users to customize a set of variables to creates and administer a living contract. The transaction engine eliminates or greatly reduces the role of the transactional attorney by relying on standardization, automating process, reducing transaction costs and focusing on efficiency. It also reduces the role of human error and delay.
As a real estate lawyer, I tend to think of these engines in that context, so let's use the example of a residential real estate transaction (or, to you non-lawyers, "buying a home"). The traditional model can be broken down into the following phases: (1) pre-contract negotiations; (2) signing the contract and removal of contingencies; (3) closing preparations; and (4) closing. I'll assume a standard transaction involving a buyer and seller, each represented by counsel, a listing broker and a selling broker, a home inspector, a title insurance company, a surveyor, the buyer's lender and the seller's lender. Most states have one or more "standard" form contracts for the purchase of real estate, and we'll assume that the parties will complete their transaction using this form, without negotiation.
As a real estate lawyer, I tend to think of these engines in that context, so let's use the example of a residential real estate transaction (or, to you non-lawyers, "buying a home"). The traditional model can be broken down into the following phases: (1) pre-contract negotiations; (2) signing the contract and removal of contingencies; (3) closing preparations; and (4) closing. I'll assume a standard transaction involving a buyer and seller, each represented by counsel, a listing broker and a selling broker, a home inspector, a title insurance company, a surveyor, the buyer's lender and the seller's lender. Most states have one or more "standard" form contracts for the purchase of real estate, and we'll assume that the parties will complete their transaction using this form, without negotiation.
Friday, January 25, 2008
To-Do's v. Calendar Events
What's the difference between a Calendar Event and a To-Do? I believe that tasks and events are merely different views of the same thing: Things To Do That Happen Over Time. But my notion of these things isn't reflected in many software applications. Most applications treat these as different species, with different *screens* and *set-ups* for events and tasks.
Tasks don't place in a vacuum: they're typically assigned, and due, on a given day and time. Similarly, few events are without associated tasks--an event is often just a task's deadline. For example, a court hearing on a motion is a calendar event that requires preparation: re-read the briefs, prepare for the judge's questions, and perhaps prepare a form order. Consider a Statute of Limitations: If you merely "calendar" the 2-year Statute of Limitations on the appropriate calendar date, you don't account for all of the actions required to appropriately satisfy the Statute, most of which should happen many months before that date.
I would like to see all of my To-Do's in a Calendar view. Some will terminate with a Calendar Event, in which case I'd like to be able to see on my calendar that I've got, for example, 30 days before a court hearing, or 45 days before a brief is due. This would help inform my agenda for the day or week. Some might object that tons of tasks would unduly muck up a Calendar view, but my answer to that is *filters*, as well as the ability to view everything in a traditional list view, as with most To-Do lists. So far I've only seen something approaching what I'd really like in Central Desktop and Same Page.
I've also been searching for what I'd call "Count-Down" and "Count-Up" functionality in a Calendar View. Count downs track the number of days left to prepare for a given calendar deadline. I'd like to view tasks by count down to focus on my shortest deadlines first, and be reminded of count down tasks regularly. Count ups could help track things like billable hours and CLE. Suppose I need 30 hours of CLE in a given year, with a Calendar count-up I can log the hours I've put it and be reminded on a regular basis of how many hours I've yet to finish before the year-end deadline.
If anyone is aware of this type of functionality in a single-user environment (and preferably free), please leave a comment. I've given feedback to the good people at Scrybe suggesting that they include this in their next beta release, but I'm not holding out hope. Interestingly, Plaxo's calendar does Count-Downs. However, I can only get my GroupWise calendar to synch with Google Calendar, and when I synch Plaxo with Google it creates an all-day event across all of the count-down days, which creates a mess.
Tasks don't place in a vacuum: they're typically assigned, and due, on a given day and time. Similarly, few events are without associated tasks--an event is often just a task's deadline. For example, a court hearing on a motion is a calendar event that requires preparation: re-read the briefs, prepare for the judge's questions, and perhaps prepare a form order. Consider a Statute of Limitations: If you merely "calendar" the 2-year Statute of Limitations on the appropriate calendar date, you don't account for all of the actions required to appropriately satisfy the Statute, most of which should happen many months before that date.
I would like to see all of my To-Do's in a Calendar view. Some will terminate with a Calendar Event, in which case I'd like to be able to see on my calendar that I've got, for example, 30 days before a court hearing, or 45 days before a brief is due. This would help inform my agenda for the day or week. Some might object that tons of tasks would unduly muck up a Calendar view, but my answer to that is *filters*, as well as the ability to view everything in a traditional list view, as with most To-Do lists. So far I've only seen something approaching what I'd really like in Central Desktop and Same Page.
I've also been searching for what I'd call "Count-Down" and "Count-Up" functionality in a Calendar View. Count downs track the number of days left to prepare for a given calendar deadline. I'd like to view tasks by count down to focus on my shortest deadlines first, and be reminded of count down tasks regularly. Count ups could help track things like billable hours and CLE. Suppose I need 30 hours of CLE in a given year, with a Calendar count-up I can log the hours I've put it and be reminded on a regular basis of how many hours I've yet to finish before the year-end deadline.
If anyone is aware of this type of functionality in a single-user environment (and preferably free), please leave a comment. I've given feedback to the good people at Scrybe suggesting that they include this in their next beta release, but I'm not holding out hope. Interestingly, Plaxo's calendar does Count-Downs. However, I can only get my GroupWise calendar to synch with Google Calendar, and when I synch Plaxo with Google it creates an all-day event across all of the count-down days, which creates a mess.
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