What will the legal ramifications be for Michael Jackson’s children over his estate left $500m in debt?

At the writing of this, Michael Jackson’s passing is is less than 24 hours old. It’s well known that he lived a lavishly expensive lifestyle that left him struggling to stabilize his personal finances of is estate, estimated to be $500m in debt.

The singer had been due to perform a series sold-out of comeback concerts at London’s O2 Arena, which would have helped alleviate some of his debt.

Here are some of the legal and financial facts:

• Jackson is survived by his son, Prince Michael, 12 and daughter Paris, 11, and Prince Michael II, seven.

• Per TMZ, Jackson’s ex-wife, Debbie Rowe, is set to receive full custody of the oldest children. Ms. Rowe is thought to have waived her parental rights , but apparently the process was never completed, so it is presumed that she will be the only one who will get custody. (The only way she can be denied custody is if the California courts determine it would be ‘detrimental for the children’.)

• At the time of his death on June 25, 2009, he made annual income estimated at $19milllion
  

• In 1985 Jackson pat $47 m for ATV Music, the company that owned the rights to 251 Beattles songs written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney

• In 1988, He bought the 2,500-acre estate, Neverland

• In 1993, he was accused of molesting a 13-year-old boy, and despite settling with the boy's family, his reputation struggled to recover, sparking Jackson't decent into financial trouble.

• 1995 -- Jackson merged ATV with Sony for $150million, and sold Sony music publishing rights for $95million.
  2002 -- Signs his finances were still in desperate trouble when he faced a lawsuit from Union Finance & Investment Corp for $12million in unpaid fees and expenses.

• 2003 -- Jackson was arrested on charges of molesting another 13-year-old by 2005. The trial is held and Jackson is acquitted of these charges. During the trial, a forensic accountant said he was spending $20m to $30m more per year than he earned.

• 2008 -- Michael Jackson's mounting debt became so much that he faced foreclosure of his Neverland ranch and was forced to sell off personal items

• Jackson found a benefactor in Sheik Abdulla bh Hammad Al Khalifa. But, the relationship soured and the second son of the King of Bahrain sued the singer for $7million, claiming he had given him millions of dollars to pay off debts, record an album, write his autobiography and subsidise his lifestyle.

• Jackson had highly sought after items removed from neverland earlier in 2009 in preparation for auction, but in the wake of his death, they could be put back on sale.
  

It is likely to take many months before it is clear whether Jackon has anything left to leave his beneficiaries. or whether a lifetime of accumulated debts has used up the wealth he earned during his career.More news about this legal battle is sure to follow.

Referenced from the Daily Mail Reporter
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1195641/Lawyers-set-legal-battle-Michael-Jackson-estate-left-500m-debt.html


I look forward to your comments!

What will the legal ramifications be for Michael Jackson’s children over his estate left $500m in debt?

Karasma Media & Alain L. Locke - P.S. 208 Receive PENCIL’S 2008-2009 Emerging Partnership Award

Principal, Susan Green, of Alain L. Locke P.S. 208, and I had the privilege of being the recipients of PENCIL’S 2008-2009 Emerging Partnership Award last night. My company, Karasma Media, Public Relations & Publicity, responded to a need to create a new identity for the school.


We garnered a wide variety of media coverage, developed a new school logo and social marketing platform. The platform includes a blog http://alainllocke.org; that has helped to increase communication between teachers, parents and students, as well as businesses, elected officials and other members of the local community.

PENCIL, the nonprofit organization that develops innovative solutions to the challenges confronting public schools by creating partnerships between business leaders and principals, held its 2008-2009 Year-end Partnership Celebration last night. Sponsored by long-time supporter JPMorgan Chase, the event marked the accomplishments of more than 450 PENCIL Partnerships during the school year, and honored several standout partners with three inaugural awards for “Emerging,” “Innovative,” and “Veteran” PENCIL Partnerships.

I had the support and creative energy and generosity my friends and business colleagues: Paul Leibowitz of Leibowitz Communications, who designed the school's logo and blog; Sperling Greene Partners, Tursack, Inc. and Karen Arthur of KA Communications, behind me.

NEHAL BELTANGANDY (logo designer) and PAUL LEIBOWITZ

“Through my PENCIL Partnership at the Alain L. Locke School, I have seen that—when provided with the right opportunities—children will take steps to proactively develop their future,” Smith said. “I am proud to be playing a role through PENCIL in creating new possibilities for young people that often help them defy their circumstances.”

The other two awards given:

The 2008-2009 Innovative Partnership of the Year Award was given to Principal Christopher Ogno of PS 247, The New York City College Partnership Elementary School in Brooklyn and Partner Ivy Cohen, President of Ivy Cohen Corporate Communications.

The 2008-09 Veteran Partnership Award was given to Principal Rima Ritholtz of PS 176X in the Bronx and Justin Israel of Channel 13 WNET/21 WLIW. With a student body of more than 570 autistic pre-K to 12th graders, PS 176X in the Bronx called upon the veteran experience of PENCIL Partners Rima Ritholtz, Principal of PS176X and business partner Justin Israel, Senior Patron Advisor at Channel 13 WNET/21, to develop programs that would offer critical support to the students’ parents.

Congratulations to my fellow PENCIL Partners on a wonderful year of truly making a difference for the children New York City!

Karasma Media & Alain L. Locke - P.S. 208 Receive PENCIL’S 2008-2009 Emerging Partnership Award

Don’t Laugh, Twitter Can Be Serious (Yes, even for legal marketers…)

One NY Times op-ed author, Molly Murray-Thriepland makes comment on her Twitter experiences:

“It isn’t teenagers who are using Twitter. They’re in the minority. It’s the 45 to 54’s who are the largest group and the over 65’s outnumber the teens by miles. This is because Twitter is fairly commercial. People who use it are allowed only 140 characters, but it’s enough to mention products or to direct others to blog sites. Twitter could almost be called a “blog directory.” There are over 14 million tweeters in the U.S. alone.”

To quote legal blogger and IP attorney, Kevin Houchin, from an interview I recently conducted with him about balancing his personal and professional brands on-line:
“Twitter is speed-networking on Crack”!

Read the NY Times op-ed article here: “How Tweet It is”

See these related articles:

Your Personal Brand vs Your Corporate Brand – Added Clarity for Legal Marketers

For Social Media To Be Truly Effective, It's Important To Remember Good Things Take Time

Your Blog and Law Firm Branding With Social Media

My Typical Morning Routine - Using Social Media Tools For New Business

Legal Marketers: The Top Ten Reputation Tracking Tools Worth Paying For

For Legal Marketers, The Heart of PR is Blogs In 2009


Kara works with legal marketers to create a more clearly defined focus and distinctive business strategy that will provide them with a competitive advantage for new business, higher reputation recognition, and enhance their ability to attract, win, and retain the clients they really want.

Don’t Laugh, Twitter Can Be Serious (Yes, even for legal marketers…)

Survey Says: Companies Want to Monitor Workers on Social Networks - Shocking!

A new survey from Deloitte reported that the growing role of social networks and the dilemma they present for corporations that spend huge amounts to burnish their image.

Some of the results the professional services firm found:

• 60% of the executives interviewed believe they have a right to know how employees portray themselves and their organizations.

• About 53% of employees say that their social networking activities should not be any concern of their employer

• Approximately 74 % of employees recognize that social networks make it easier to damage a company’s reputation.

Read the article in full in Business Week:
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/technology_at_work/archives/2009/05/workers_social.html?campaign_id=rss_tech

See these related articles:

Do Law Firms' Blog Posts Need To Be Checked By the Legal Team?

Social Media Networking 101: Tips For Legal Marketers

How To Be King (or Queen) of Social Media At Your Firm

Social Media Is Public Relations for Legal Marketing

Photo by gradesi


Kara works with legal marketers to create a more clearly defined focus and distinctive business strategy that will provide them with a competitive advantage for new business, higher reputation recognition, and enhance their ability to attract, win, and retain the clients they really want.

Survey Says: Companies Want to Monitor Workers on Social Networks - Shocking!

Your Personal Brand vs Your Corporate Brand – Added Clarity for Legal Marketers

During a lecture I recently gave to a group of aspiring entrepreneurs at New York's City College, I spoke with the students about creating their online platforms, being responsible for their online personalities and managing their reputation.

In the conversation I had with them, I spoke about how they can start to build their on-line reputations as an entity within their chosen professions, well before they're ready to enter the work force. I also talked to them about the risks involved, and the responsibility they have in managing their reputations as responsible business people, and I wanted to talk about the issues of co-branding here as well.

Let's take a look one of my favorite legal bloggers, author, IP attorney, and principal of Houchin & Associates, P.C. , Kevin Houchin. If you review Kevin's Twitter or Facebook pages or his blog, The Business of Creativity, you'll see a distinct dichotomy between Kevin Houchin the individual and his law firm, Houchin Law. Kevin's personality is evident all over the place, and how much the people following him appreciate it.


I asked Kevin a couple of brief questions about his experiences using social media:

How has your methodology of incorporating your personal and corporate brand impacted your business?

I've been blogging for years, which has created dozens of new clients because my Web site is more helpful than most attorney sites - it's not all about me and how smart I am (like most lawyer sites) - it's about them and how helpful I might be to them in their situation.

I've been told that I was selected specifically because I'm not pictured in the corporate style - that I come off as human and approachable. My target clients like that. They like that I'm a normal guy that happens to be a lawyer instead of some stuffed shirt sitting in paternalistic judgement of how dumb they must be to have gotten into a situation where they need my help.

From Blogging to Social Media

LinkedIn hasn't really brought me much, but you have to be there - it's just not my niche and I don't have as much fun on that site personally. It's like a corporate job fair and I never liked those in real life...

Facebook has deepened my relationships with friends, colleagues and clients around the world, and has brought me into contact with several clients.

Twitter blows the roof off things! It's speed networking on crack. It provides access to people that would otherwise never return a call or email. In the 7 months I've been on Twitter my reputation has flourished and my network has increased incredibly. Twitter is directly responsible for at least a dozen new clients - probably more.

Now things are getting integrated, so it's hard to tell what created what, but Twitter has led directly to new client contact, several PR opportunities including speaking, writing, and interviews and those PR events lead to more clients. The forward to my most recent book was written by a Twitter/Facebook contact and that has led to some really wonderful friendships and opportunities. The results have truly been "priceless"!

Have you gotten any negative feedback your fellow legal marketers?

No, they want to know how to do it themselves, but usually they aren't willing to put themselves out there.

There’s nothing more personal than a person
The social web thrives on personality and authenticity, ie: mixing a "personal touch" with a professional service. When Kevin talks about life and business on his blog, it makes him not only a person, but a qualified attorney with a fulfilling personal life and commitment to humanity.

The Road To Co-branding
I realize that for some legal marketers, the idea of the melding of our personalities with the companies and brands we work for is really scary. Which means you'll need to figure out how the balance works. In it's simplest form, the phenomenon will look like "co-branding," two brands coming together toward a common goal.

As you spends intimate time in this space (I am an full time employee for Critical Mass) the dance is delicate. It requires an understanding that the arrangement can be mutually beneficial along with a comfort level of the space

Will there be risks? Of course there will, and Kevin brilliantly puts these concerns into perspective:

Lawyers live and work in a world saturated with the fear of what could go wrong. Our ethics rules are ultra-conservative, and many lawyers live in fear of some obscure ethics violation, so they're afraid to share their lives.

Additionally, I think many lawyers live in fear that people will find out that they don't know everything - they're not as smart as they like to make people think and that being found human, fallible, and something less than all-knowing will hurt their business, when in fact, the opposite is probably more true.

Photo by MMachado

Please see these related articles:

Your Blog and Law Firm Branding With Social Media

For Social Media To Be Truly Effective, It's Important To Remember Good Things Take Time

My Typical Morning Routine - Using Social Media Tools For New Business

Legal Marketers: The Top Ten Reputation Tracking Tools Worth Paying For

For Legal Marketers, The Heart of PR is Blogs In 2009

Kara works with legal marketers to create a more clearly defined focus and distinctive business strategy that will provide them with a competitive advantage for new business, higher reputation recognition, and enhance their ability to attract, win, and retain the clients they really want.

Your Personal Brand vs Your Corporate Brand – Added Clarity for Legal Marketers

50 ways Legal Marketers can incorporate “Social Good” into their “Social Media Strategy"

As we adapt our business strategy to maneuver within this economy, it’s important, particularly from a public relations perspective, to keep in mind that they need donor dollars to keep doors open. Our natural tendency is to cut back on on the purchase of luxury goods, and giving to our global social sector is faced with shortening the line or thinning the soup – neither of which are acceptable options.

Because charities are rising to the challenge to engage us online, it’s a breeze for us – the cash-strapped consumers and belt-tightening businesses– to meet them halfway.

Karasma Media provides pro-bono public relations services to the Alain L. Locke – PS 208 elementary school in Harlem, New York, as a volunteer with PENCIL. (Their new social media platform will be live the week of June 26th) With the terrific media relations expertise of Steve Greene and Karen Sperling at SperlinGreene, the kids were featured on Fox 9 News.

However, the public service activities you implement can be much simpler, and you can draw attention to the charitable organization, simply by sharing what you're doing on your blog and commenting about it on other social media platform. It doesn't have to be a huge multi-media event, (although those are always wonderful!)

Qui Diaz is director of strategy at Livingston Communications, makes some wonderful suggestions on Mashable.

"Why not buy gifts that give back when shopping online, or take a minute to sign and forward a Facebook petition? Those of us who have a penchant for technology and digital matters can go one further by integrating the "social" good into our "social" media discussions."

See the article in it's entirety here:
http://mashable.com/2008/12/17/digital-charities/

See these related articles:

Social Media as PR in Legal Markerting is Underused and Under Funded

Social Media PR for the Legal Community – An Interview with Quiver & Quill

Social Media PR, the legal Marketing Business & Web 2.0 Weenies

How Social Media Impacts Advertising and Marketing for the Legal Industry

Kara works with legal marketers to create a more clearly defined focus and distinctive business strategy that will provide them with a competitive advantage for new business, higher reputation recognition, and enhance their ability to attract, win, and retain the clients they really want.

50 ways Legal Marketers can incorporate “Social Good” into their “Social Media Strategy"

My Typical Morning Routine - Using Social Media Tools For New Business

With the onslaught of information both online and in print, I thought it would be helpful to let you in on the established habits I implement in order to stay effective and not waste time. Just like you, I have client responsibilities plus my own company’s To-Do list, so I try to have a strategic, disciplined approach for the start of my day that works well for me.

Fairly regularly, I’m asked to describe my typical morning using social media tools for new business.

The first thing I do every morning is check for messages. I’ve set up online monitors to keep me aware of conversations, links, comments regarding my personal brand, client’s, competitors, industry info as well as new business opportunities for agencies through RFPs, agency reviews, etc.

I use tools like Google Alerts, TweetBeeps and currently have daily alerts using terms like the examples below that are automatically emailed to me.

• “Kara Smith”
• “www.karasmamedia.com”
• “http://blog.karasmamedia.com”
• “blog, legal, law”
• “twitter, legal, law”
• “Holland & Knight”
• “legal, RFP”
• “Alain L. Locke Elementary”
• “Education, New York”

I scan through the email alerts to see if there is important info for me or one of my readers, clients and others who are in my network.

The next thing that I typically do is check my Twitter account to see if there are any “Replies or Direct messages.” Then, I check for new followers and send them a personal direct message. I will conduct a quick search using search.twitter.com and/or Tweetscan and SocialToo, checking for conversations and comments about @karasmamedia. I then make appropriate responses. The beautiful thing is, once you get in a habit of doing these things it takes only a few minutes.

Next, my Google Reader account which contains RSS feed subscriptions for some 30 blogs, local, state and national news and of course health & beauty! I use the list view to quickly scan through typically 125 to 160 daily articles.

I have several favorite blog authors that I read everything that they write and others I look for post titles that draw my interest. I’ll click on the ones of interest. If the article warrants I’ll “Share” the item and/or “Star the Item” in Google Reader. I may use the info for one of my blog posts or I may click on my “Twitthat!” button that I’ve setup in my browser bar. Twitthat is a shortcut to posting an article on Twitter that might be of interest to my audience. It automatically states the article title and compresses the URL. It takes literally seconds to post an article to Twitter. A great tool.

Another tool that I might use is “BlogThis" also in my browser bar. If I come across an article that gives me inspiration for a post or one that I want to identify in a post as a resource for my readers I can BlogThis and it will automatically post a draft post in my Blogger blog that automatically will include the post title and link to the source.

I may spend 20 to 45 minutes scanning and reading posts that are organized for me in GoogleReader. But it is a more focused approach that saves lots of time.

After I’ve done these tasks which mostly involves reading, I review the Blogger analytics for KARASMA MEDIA, that are e-mailed to me twice a day by Google. I quickly check the analytics to see what my blog traffic has been, what posts have generated the most traffic, what words were used in search to find my blog, etc.

I try to publish one new blog post per business day but I generally write these on nights and weekends and preset the publishing date/time. I have roughly 30 blog post drafts so I don’t have much difficulty finding something to write about, even though I now have over 150 blog posts published on the KARASMA MEDIA LEGAL MARKETING BLOG.

This reflects my typical morning and takes approximately an hour of my time. This is an hour well spent and provides a great start for the day.

Have any tips that have been helpful to you that you’d like to share?

Kara works with legal marketers to create a more clearly defined focus and distinctive business strategy that will provide them with a competitive advantage for new business, higher reputation recognition, and enhance their ability to attract, win, and retain the clients they really want.

My Typical Morning Routine - Using Social Media Tools For New Business