New England Biz Law Update

Recent progress in the ongoing battle to protect the attorney-client privilege is certainly noteworthy, but it’s primarily focused on protecting privilege rights from attacks made by outsiders: prosecutors, enforcement officials, and plaintiffs’ class action lawyers, to name a few. The ...

The good side of working with outside counsel

Deep Throat famously told Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to “follow the money.” Twenty thousand people agree, at least when it comes to compensating high-level executives. That is the (record) number of comments received by the Securities and Exchange Commission ...

Today, general counsel need to orchestrate a much broader set of resources in managing investigations into allegations of corporate misdeeds. If not, a small problem can rapidly turn into a corporate crisis.

Employers often spend much time, money and effort to structure positions and compensation packages so employees will be exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA) overtime requirements. But despite employers’ best efforts, some policies could unwittingly jeopardize employees’ exempt ...

The Family and Medical Leave Act remains among the more difficult laws for companies to administer. Even with flawless and aggressive application of your company’s policy and procedures, some employees will still disrupt the workplace with sporadic and unpredictable absences. ...

Massachusetts lawmakers overhauled the state’s trademark laws by adopting for the most part the Model State Trademark Bill (MSTB). The changes promise to not only streamline the state trademark registration process and make it more consistent with federal and other state registration processes, but they will also reduce the number of registered marks that are no longer used in commerce.

It’s a now-familiar scenario: A corporate computer system is hacked, and sensitive proprietary data may have been stolen or compromised. In the crush of today’s marketplace, and given the ephemeral, quickly transferable nature of data, savvy business leaders know they ...

Job changes require new

The number of employers conducting background checks on job applicants has grown dramatically. Now more than ever employers recognize the dangers and costs associated with bad hiring decisions, and the Internet has made obtaining background information on applicants considerably easier and less expensive.