New England Biz Law Update

Non-legal business advice offered by a corporation’s in-house counsel was not protected by the attorney-client privilege, a Rhode Island Superior Court judge recently ruled in a case of first impression. The corporate defendants argued documents sought by the plaintiffs in ...

With electronic discovery now a fact of life in the federal courts following rule changes that took effect in December 2006, state courts will not be far behind in providing guidelines on discovery of electronically stored information.

New proposed guidelines from federal securities regulators should ease the costs and burdens of complying with the auditing requirements under Sarbanes-Oxley. The new guidelines recently issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission focus on the integrity of corporate managers and the most risky aspects of a company’s financial reports.

A corporate officer cannot challenge grand jury questions regarding an allegedly privileged conversation between himself and corporate counsel, the 1st Circuit recently ruled. The officer argued he had standing to assert the corporation’s attorney-client privilege, but the 1st Circuit disagreed, ...

Washington politicos are tussling over how far federal prosecutors can go in getting companies to waive the attorney-client and work product privileges as part of criminal investigations. For now, it would appear in-house lawyers have momentum on their side as ...

On April 26, the first-ever In-House Leaders in the Law event will honor in-house counsel in the region who have demonstrated extraordinary professional skills over the past year. The gala dinner and networking event will be hosted by New England ...

New Associations Mandie R. Araujo has joined New England School of Law as director of career services. Anne M. Action has been appointed professor of law and director of the law library. Megan E. Higgins has been named research counsel ...

Taming e-discovery

With a new chair in office and a new general counsel recently taking the helm, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission plans to pursue class actions, and to continue its restructuring plan and functioning as a “national law firm,” with district ...

An employee communicating with his lawyer on a company-owned computer could assert the attorney-client privilege because he hadn’t received adequate warning the e-mail exchanges might be read by the employer, a Massachusetts Superior Court judge recently decided. The employer, TransOcean ...