While rumors of the demise of the billable hour may have been greatly exaggerated, law firms are increasingly offering a range of alternative fee arrangements for clients now more open to accepting them. Apart from the traditional contingency fee agreement, ...
Read More »Year later, ABA issues ethical guidance for working remotely
A lawyer’s ethical obligations when working remotely are outlined in a new opinion issued by the American Bar Association nearly a year after most attorneys set up shop at home in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. On March 10, the ...
Read More »Attorney writes ‘handbook’ for in-house tech lawyers
David Sclar has just self-published the book he wishes he could have turned to for practical advice once his career course was set as in-house counsel guiding digital health and wellness companies on matters ranging from security and privacy to ...
Read More »Non-union employees can’t recoup pre-‘Janus’ ‘agency’ fees
State workers who refused to join the public employees’ union were not entitled to recoup union “agency fees” that they were compelled to pay before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that such arrangements were unconstitutional, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court ...
Read More »Manager fired for ‘poor’ sales can pursue age bias claims
The former sales manager for a regional food distributor can proceed with state law age discrimination claims despite undisputed evidence that he was hired when he was 65 and fired by the same person who hired him after his first-year ...
Read More »Bid to end professor’s suit cites to ‘ministerial exception’
A case recently argued before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court pits the religious freedom of a Christian college against a professor’s right to seek redress for alleged workplace discrimination. Specifically, the SJC in DeWeese-Boyd v. Gordon College, et al. was ...
Read More »Judge: remote-working exec doesn’t support jurisdiction
Massachusetts courts did not have personal jurisdiction in a contract dispute between foreign tech companies based on the fact that the chief operating officer of the New Hampshire plaintiff worked remotely in Boston, a U.S. District Court judge determined. The ...
Tagged with: employment law Personal jurisdiction Remote work
Read More »Anticipating COVID vaccine, employers ponder best course
With several U.S. pharmaceutical companies now conducting large-scale COVID-19 vaccine trials, employment lawyers are beginning to field queries from their corporate clients on whether their employees should be required to take the vaccine once it becomes available. As a general ...
Tagged with: employment law
Read More »Unions can’t charge non-members for lobbying expenses
A private sector union could not use agency fees collected from non-members to pay for lobbying expenses, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has determined. In 2009, intervenor Jeanette Geary, a nurse who had quit the United Nurses & ...
Tagged with: Labor law National Labor Relations Board
Read More »Energy company covered for losses due to town-ordered shutdown
An energy company’s insurance covered lost revenue from a town-ordered shutdown of more than 11,000 solar panels in response to a fire that damaged only 88 panels, a U.S. District Court judge has determined. The plaintiff, NextSun Energy Littleton, operated ...
Tagged with: Business interruption insurance Business law
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