New England Biz Law Update

In an age in which so many communications are electronic, perhaps it’s not surprising that so few companies take advantage of the opportunity to expedite the allowance of their patents by conducting interviews with patent examiners in person at the ...

Imagine that you represent a company with a fixed-fee government contract and your client realizes that it may incur a loss on the contract. The client asks you, as legal counsel, to help find ways to charge the government more ...

On July 27, the governor of Massachusetts signed into law the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, thereby strengthening rights for pregnant employees and imposing additional accommodation obligations on employers. The act was a rare collaborative effort that received substantial support from ...

The Rhode Island Supreme Court recently issued its first decision discussing the burgeoning and unsettled topic of social media in the employment context. In Beagan v. R.I. Department of Labor and Training, et al., the court ruled there was insufficient ...

What state has more corporations than people? Delaware, with approximately 950,000 people and well over a million registered corporations. You would think that, given those demographics and the acceptance of Delaware courts as the premier authority in corporate law, practitioners ...

Once an appeal has been fully briefed and the oral argument has been scheduled, it is time to think about how to get ready for the argument. Thorough preparation for the argument should go far beyond just re-reading the briefs ...

“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.” — Wizard of Oz There is an issue in board governance about which there is a body of useless literature: “constituency directorships.” When a director is designated to represent a particular ...

Corporate directors and management are accustomed to broad discretion in governing a company’s internal affairs, but Balles v. Babcock Power, Inc., 476 Mass. 565 (2017), is a cautionary tale that urges restraint when the issue involves interpreting employment contracts and ...

The recent Ixia settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission provides significant insights for attorneys who advise clients on drafting and structuring contracts for transactions that are ultimately reported in financial statements. Ixia’s problems arose out of how it ...

In U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. St. Joseph’s Hospital, Inc., the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last December held that an employer’s “reasonable accommodation” obligations under federal law do not automatically require transferring a disabled employee to a ...