Overall, the end of year rush for IPOs didn't go as expected and investors are eyeing the market with caution going into the New Year.  But with several high-profile internet companies announcing plans for IPOs in the near future, 2012 could start out with a lot more action than you may think.

To learn more the current IPO market and what we can expect to see happening over the coming months, we are turning to Tom Murphy, a partner at the Chicago office of McDermott Will & Emery and head of the Securities & Capital Markets Affinity group.

We’ve got a great podcast this month to kick-off the New Year featuring an interview segment with attorney Yar Chaikovsky about monetizing patents and the forthcoming impacts of patent reform.

With the launch of the Thomson Reuters 2011 Top 100 Global Innovator^SM program, Thomson Reuters has recognized the companies and institutions that lead the world in innovation activity.

To learn more about the program, we speak with Bob Stembridge, Intellectual Property analyst at Thomson Reuters. 

Our last Legal Current podcast of 2011 has a bit of a political twist as we feature two segments that take a closer look at the constitutionality of President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform.

In our interview segment, we talk with Andrew Selesnick, a partner at Michelman & Robinson LLP, about the proposed healthcare bill and its impact on the 2012 presidential election.

In many cases, face-to-face interactions are declining while digital communications such as email, instant messaging and text messaging are on the rise. While these more virtual interactions do make it easier to do business anytime and anywhere, they are also a potential breeding ground for white collar crime.

Today’s executives need to be increasingly aware of their communications and interactions in order to avoid finding themselves in legal hot water.

 
To learn more about the growing white collar crime trend, we turned to Stuart Gasner, former federal prosecutor and senior partner at Keker & Van Nest LLP. Stuart sheds some light on why we’ve seen this area of crime increase substantially in recent years as well as provides some practical advice on “how to not become a white collar criminal."

With the trial of ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak still frequenting global news headlines, the spotlight for anti-money laundering and anti-corruption issues has largely stayed on the Middle East. But there’s another part of the world, a little closer to home, where U.S. companies still need to exercise caution and that’s Latin America.

To learn more about the anti-money laundering enforcement efforts in Latin America, as well as how U.S. companies can re-double their efforts to ensure compliance, we are speaking with Will Barry and Jeff Lehtman, both partners out of the Washington D.C. office of Richards Kibbe & Orbe.

We’ve got an entertaining episode this month, starting out with our “Chaos in the Courts” story about a 22-year-old self-proclaimed vampire, just in time for Halloween.

In this month’s interview segment, we speak with Sally Abel from Fenwick and West about some potential trademark issues that are being created with the new .xxx domain for the adult entertainment industry.

We’ve got a great “back to school” episode this month – featuring two segments about employment opportunities for law school graduates.

Social media seems to be just about everywhere, and used by just about everyone. But with a lack of legal boundaries surrounding social media, it becomes difficult to determine what is fair game for law enforcement and what is private property. We spoke with John Browning, managing partner for the Dallas office of Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard and Smith, and author of The Lawyer’s Guide to Social Networking: Understanding Social Media’s Impact on the Law about this issue.