Wednesday, October 7, 2009 at 01:32PM 
LB Network Tax Law Channel host Rob Wood writes in the "Daily Tax Record" 8/17/2009:
"The Top 10 things The IRS Wants You to Know When Contractors Become Employees"
"When the Good Lord created tax law experts, He wanted them to be like Rob Wood" (Lao Tzu)
Scott gets the lowdown from Rob Wood:
Friday, September 25, 2009 at 04:36PM Attorney Rob Wood joins Mark Wahlstrom on this weeks Speaking of Settlement to discuss the release of new regulations and clarification on Section 104 and Section 130 damages. If you are a trial lawyer, settlement professional or tax professional you will want to know what this revision to IRC Section 104 is all about.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009 at 05:16PM 
Rob Wood writes in the Los Angeles Daily Journal..."Some say the US v.Textron ruling eviscerates the work-product protection in the tax area and may threaten to extend beyond taxes and IRS collections."
Host of the Law Channel, Rob Wood, gives perspective on a ruling that could have broad privacy implications.
Monday, September 14, 2009 at 05:01PM 
(NY Times) This fall, law students are competing for half as many openings at big firms as they were last year in what is shaping up to be the most wrenching job search season in over 50 years.
For students now, the promise of the big law firm career — and its paychecks — is slipping through their fingers, forcing them to look at lesser firms in smaller markets as well as opportunities in government or with public interest groups, law school faculty and students say.
The frenzy has even pushed the nation’s top firms, a tradition-bound coterie, into discussing how to reform the recruitment process with an earnestness that would have been unthinkable just years ago.
Read the article in the New York Times
Washington and Lee Law School Dean Rod Smolla discusses the current job market and the school's revolutionary 3L curriculum with LBN host Scott Drake.
Monday, August 17, 2009 at 04:54PM In a stunning turn of events on what could be one of the largest Qui Tam cases in US history, the First 
Jan SchlichtmannCircuit Federal Appeals Court released it's opinion today reinstating a part of the whistleblower claim against Ortho Biotech, the Johnson & Johnson subsidiary, regarding the alleged kick back scheme for it's drug Procrit.
This case was spearheaded by Attorney Jan Schlichtmann on behalf of the relators Duxbury and MacClellan and when the trial court dismissed the claim, the appeal was filed and argued in mid 2008 and today's decision affirmed part of the decision but cleared the way for the Duxbury claim on kick backs and rebating tied to the off label marketing and use of Procrit in oncology clinics and hospitals.
In this exclusive interview, Duxbury and McClellan's attorney Jan Schlichtmann discusses the courts ruling, shares his thoughts on the elements that were affirmed as well as the next steps in this long dormant but now front page Whistle Blower case regarding Procrit and the marketing of it's off label use. As long time readers of this page will recall this was also featured in a Wall Street Journal profile on the case at about the time of the original trial in 2007 and while many had given the case up for dead, the Appeals Court has done a comprehensive analysis of what the bar is to filing a Whistle Blower claim and brought in a real stunner on what could be a massive potential claim against Ortho Biotech.
Monday, July 27, 2009 at 02:21PM (Boston Globe) More than three years into a state program that awards lucrative tax incentives to lure filmmakers to 
Massachusetts, a new report by Governor Deval Patrick’s administration concludes that taxpayers are not getting their money’s worth.
The report, which the state Department of Revenue released yesterday, says that Massachusetts is getting only 16 cents for every dollar the state spends on the incentives, and that much of the benefits from the program are going to out-of-state companies and workers.
Enacted in 2005, the program effectively underwrites a quarter of filmmakers’ production costs, in hopes that the movie industry will in turn hire Massachusetts workers and generate economic activity in the state. But the report indicates that many of the jobs are temporary, and that the state isn’t getting anywhere near its money back on its investment.
The state handed out about $166 million worth of tax credits to 267 projects from 2006 through 2008, according to the report. The state is set to spend nearly $100 million more on 30 projects in the works, the report says.
The tax program has fueled a debate - and one with serious political implications - within Patrick’s administration over whether the tax credits are wasting taxpayer money or planting the seeds for future economic growth.
Critics say the incentives give huge tax breaks to wealthy Hollywood moguls and movie stars who hardly need the help. But the program has support from powerful Beacon Hill lawmakers, including Senate President Therese Murray and House assistant majority leader Ronald Mariano, both of whom are hoping to bring large, permanent soundstages to their districts. The projects together would cost close to $600 million, but their construction hinges on the continuation of the film tax credit program, Murray and Mariano say.
“This is like the seeding,’’ Murray said. “You have to look at the bigger picture.’’
But critics, citing other states’ experiences, have seized on the report, saying it confirms their fears that Massachusetts is giving away money at a time of fiscal crisis, when vital services are being cut.
Peter D. Enrich, a Northeastern University law professor who specializes in tax incentives, said Massachusetts has joined a self-defeating national competition among other states.
“We are essentially becoming co-producers with the Hollywood moguls,’’ said Enrich, a former top official in the Dukakis administration.
What direction Patrick will take is not clear.
His top fiscal adviser, Leslie Kirwan, the secretary of administration and finance, who oversees the Revenue Department, is pointing to the agency’s findings to raise questions about the benefits of the tax credits, according to administration officials.
But Patrick’s economic development staff counter that the incentives have helped generate hundreds of millions of dollars in economic activity, and will help create a vibrant, permanent film industry.
The debate among Patrick’s aides has created unease among those hoping to see a film industry gain a foothold in the Massachusetts economy.
“We’re getting a mixed message from the administration,’’ said Mariano, a Quincy Democrat who is trying to persuade investors to build studio facilities at the former South Weymouth naval air station. “The fiscal folks are telling the governor one thing, and the development people are talking very differently.’’
Last month, Mariano and other lawmakers prevailed upon Patrick to back off his push to cap, at $2 million, the amount of salary that qualifies for the tax credit. Hanging in the balance, according to lawmakers, was production of a Tom Cruise-Cameron Diaz movie, “Wichita,’’ which is set to starting filming here. The movie is poised to be the biggest film ever shot in Massachusetts.
For the governor, the debate carries political implications, in part because of the interest that Mariano and Murray have in the construction of film studios in their districts.
Patrick’s relationship with Murray, which has been fragile at best, was recently strained further when the administration last month rejected a request by Plymouth Rock Studios for a $50 million bonding subsidy for road, water, and sewer construction. The Plymouth studio is looking to build a $400-million complex and says it will eventually create as many as 4,000 jobs.
Murray has voiced support for the investors in her hometown. Her top political adviser, Kevin O’Reilly, this year took a job as Plymouth Rock’s vice president for government affairs. For the past year, he had been a consultant to both her campaign committee and the investors.
The controversy over the tax breaks reflects what is happening around the country. States are in a fierce competition to lure movie producers; some are enhancing their credits in efforts to outbid one another.
“It’s an absurd race to the bottom, and one which we can’t win,’’ said Representative Steven J. D’Amico, a Democrat from Seekonk. “They are a Trojan horse that backs us into a permanent entitlement for a highly profitable industry.’’
Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a business-funded watchdog group, added, “The Hollywood stars and famous directors come to town and the normal critical eye given most credits goes by the boards.’’
“It’s wrong to ask whether it’s worth it based only on short-term results,’’ said Gregory Bialecki, the secretary of economic affairs. “The right question is, is it a better long-term investment?’’
Source: Frank Phillips, Boston Globe
Scott Drake interviews Northeastern University law professor Peter Enrich in this video:
Tuesday, July 7, 2009 at 03:37PM 
Wood and Porter partner Rob Wood, host of the Tax Law Channel writes in the Los Angeles Daily Journal: "It's hard to imagine a more compelling case for tax free treatment than being wrongfully confined behind bars."
A recent Us Tax Court case says these damages awards may be taxable.
"The news is full of stories about wrong-fully convicted prisoners released
from custody after years of incarceration. Often, they receive some kind of compensation. Whether the payment is large or small, it can rarely make up for
what sometimes turns out to be a ruined life. Most such unfortunates are shocked to learn they may have tax problems too. When a person is vindicated and receives compensation for unlawful incarceration, recent IRS releases suggest it may be tax- able. That is indefensible."
LBN host Scott Drake interviews Rob Wood.
Monday, July 6, 2009 at 03:08PM Philip Delves Broughton is a former journalist at the Daily Telegraph of London. In his book "Ahead of the Curve" he chronicles his love-hate relationship with the Harvard Business School, where he spent two years getting his M.B.A. He says HBS must share accountability for the financial crisis.
From The Washington Post
Reviewed by Bryan Burrough
In 2004, the 31-year-old Paris bureau chief of London's Daily Telegraph newspaper, Philip Delves Broughton, gave up the rigors of daily journalism. Too many long nights in dismal airport lounges and too many silly French press conferences had taken their toll. Casting about for a change in careers, he applied to business schools and, to his surprise, was accepted at Harvard.
Broughton tells what happened next in Ahead of the Curve, a useful primer for anyone considering a similar path, or just curious as to how Harvard churns out all those gleaming little masters of the universe. This book should really be called "Harvard B-School for Dummies," or maybe "I went to Harvard B-School and all I got was this stupid T-shirt," because it assumes the reader, like Broughton, knows precisely nil about the corporate world, and because the author somehow managed to graduate from the world's premier MBA factory without, well, an actual job.
The book doesn't work especially well as a conventional narrative. There's no suspense; Broughton writes that it's almost impossible to flunk out. Rather, Ahead of the Curve offers a good sense of Harvard Business School's day-to-day workings, everything from what the other students are like to the merits of each lecturer to impressions of business titans such as Warren Buffett and Stephen Schwarzman, who revolve through the doors offering pointers on how to get filthy rich.
Broughton makes a delightfully clueless guide. His math skills are crude, and he can't operate Microsoft Excel. When the other students flock off to Wall Street for summer jobs, he can't get one and is forced to spend three hot months in a Harvard library writing a novel that, thankfully, he tells us little about. In fact, from the outset, he is entirely ambivalent about entering Corporate America. He doesn't really want to work that hard, he admits. He wants to spend time with his family.
How on earth, you ask, did such a slacker end up at Harvard? Great story. Broughton, a fan of the finer things, was interviewing a Latin American business magnate and took to admiring the hushed surroundings, the paneled walls, the spiffy MBAs hovering over laptops in conference rooms. "I felt I had been given a glimpse of a better world," he writes. "If this was business, I could get used to it."
And that, it appears, was the sum total of his experience when he arrived in Cambridge. There are no jaw-dropping surprises once classes begin: long hours surrounded by haughty young hedge-fund hotshots on leave from Wall Street, a frat-house social whirl marked by streams of vodka sucked off blocks of ice and an oh-so-gradual grasping of basic business principles. Broughton tells it all with solid, disciplined prose. He wastes no words and gives us just enough personal information to allow us to understand who he is. About the only places the book bogs down are passages in which he feels the need to actually explain some of the things he was trying to learn: the fundamentals of accounting, manufacturing, marketing, etc.
He is especially good at conjuring up the intangible benefits of a Harvard MBA: the network of Fortune 500 CEOs available with a single phone call; the sense that, just by entering the school, he has somehow become a card-carrying member of the Davos set. At one point, he and a buddy, intoxicated by a class on entrepreneurship, scribble out a business plan for an Audible-like Internet site, and -- voila! -- with nothing more than an idea and a few Powerpoint slides, he finds himself taking meetings with the country's top venture capitalists. Eddie Murphy once did a "Saturday Night Live" skit in which, donning the guise of a white businessman, he finds everyone jostling to give him free money and gifts. That was a joke; this is Ivy League reality.
As his two years draw to a close, Broughton wrestles with his next move. His classmates are all taking new jobs at McKinsey and Bain and Yahoo, but despite myriad interviews, he has yet to field an offer. Part of the problem is what he wants, as he writes in a "Help Wanted Ad I Sought But Never Found" : "Absurdly profitable company seeks journalist with ten years' experience and a Harvard MBA for extremely highly paid, low-stress job in which he can wear nice suits and loaf around in air-conditioned splendor making the very occasional executive decision. Requirements: acute discomfort in the presence of spreadsheets, inability to play golf, poorly concealed loathing of corporate life, knowledge of ancient Greek." Broughton eventually draws interest from Google, but after 14 separate interviews, including an eight-hour marathon in a tiny conference room, he backs out, unable to reconcile his ambitions with life in a Dilbert cubicle.
Luckily, Broughton makes a better writer than corporate drone. If you're thinking of following in his footsteps, I'd invest in this book first.
Scott Drake interview Phili Delves Broughton in this video.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009 at 01:41PM Recent revelations about corporate greed and wrong-doing have significantly altered juror attitudes,
says Dr. Noelle Nelson, a California trial consultant and author of the booklet, "101 Winning Tips: How to Give a Good Deposition & Testify Well in Court."
Jurors who may have once rationalized, 'What the heck, everybody does it,"are now holding lawyers and their corporate clients to a higher standard,"notes Nelson. "Taking advantage of others by virtue of contractual technicalities and loopholes was viewed as flaky but an ordinary way of operating in the business world. Now, it's seen as an unacceptable moral failing. "
Nelson is finding jurors are favoring lawyers who express sincerity and genuine belief in their client's cause and who are respectful towards the legal process and all involved. "Jurors are less convinced by lawyers who focus on the 'letter of the law' and more persuaded by those who incorporate the 'spirit of the law' into their arguments. It's a subtle but important shift. Jurors are more likely to discredit lawyers' arguments if they appear to justify unethical behavior."
Nelson continues, "Jurors do not appear to be looking for perfection, or favoring only those 'without sin,' but are looking for honesty and other quintessential American ideals--ideals that in many jurors' minds have been sorely lacking in business and society in recent years."
Scott Drake interviews Dr. Noelle Nelson
Wednesday, June 17, 2009 at 01:31PM 
Attorney Robert Wood of the firm Wood and Porter joins host Mark Wahlstrom for a segment on Speaking of Settlements to discuss the efforts of several tax law professors to raise the issue of whether it is fair or equitable for attorney's to enjoy the ability to structure or defer their fees.
More information on this paper written in Tax Notes is available on both www.thesettlementchannel.com and www.taxlawchannel.squarespace.com Listen as Rob Wood disputes this attack on structured legal fees and assists settlement professionals and tax lawyers in working through the process of taking advantage of this outstanding tax deferral tool.
