New England Biz Law Update

Employees are increasingly pressing “association” retaliation and discrimination claims around the country. For example, a man who was fired after his fiancée filed a discrimination charge with the EEOC can sue for retaliation under Title VII, the 6th Circuit recently ...

Law firms are increasingly turning to client interviews as a marketing and client retention tool. “During the last two years, there’s been a big change,” said Mozhgan Mizban, partner at The Zeughauser Group, a San Francisco-based legal consulting firm. “People ...

The meteoric rise of the green building industry seems like a feel-good tale suited for the Disney Channel. Builders, contractors and tenants all want to be part of projects that are energy efficient. Owners are finding that green buildings are ...

The president of a Connecticut-based sheet-metal manufacturing company in 2006 informed his predominantly Latino work force that he would no longer tolerate them speaking Spanish on the job. The new policy, written in English and Spanish, was pinned to bulletin ...

Employees are increasingly resorting to class actions to claim money for unused vacation time when their employment ends, and some recent settlements should give employers pause for thought. In December, Target Corp. agreed to settle a lawsuit with approximately 270,000 ...

Finding value with law-firm networks

An Alabama jury awarded $50 million to the family of a man who was killed by an exploding water heater. Richard Krantz, a 55-year-old real-estate broker in Daphne, Ala., was critically injured on July 1, 2005, when he attempted to ...

Companies are bracing for the impact of new rules placing greater responsibility on them to identify – and, if necessary, fire – undocumented workers. On Sept. 14, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was scheduled to put into effect amended ...

James Wallace, partner in a 270-lawyer Washington, D.C. firm, never used to get calls from potential plaintiffs. But now he gets them almost every day. That’s because in March 2006, Wallace’s first venture into plaintiffs’ work at Wiley Rein resulted ...

One day last fall, 30-year-old Scott Rodrigues arrived for work at the Massachusetts lawn and garden company that had hired him several weeks earlier, only to hear some bad news. The results of a drug test required for employment showed ...