But establishing litigation practices in foreign markets is a relatively new trend.
In appealing to the Supreme Court, Textron and its allies, including groups of corporate lawyers, corporate financial executives and corporate tax executives, argue that the decision, if permitted to stand, could allow other lawyers to get access to documents in which company lawyers assessed the need to establish litigation reserves in other cases.
"Nothing during this three-year litigation established a pattern or practice of racial profiling by the C.H.P.," said D. O. Helmick, commissioner of the patrol.
Years of litigation have established that Congress can compel testimony by subpoena only when it is related to a legitimate legislative purpose.
When Johns Manville, a building-materials company, filed for bankruptcy in 1982 in order to settle asbestos litigation, it established a trust fund to pay out 100,000 expected claims.
The basic idea here is to give startups that join the program ownership of a selection of patents from Google's and Intertrust's portfolio that they can then use as a deterrent against potential patent litigation from established players in their fields.
The same litigation also established that the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections had illegally opened his mail in an attempt to establish whether he was writing for financial gain.
Prior to that Michael spent a decade leading cutting-edge litigation that established new rights for LGBT people, first as Associate Director of the ACLU's Lesbian and Gay Rights Project and then as Deputy Legal Director at Lambda Legal.
The S.E.C., in letters to financial institutions, warned in October that an accounting rule "requires you to establish accruals for litigation and other contingencies when it is probable that a loss has been incurred and the amount of the loss can be reasonably estimated".
In the years since the limited privilege was established, there has been little litigation testing its bounds, lawyers say.
