New England Biz Law Update

Is encryption the answer?

The increased use of electronic discovery has resulted in a new cottage industry of sorts – e-discovery special masters. A special master is a parajudicial officer appointed to assist courts, such as by taking testimony or advising judges as a ...

For years companies have made mandatory pre-dispute arbitration a boilerplate provision in all contracts, but they are now rethinking the use of mandatory arbitration in business-to-business, consumer class action and employment cases. The reason: An increase in discovery, motions and ...

The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has “reached out” to employee invention assignment agreements, ruling they should be interpreted under federal law, not under the state law that governs other clauses in the same agreement. The decision, DDB Technologies, LLC ...

Can an employer restrict its employees from using e-mail for non-job-related solicitations, such as for union activity, if it also permits employees to use e-mail for other non-business purposes? Unionized and non-unionized employers alike have faced this question all too ...

In more than six years investigating and prosecuting potential securities law violations as an enforcement attorney at the Securities and Exchange Commission, I frequently watched companies and their lawyers make decisions in the spirit of zealous advocacy that the enforcement ...

Employers scrambling to prepare this year

Applying the attorney-client privilege to communications to and from in-house counsel can be a vexing problem in managing litigation. Over the years, I’ve increasingly seen numerous disputes in court, as well as arbitral and regulatory proceedings, where internal communications with ...

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Feb. 25 adopted new rules to facilitate the operation of electronic shareholder forums for publicly held companies. This development is just one of many changes the SEC has undertaken to conform its regulatory philosophy ...

Last year was probably the most momentous in intellectual property law in decades. Will the rest of 2008 be as dramatic? Here’s what to look for: Patent reform legislation – finally? Patent reform legislation stalled in Congress again last year. ...