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Robert Rainville, a former general counsel for Alex and Ani, filed a lawsuit against the Rhode Island-based lifestyle brand, claiming wrongful termination in addition to breach of contract with regard to stock and bonuses. The case is a good reminder for in-house counsel to formalize “perk promises” and to also make work boundaries clear. Rainville, a former candidate for state attorney general, filed the lawsuit earlier this month, claiming he was promised a transactional bonus of $1 million for helping the company obtain $70 million in financing from a private equity firm, JH Partners in San Francisco, last September, reports Cranston’s WJAR-TV....

District court judgment denying plaintiff’s request for preliminary injunctive relief is affirmed where: 1) plaintiff’s appeal from the court’s denial of the first request for a preliminary injunction is moot as there is no live controversy to adjudicate with respect to the first request; 2) plaintiff failed to make the requisite showing of irreparable injury in his second motion for injunctive relief, as he did not demonstrate the prospect of future harm or that the suspension of his license inflicted a serious continuing reputational injury....

You have a small firm. You want to be “connected” at all times. If an important client calls, you want to be able to answer that call, whether you are in the office, on the road, or making s’mores in the mountains (assuming you have cell service up there). This is what Google Voice used to be good at: forwarding incoming calls from your Google Voice phone number to anywhere (landline, cell, computer)....

Bribery costs an estimated $1 trillion a year and U.S. companies that engage in bribery abroad can suffer significant financial penalties under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. But bribery risks aren’t spread out evenly; some areas are corruption hotspots, while others are relatively corruption free. Here are some ways to tell the difference. When assessing corruption risk, you want to be aware of current developments, not just past ones. The FBI’s William McMurry, who deals with FCPA enforcement, recently told Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence that risk assessments need to keep up to date....

When you work with others, conflict is inevitable. That’s true whether you’re working with co-counsel, support staff, or just a difficult client. How you address these disagreements can be the difference between a productive relationship and completely dysfunctional one. Even in the adversarial world of the legal system, there’s plenty of truth behind the old saying “you can disagree without being disagreeable.” Here’s how. Sometimes style is more important than substance....

If writing a blog post were easy, everyone would do it. But if we’re being honest, everybody does do it nowadays because it is easier than driving a car. If you can Facebook, you can post. Getting people to read your writing, that’s another story. This blog post is about how to write a post in less than an hour. Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines. Ready The key to writing fast is to know what you are going to write before you start....

Litigation can make us mad, it’s true. But the key is not to let your anger take over. That, as Yoda knows all too well, leads to the Dark Side. David Novoselsky, a lawyer from Illinois, apparently didn’t watch any of the “Star Wars” films, because he issued a litany of offensive comments – in court – aimed at opposing counsel and the opposing party. That earned him a proposed six-month suspension from the Review Board of the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission....

The EEOC received a record number of workplace-discrimination complaints last year, with a notable increase in claims of religious discrimination. The nation’s sluggish economy may be partly to blame. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission received 99,947 job-discrimination complaints in the 2011 fiscal year that ended in September, the agency reported Tuesday. That’s 25 more complaints than in 2010 and the most-ever since the agency began in 1965, MSNBC reports. Here’s a breakdown of last year’s complaints by type of discrimination, as reported by the EEOC:...

A California law that would have let school administrators search students’ phones and electronic devices without a warrant died in the state assembly on Wednesday, as California Assemblyman Jim Cooper pulled the legislation from committee. The law, AB165, would have exempted students from protections against warrantless searches established in California’s Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 2015. The legislation was intended to help schools deal with cyberbullying and other threats, its backers say, but received significant opposition from civil rights groups....

Law school, despite being an academic institution, is a bit controversial these days. You have those who complain about not being able to do anything with their law degree, those who disagree, those who want to shorten law school to two years, and those who want to “kill” law school. Amidst the controversy, we see a new trend emerging – coursework geared toward working as in-house counsel. Let’s take a look at the offerings, and how you, as in-house counsel, can get involved....

Richard Thigpen, general counsel of the Carolina Panthers, is headed to the sidelines for good. Team owner David Tepper fired Thigpen as part of an overhaul following a sex scandal involving prior owner Jerry Richardson. According to reports, Richardson touched female employees, asked them sexual questions, and tried to trick them into kissing him. Thigpen had nothing to do with that – except for reviewing non-disclosure agreements with team employees. It’s a reminder that general counsel sometimes have to answer for the sins of their bosses....

This ‘Stupid Patent of the Month’ was once a mastermind’s plan. U.S. Patent No. 6,738,155 claims a “printing and publishing system” that uses a “communications network.” That would be a network printer, right? It doesn’t seem so patent-worthy – because, well, everybody thought of that. But a company claiming the patent threatened litigation to coerce license fees from hundreds of small businesses, and that was the master plan. Missed It by That Much Filed in 1999, the patent was approved at a time when it was easier to get software patents....

If nothing else, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is persistent. Even after President Trump started calling him “Mr. Magoo” a year ago, Sessions soldiered on. By the time all the other Trump attorneys quit, Sessions may be the last lawyer standing. But now he’s banging his head against another wall: prosecuting marijuana crimes. He has vowed to lead the charge on the pot industry, but nobody seems to be following him....

It’s not quite a smoking gun; more like a smoking engine in the self-driving car case against Uber. A federal magistrate has ordered the company to turn over a due diligence report, which the company had when it bought technology that allegedly belonged to Google’s self-driving car division. Google’s Waymo is suing Uber, and the trial judge seems impatient about the defendant stalling. “They have a right to get to trial on Oct....

Innocent spouse relief is one of the more interesting areas of tax law. Earlier this week, First Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a tax court’s ruling in a case involving a tax liability based on the innocent spouse statute. Before we get into the nitty gritty facts of the case, let’s talk about what innocent spouse relief is. You see, when you’re married and filing taxes jointly, you need to be aware of what your spouse is filing....

District court’s imposition of a 70-months’ sentence of defendant found guilty of conspiracy to distribute crack and powder cocaine is vacated and remanded as the defendant has met his burden of establishing plain error in the government’s breach of the plea agreement to recommend the minor participant reduction at sentencing. Read US v. Dawson, No. 08-4000 Appellate Information Argued: October 27, 2009 Decided: December 3, 2009 Judges Opinion by Circuit Judge Hamilton...

Do you want to know the secret of turning a good legal blog post into a great blog post? The answer can make a huge difference when trying to reel in potential clients. Sharing your ideas and expertise is a good way to start, but you need to think strategically to make your law firm’s blog really pay off. Here are a few strategies for legal blogging success, as suggested by FindLaw’s Lawyer Marketing experts:...

Is it possible? Can someone create a professional-looking law firm website and blog in an hour? No. It’s not. And that’s not what WordPress in One Hour for Lawyers is all about. The book promises to teach you the basics of launching a WordPress site in an hour, but you’ll need to dedicate an entire afternoon, plus regular time for updates, blog posts, and other maintenance, if you want a quality site to represent your firm....

Call it (early) spring cleaning. Call it New Year’s resolutions. Whatever you call it, you can start 2014 with a massive productivity boost by cleaning up malware and bloatware, embracing the cloud, and making other minor tweaks to ensure that your tech is working in your favor, not slowing you down. What are our five big tips? Read on: Right now, in your browser, how many toolbars are installed? If it looks like this, you’ve got some work to do....

In the global workplace where companies seek to bring in talent from outside the country as well as send employees on foreign assignments, a corporate legal department is often approached about immigration process and procedure. Where does an in-house attorney go for accurate, accessible information? Here are a few resources to help you make sense of the immigration questions that come across your desk: Immigration issues are not only a major concern for employees and potential employees but can have affect a company’s operations....