Effective and very thorough in its detail

Of all the technology valuation reference books I have read, this one is by far the best. Richard has compiled and condensed the most useful valuation techniques/methods into his book, and it's easy reading. However, if you're just looking for one tried and true, quick and dirty recipe to value all technologies in all markets and in all business conditions you'll be disappointed. Richard has provided an excellent collection of methods, however unlike many authors, he writes for the business professional and thus he requires the reader to use professional judgment, coupled with good business intelligence (information) to select and then apply the methodologies. Basically, there are rarely easy and simple answers when valuating technologies, however Richard's book makes it a heck of a lot easier and the results provide a more credible foundation for commencing valuation negotiations.

I enjoyed reading Dr. Razgaitis book on the Early -Stage Technologies. It covered the different basic approaches to valuation. I specifically liked his analysis of the 25% rule and the Monte Carlo method for valuations. These two methods are on opposite ends of the difficulty spectrum of valuations. The details mentioned in those two methods has allowed me to strengthen the valuation reports that we do at Inavisis, Inc.

I also liked Chapter five which covers the Rating/ranking method to determine valuation. Although the chapter was general in nature, it outlined the basic principles that appraisal professional use in their valuation report and in litigation environment to support their analysis.

I use the stories outlined in the book in many of my valuation training courses. Dr. Razgaitis book is a must for the libraries of appraisal professional.

Sam Khoury

This book is heavy on the legal information (it's from Nolo Press) but light on what to do to get an invention licensed. Has good legal advice which would be a use to any invcentor who has a deal ready to go, but not much help on evaluating the proct for license or how to get a licenseing deal to come about. Would recommend this book only for those who have already made prototypes, contacted licensees, and are ready to start writing contracts - then get this useful book.

I felt that this book provided a firm clear basis to write a contract to license your invention. I have to agree that it did little but rehash the usual ways of marketing your invention. Perhaps the book should have be titled: Write a good contract for licensing your invention.

I thought this book took you nicely through each step in the licensing process explain your legal rights and the legal rights of others in detail. I enjoyed the book and thought it was easy to read despite covering alot of legalese.

"Take Your Great Idea to Market With a Solid Legal Agreement" promises this new book. The promise is fulfilled with plenty of solid details about the licensing process. This is not about venturing or bringing your own invention to market, but about protecting your property rights while licensing the invention. This would include inventors who work for companies that may want to license their work.

This book could be better organized than it is -- sometimes it seems Epstein wants to give us a complete, systematic statement of his life's work as a legal theorist, whereas at other times he seeems content to think of this book as a series of loosely related explorations or essays.

The organizational problem explains why I can't give this five stars. But I can enthusiastically give it four. The critique of the positivistic jurisprudence of H.L.A. Hart (pp. 50-54) puts more of value in five pages than many authors can put in a whole book!

Richard Epstein (author of "Takings" & "Forbidden Grounds") offers up this collection of essays on why economic liberty works for the benefit of virtually everyone, while planned economies don't.

Epstein is a brilliant logician and wordsmith who can draw even the most skeptical into his web of reason. He doesn't argue that free market liberalism is best because it is the most moral, but because it simply works the best.

Here he delves into human nature, the motivation for increasing government authority (power & control) and the impetus for altruism. "Principles for a Free Society" is a powerfully persuasive argument in defense of economic liberty and against the expansion of the government.

Richard Epstein, a law professor at The University of Chicago, is more than a legal expert. He is a scholar and theorist presenting his distinctive libertarian interpretation of the appropriate role of government in a free society.

In each chapter, Epstein discusses a principle of interest to him and to society. He reviews the balance between the need for personal liberty and common good. Overwhelmingly, he documents the history of our society as one where changing legal/societal standards have reduced personal liberties. To illustrate, he uses real examples such as Social Security, zoning, and organ transplants that show how the changes negatively affects peoples' lives.

I was most intrigued by Epstein's reasoning in his writings about altruism. I must admit that I would fall into the pessimistic camp that believes that altruism is usually egoism/self-interest in disguise)

As he notes in the introduction, the book is a collection of his thoughts and essays over his career. As a result, he does not really tie the thoughts together except for an introduction and epilogue, which emphasize the desire to return to a more laissez-faire society.

With so many things going through your head during the time of divorce it may be hard to focus, but if you can remain focused, the information and legal papers included in this book will save lots of money, thereby alleviating the added stress brought on by financial pressures (legal costs).

If you are seeking a divorce you will save thousands of dollars on expensive litigation and wrangling. All the forms and instructions are clear and easy to understand. This is one of the best investments you can make if a low conflict/low cost divorce is what you seek. I recommend this book!!!...

Posner's "Economics of Justice" is still a fascinating read, almost two decades after its first publication. In particular, the first half of the book, which attempts (I think quite successfully) to carve out a middle ground of "ethical wealth maximization" between the 'poles' of Kantian ethics and utilitarian thought, is quite good. I am not always convinced that wealth maximization as a juridical norm in fact escapes the strictures and failures of utilitatarian thought, but Posner's philosophy and economics approach to the law demonstrates quite conclusively that economic thought has much to say about issues of justice. More broadly, Posner's lucid arguments dispel some of the many myths and critiques (some by people who do not understand economics) which contend that economics either oversimplifies or commodifies too much of human experience. What is needed is an update to this work, and more generally, a stronger outpouring of philosophical explanation from other economics-minded scholars such as Posner, to respond to the many socio-cultural legal critiques of law and economics. Overall, though, an excellent read; and although one need not agree with all of Posner's conclusions, the ideas are well worth examining.

Although denied by the author in his book 'Problems of Jurisprudence,' Richard Posner was an integral early pioneer in the movement known as 'Economics and Law.' Picking up where George Stigler and Gary Becker left off, Posner argues that not only human behavior, but law can be understood by the theory of wealth-maximization. This is the philosophy that individuals act in a way that will maximize their benefit (the results of their action) while minimizing cost (energy, time etc. expended in action.) While my review is necessarily simplified, Posners audience is in for a well-made case.

After his case is made, he moves on to offer a hypothesis of how law may have developed in primitive societies against this backdrop of wealth-maximization. I've read several authors attempts to 'create' a state (Rousseau, Locke, Nozick) and to my eyes, Posners is the most convincing. Let's see what you think!

The third section applies wealth-maximization to privacy and discrimination laws. It is here that Posner is the most likely to disturb. For example, he distinguishes between privacy as seclusion and privacy as secrecy. Privacy as secrecy, Posner argues, is not only inconsistent with constitutional text but is not much more than the right to be able to distort information (whether by omission or declaration) to present and future transactors. This, in turn, distorts the 'market-place' of information and is inconsistent (a slippery slope) with the wealth-maximization of society.

Whether you agree or disagree with Posner, his intellect is undeniable, his thesis, original and his writing, first rate. Should be read by anyone interested in jurisprudence, politics, economics and psychology.

This book is very educational about how to go about the licensing process. It's very easy reading, not the technical boring style. The included software is a major plus! You can customize the included licensing contracts.

Michael Waller
Iconium Clothing...

With this one creative work, Attorney Richard Stim has given the inventor lightening power [like the art on the cover shows] in understanding what it takes to license an invention. It's easy to grasp because it's written in layman's terms. He has graphs on the licensing process, with forms in the back of the book as well sample agreements. He's given the inventor the tools and formats for licensing agreements, non-disclosure agreements, option agreements, contract work, agency letters, etc. And, all these agreements are also on a disk which is included with the book. He's outdone himself. I can't say enough about what Richard has put into this excellent licensing course for the inventor. I believe that it not only helps the independent novice inventor, but is also a good reference for those who consider themselves experts. Even attorneys should find this an excellent addition to their legal library. I recommend it highly. Accolades to Richard.

I enjoyed the content of this book greatly. The term "assessement center" often has an enigmatic aura and is intimidating to the inexperienced. This book breaks down the components of an assesment center, defines what personal qualities are evaluated, gives the reasons for such evaluations, and offers suggestions as to how one can develop the evaluated qualities and skills. If you're looking for a way to "beat" the assessment center, look elsewhere - here you will find honest counsil on how to improve your leadership abilities.

One complaint, however, is that there are grammatical and typographical errors to the level of distraction. There were so many, in fact, that the book's credibility came into question for me.

I can't believe that no one has spoken about this book yet. If you wanting to know about assessment centers, than this one is for you. I have purchased several books in this field and this one is the best. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for another addition.

The authors are clearly experts on the design and structure of law firm web sites. They carefully lay out the criteria that they use and then guide the reader through numerous examples.

While not inexpensive, this book is worth every penny (all 250,000 of them!). It makes a great gift for that tough-to-please lawyer on your list.

I am already looking forward to the 2001 edition.

These two have been around the 'net and the law for years and really know their stuff. This book is very expensive, but if you're in the business of law firm web site development, at a law firm looking to develop a site, or simply interested in the confluence of law and the Internet, you must make this investment.

While the ranking of existing law firm sites is useful, of particular interest is the abundant advice on what to do, or not to do, to make your site interesting, easy to navigate and compelling enough to draw repeat visitors.

Another reviewer noted that this is the best intro to Posner. It probably is. The essays here touch on legal reasoning, economics, philosophy of law, sexuality and many other topics, giving the reader a 'survey' view of Posner. Most books of essays, though, have a cohesiveness that I did not detect here, which is fine, so long as the intention is ONLY to get a sampling.

I can not stress enough how phenomenal a writer Judge Posner is. The essays are both challenging and readable; contraversial yet objective. In one, Posner defends his book 'Sex and Reason' against radical feminism. In another he examines Richard Rorty and the impact that modern philosophy has on law. Perhaps the best essay is on pragmatic legal reasoning, entitled "What am I? A potted plant?'.

Besides the lack of cohesion, the biggest reason for the subtracted star is that, while Posner discusses economics, legal method and gender issues, his full length books on the subjects are better. Respectively, they are "The Economics of Justice", "The Problems of Jurisprudence" and "Sex and Reason." For the student of any one of these areas, read those first, read this after. Everyone else, start here!

Judge Posner is in the news these days because he has served as a mediator in the Microsoft trial. He is both a public intellectual and a judge, as well as one of the leading philosophers of the movement in legal theory called "Law and Economics."

This is an admirable record, and one way the judge has built his reputation is by being a prolific and readable writer on law. Overcoming Law is one of the best summaries of his work because as a series of essays, the reader is at liberty to dip into the most interesting topics.

Understanding law and economics is a prerequisite. This is Posner's (and Ronald Coase's) idea that descriptively, judges try to maximize social wealth by allocating to claimants the results that those claimants are most willing to pay for. Prescriptively, to Posner, this is a Good Thing.

Solomon in the Bible acted in a Posnerian fashion because the "good" mother valued her child's life over her possession of the child whereas the bad mother valued her possession over the kid's life. Posner would not say that Solomon saw the abstract good and made a decision according to his conception of the abstract good (which Posner feels can be flawed.) Instead Posner would say that Solomon found a decision procedure which revealed the true values of the claimants.

This makes sense. What makes less sense is that Posner turns Marx's theories on their head, and this is rather dizzying, since Marx turned Hegel on his head. In Posner's ideal world, any atomic business transaction reveals that actor A values product or service P more than B does if B transfers that product or service at price R.

Better critics than I have pointed out that economic actors who are acting close to the bone, such that they must work or trade, or die, may not value their mininum wage more than the service they render. They may value the time highly but sacrifice it anyway as a precondition for their existence. As Kant would say, existence is not a predicate, but a precondition to having predicates. Translated to the economic sphere, existence is not a Yuppie luxury, like an SUV, nor is it a necessity like bread. It is a precondition for having either.

Posner writes, I believe, from the standpoint of the lucky American who has never had to face extinction as a consequence of the economy and this gives his thought a certain lack of heart which is also a failure to think things through.

This is most on display in Posner's essay "Hegel and Employment at Will." Here, Posner speaks directly to legal philosophers including Drucilla Cornell who have made a case, based on the thought of Hegel, for property rights to jobs. Posner's defense of employment at will (which was thought, as recently as 1980, to be an out of date theory) is based on nothing more than an empirical, and questionable, economic claim: that we enjoy higher economic growth in America as a consequence of employment at will.

This is to be misled by the numbers, for many observers of European societies (with their social welfare programs and longer vacations) have pointed out that qualitatively, the consequent higher unemployment in Europe does NOT seem to lead to a high level of misery. In Japan, during the last ten years, that country has been in deep recession, with high unemployment, but qualitative commentators have noticed that the Japanese react differently than Americans have done.

Posner tends to accept high levels of employment which result from churning in the employment market as a good thing. As a sitting judge with probable lifetime tenure, Posner does not see the disruption that results from employment at will...even to businesses themselves.

In general, Posner is a clever and readable ideologue and apologist for Reagan-era ideology. No matter what your views on these changes it is a very good idea to read Judge Posner...if only to be able to spot arguments which use his thought, and to show (as does philosopher Martha Nussbaum) that by their lack of qualitative, and even ethical, reflection, they lack the rationality they claim.

One of the few works that lives up to expectations! Provides Judge Posner's wonderful insights into almost all subjects touching upon the law while avoiding the rambling style which marred his The Problems of Jurisprudence. Posner once again shows that he does not fear taking controversial positions or picking fights. One of the few books that delivers intellectual meat without losing a sense of humor. Accessible and frank style make it a joy to read. Highly recommended for anyone with even a passing interest in the law, the workings of the judicial system, philosophy, or economics