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Entrepreneurs starting new ventures will encounter a host of legal issues requiring consultation with an attorney on an episodic or ongoing basis. It is critical that careful attention be given to the attorney selection process to properly match the needs of the company with the credentials of the attorney.Additionally, options should be explored regarding the billing and payment methodologies the attorney is willing to entertain. The financial resources and cash flow of young companies will likely have a direct impact on the financial agreements entered into with legal counsel. Further, companies desirous of offering the attorney a stake in the company as full or partial payment for legal services need to be mindful of ethical restrictions applicable to the lawyer, as well as exceptions to the lawyerʼs malpractice coverage arising from his or her role with the company

The purpose of this paper is to study the general trends in the area of dividend policy which will help to identify fertile research streams in this area with a potential for further investigation.

To conduct a systematic literature review, the authors use a three-step methodology to collect resources and thus evaluate the research work done in the area of dividend policy. First, the necessary data are extracted from the Scopus database using the relevant keywords. The initial search results are then narrowed down to include only English language journal publications which are stored in the file. Finally, this file is used as primary data for data analysis. Data analysis is done using bibliometric and network analysis tools to recognize the trends in dividend policy to help researchers identify emergent areas for future work to be done.

This study reveals that research in the area of dividend policy is rapidly expanding since 2005; affiliation statistics show that majority of the publications are done in the USA and the UK; and many questions linked to dividend decision remain unanswered, especially in respect of emerging markets.

There is a need to organize the literature and understand the different areas that have been explored by many researchers. This study attempts to recognize the important research studies, determine the current areas of research attention, provide an understanding for current research interest and provide guidelines for future studies in the area of dividend policy.

The purpose of this article is to improve the use of evidence-based practice and research utilization in the offender profiling process. The use of offender profiling has been met with increasing resistance given its exaggerated accuracy. The “Investigative Journalist/Expert Field Micro Task Force” model, a collaborative method that incorporates offender profiling and is designed to address unresolved serial homicides, is introduced and evaluated alongside recommendations on attaining adherence.

The model was field tested in 17 instances. The measures used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to gauge the usefulness of their case consultations, whether their input helped catch the offender, offer new leads, move the case forward, provide new avenues or give new ideas, were used to evaluate the model.

The model established likely patterns of serial murder activity among strangulations of women in Chicago, Cleveland, and Panama and resulted in convictions of suspects in Louisiana and Kansas City. This model is valuable when used to parse modern-day offenders from those who committed unresolved homicides as the latter display different behaviors that can make investigations difficult endeavors. Results from the field tests mirror those from the literature in that profiling alone did not result in the capture of serial killers. Instead, profiling was used in conjunction with other efforts and mainly as a means to keep the investigation moving forward.

Unresolved homicides are at a point of crisis and represent a significant but largely unaddressed societal problem. The success of this model may compel law enforcement to restore faith in offender profiling.