New England Biz Law Update

Two years after a guidance warning employers against the overly broad use of criminal background checks to screen potential new hires was issued by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, it is drawing renewed criticism from employers, business groups and ...

Lawyers in New England say a recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that struck down President Obama’s 2012 recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board threatens to invalidate hundreds of rulings made over an 18-month period. But the ...

An employer could not rely on the “inevitable disclosure” doctrine to block an employee from working for a competitor, a U.S. District Court judge has ruled. The defendant employee — who had been a scientist for plaintiff Boston Scientific, a ...

A recruiting company’s formula for calculating the per diem component of consultants’ wages violated the Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime provision, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled. A U.S. District Court judge had awarded the company summary ...

Volatility in the world of shareholder class actions has stoked a debate over whether the lawyers who bring such cases are laudable public watchdogs or stick-up artists. The number of federal securities class actions rose by 14 to 166 in ...

Massachusetts businesses are on pace to report a record number of data breaches in 2014. The revelation can be added to a litany of recent jarring developments that Bay State lawyers say have their clients taking privacy and data security ...

An employee could not bring suit in federal court more than 90 days after receiving a right-to-sue letter from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission despite the fact that he filed a new administrative charge within the 90-day period, the 1st ...

The U.S. Supreme Court has handed down a pair of decisions that could make it more difficult to bring patent infringement claims in some circumstances, further hampering suits brought by so-called “patent trolls.” But while the justices’ rulings in Limelight ...

Anyone who keeps tabs on the Massachusetts Superior Court’s Business Litigation Session in Boston has likely noticed an influx of lawsuits over the past year accusing businesses of improperly collecting ZIP codes from customers paying with credit cards. If that ...

Law firms that don’t ensure diversity within their ranks will lose out on opportunities to be hired by large organizations and young general counsels. That was one of the major takeaways at the annual meeting of Meritas — a referral ...