Posts

The legal landscape of New York City employment law has been changing recently and in-house would do well to take the time to become apprised of the more important (and potentially dangerous) laws. It’s all part of a push to reduce unfair discrimination while at the same time getting the “unemployable” back to work. Still, it can be a killer for employers who aren’t careful. SCDEA New York recently passed the Stop Credit Discrimination in Employment Act (SCDEA) in early September....

In celebration of the new year, the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the IRS opted to be generous and to extend the deadlines for the 2015 information reporting requirements for employers and insurers under Affordable Care Act (ACA, Obamacare). Unbeknownst to the general public, this will be the first year that employers and insurers will be required to report specific information about their health coverage given to their employees....

In a capital habeas matter, the denial of petitioner’s petition is affirmed where: 1) the trial court was not required to hold a sua sponte hearing on petitioner’s competence to testify, because petitioner expressly declined the trial court’s offer to hold a competency hearing, his attorney stipulated to his competence, and four mental health experts testified that he was competent; 2) there was no evidence submitted to the trial judge of any physical ailments suffered by petitioner which would have affected his competence; and 3) based on five experts’ testimony that petitioner was competent, defense counsel made a reasonable investigation of petitioner’s mental state....

Question: Who in the world would want to go back through security? Answer: Everyone who had their electronic devices scanned at the border. Why? Because the Department of Homeland Security apparently hangs on to your electronic data, and you may want them to delete those embarrassing photos. Their Bad According to an internal report, Homeland Security does not always delete data seized during border searches of electronic devices. The DHS inspector general said investigators discovered data copied from devices “had not been deleted after the searches were completed....

In an action under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 6901-6992k, for environmental damage by Defendants’ oil operations, a preliminary injunction in favor of Plaintiffs is vacated, where the District Court impermissibly prejudged the merits of the case at the preliminary injunction stage and, having reached a conclusion as to liability, determined it was unnecessary to do the full preliminary injunction analysis. Read Sanchez v. Esso Std. Oil Co....

There must be something in the fluoride in Alabama, because there are a lot of dental litigants in the Heart of Dixie. We don’t cover all of the dental lawsuits that make their way to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, but what we’ve learned from the cases we’ve covered is that quasi-governmental health agencies get sovereign immunity. The main issue in today’s appeal was whether the Jefferson County Department of Health is a state agency entitled to sovereign immunity from a former employee’s discrimination complaint....

You gotta respect video-streaming companies that clean up movies for family-friendly viewing. After all, they are trying to to protect kids from profanity, sex, nudity, violence, and substance abuse depicted in original movies. Parents will pay to block those cringey moments when the family sits down for viewing. But that’s not a good reason to violate copyright laws, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said in Disney Enterprises, Inc. v....

It’s been a while since news came out that Canadian lawyers were offering legal services out of Walmarts. It was only a matter of time before Walmarts in the States began offering space for lawyers. As it turns out, this is already happening. Not only are Walmart law firms here in the United States, but Georgia attorney Evan Kaine has been operating his Walmart office in Atlanta since 2012, according to the ABA Journal....

When is it time to raise your billable rate? When you want to buy a new BMW. Just kidding, sort of. Deciding when to raise your rates depends on a number of factors, but always involves calculating the bottom line: how much do you need to stay in business? Staying in Business Assuming you have the authority to raise your rates, raising them is a move that will chart your financial destiny....

Defendant’s counterfeiting conviction is affirmed where the evidence created a more than reasonable inference that defendant manufactured the counterfeit bills found in his residence. However, his sentence is vacated and remanded where the government failed to prove that defendant was an organizer or leader in the conspiracy. Read US v. Cameron, No. 08-4277 Appellate Information Argued: May 15, 2009 Decided: July 21, 2009 Judges Opinion by Judge Gregory Counsel For Appellant:...

The Fifth Circuit ruled that warrantless data requests by law enforcement from cell phone service providers are in general constitutional, or in other words, not categorically unconstitutional. In the most recent federal word on this practice of requesting cell site data in order to zero in on the location of criminal suspects, the Fifth Circuit has determined that – despite the statutory standard being lower than probable cause – orders under the Stored Communications Act (SCA) for cell location data do not implicate the Fourth Amendment....

While running any business may require quite a bit of socializing, that doesn’t mean that employees won’t suffer from loneliness. In fact, accord to a recent study published in the Harvard Business Review, approximately 40 percent of Americans report feeling lonely. Although it may be easy for an employer to not get involved in what’s more than likely a person’s individual issue, a recent study stresses the fact that lonely workers are at a higher risk of poor performance and jumping ship....

What is CISPA, and how is the current version of the bill different than in years past? In President Obama’s 2015 State of the Union address, he urged Congress to “finally pass the legislation we need to better meet the evolving threat of cyberattacks.” One bill that’s been introduced is the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which would allow technology companies to voluntarily share private subscriber information with law enforcement regarding potential threats to computer networks....

A few weeks ago, a survey of international General Counsels showed that almost half of in-house legal teams used a competitive bidding process when hiring outside counsel. That’s a big jump from previous years, up 14 percent, but still surprisingly low. If you’re one of the half of GCs who haven’t yet embraced competitive bidding, you should. Here’s why: Competitive bidding, sometimes called a reverse auction, is a fairly straight forward concept....

Mad, deranged, demented, non compos mentis, unhinged, mad as a hatter, nutty, off one’s rocker, not right in the head – insane, or just plain crazy. Or, if you prefer the politically correct term: Scott Panetti is a man suffering from mental illness – severe schizophrenia, to be even more specific. He’s also on death row. In 1992, he shaved his head (poorly) and murdered his in-laws before holding his wife and daughter captive at gunpoint....

In a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 action claiming that defendant city and officers wrongfully interfered with anti-abortion protests, judgment for defendant-city is affirmed where the district court did not clearly err in finding that there was no persistent, widespread practice of applying inappropriate statutes to demonstrators to restrict their First Amendment rights because of the content of their signs. Read World Wide Street Preachers Fellowship v. Columbia, No. 08-31196 Appellate Information...

When it comes to your social media policy, the NLRB wants you to remember to respect concerted activity – even in the digital world. A recent NLRB memo reminds companies that enforcing highly restrictive social media rules in the workplace may be a violation of federal labor laws. In invalidating the policy, the NLRB found that the policy was overly broad and vague and violated Giant’s employees’ free speech rights under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)....

When trying to make a social media name for yourself, attorneys should be concerned about going too far. There can certainly be unintentional consequences if a lawyer’s social media engagement takes partisan stances and politicizes issues. Also, as we can learn from one of the more media savvy lawyers, Mr. #Basta himself, Michael Avenatti, if you have a reputation for airing information out to traditional and social media outlets, you could find yourself looking a little sheepish when federal investigators flat out tell you that they no longer want to interview your client because they do not feel comfortable with the meeting remaining confidential....

If you’ve been woken up by a databreach nightmare recently, you wouldn’t be the only one. From the federal government to garden-variety cheaters, it seems that no one is safe from hackers these days. For a GC, few things are worse than being notified that the company’s confidential data has been compromised. Don’t let yourself be paralyzed by data breach fears, however. Careful planning can help companies avoid data breaches and respond quickly and effectively should they occur....

This is a great idea. Seriously. Attorney Timekeeper is a simple way to track your billable hours in the majestic cloud. It has a touch-friendly interface. It’s a heck of a lot better than using an egg timer or trying to forensically track time at the end of the day (“Well, let’s see, there was that phone call, which my phone says was 24 minutes and 15 seconds. Then I went to the restroom …”)....