A shareholder-derivative complaint that a plaintiff waited the required period to file, but did so before the corporation rejected his demand, could be dismissed under the so-called “business judgment rule,” the Supreme Judicial Court in Massachusetts has ruled. The plaintiff ...
Read More »Securities law beyond Dodd-Frank Act
The Dodd-Frank Act is the most far-reaching securities legislation in a generation, but I’ll leave its analysis to the deluge of client alerts and webinars out there. Aside from Dodd-Frank, there are other important securities changes that lawyers need to ...
Read More »Class-action arbitration requires express consent
The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that the arbitration of class claims requires the express consent of the parties to the arbitration agreement. This decision has significant implications for employers, employees, and unions whose employment-related claims are covered by collective-bargaining ...
Read More »While you were away: changes in employment law
While you were away enjoying the sun and the sand, the state and federal legislatures (not to mention agencies and courts) have been reshuffling the deck, instituting some of the most sweeping changes in the area of employment law in ...
Read More »European patent law changes to impact U.S. practice
Earlier this year, the European Patent Office introduced a series of wide-ranging changes to European patent law that all patent practitioners should know about. Ostensibly, the changes have been made to accelerate European patent prosecution and prevent alleged abuses of ...
Read More »A straw donor by any other name is still a straw donor
Money is the mother’s milk of politics, the late California politician Jesse Unruh observed more than 50 years ago. Like it or not, with each election cycle, money has become ever more important to nurturing and sustaining political campaigns. As ...
Read More »Pre-filing investigations in patent cases are critical
Let’s face it: any litigation is expensive. Patent cases tend to be even more costly because of the technical issues involved, so legal counsel should know the ins and outs of a case before filing to avoid sanctions, eliminate surprises ...
Read More »Court’s ruling on NLRB affects hundreds of decisions
Labor and employment lawyers’ jobs got a little trickier after the U.S. Supreme Court decided that nearly 600 rulings from the National Labor Relations Board were handed down while the board lacked the authority to act. “It kind of makes ...
Read More »Lawyer’s e-mails to co-owner deemed privileged
The advice a corporate lawyer gave to only one of two doctors who co-owned a health center was protected by the attorney-client privilege, a Massachusetts Superior Court judge has ruled. The defendant doctor, who was sued by his partner in ...
Read More »‘Sexting’ decision leaves privacy issue unresolved
When the U.S. Supreme Court took up the case City of Ontario v. Quon, the legal world braced for the justices to rule on whether employees have a privacy interest in the messages they send on employer-issued mobile devices. But ...
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