New England Biz Law Update

Conducting juror perception research near the beginning of the litigation lifecycle can help corporate defendants develop an appropriate strategy that addresses and perhaps eliminates obstacles created by jurors’ perceptions that may stand in the way of a favorable outcome at trial.

Even though companies are increasingly facing high-stakes commercial or securities-related litigation arising out of the subprime crisis or the down economy, in-house counsel are showing a tendency to omit or refrain from asking important questions, or setting key parameters, in ...

Electronic discovery has become a major component in the litigator’s tool bag. Subject to new court rules and intense court scrutiny, e-discovery is fraught with issues, problems and risks and is quite time-consuming and expensive. As reported in New England ...

Does a company automatically own a patent to an invention invented by an employee who uses company resources and on company time? Or, if a company hires an independent consultant to create a design, does a company automatically own a ...

[Editor’s note: This is the first segment of a six-part series – Succeeding In-House – by Christopher Mirabile, general counsel at IONA Technologies in Waltham, Mass., in which he will explain why basic legal skills are not enough for long-term ...

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court recently declined an opportunity to expand the circumstances in which the corporate form may be disregarded. The court in Scott v. NG U.S. 1, Inc. et al., 450 Mass. 760, 881 N.E. 2d 1125 (2008), ...

I have avoided the subject of executive compensation since writing two articles in this space in 2006, primarily because so much has been written about it elsewhere. But it is hard to avoid a six-ton gorilla, while looking for another, ...

Newspapers these days are full of stories about reduced profits, job losses, and cost cutting by large and small employers. The most recent report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 80,000 jobs disappeared in March, the third consecutive ...

Conducting an intellectual property audit is an important business process. It can provide information to a potential investor or acquirer or licensee of a company about the company’s IP positions and risks. More specifically, it can insure that a company’s ...

The 9/11 terrorist attack and extreme weather events such as Hurricane Katrina show that a company’s normal operations can be suddenly and unexpectedly delayed or halted for extended periods of time. 3Com Corporation in Marlborough, Mass., faced such a situation ...