Corporate counsel look for help from specialists

Offering CLE one way to get in front of in-house counsel

By Deborah Elkins
Published: September 14, 2012
Tags: Corporate Counsel

What’s better than a free lunch? Free CLE. If a law firm wants to get in front of a potential big-ticket corporate client, there’s no better way than offering a program that lets their in-house lawyers score easy CLE credits just before the deadline. A large Virginia-based corporation likely has lots of Virginia-admitted lawyers who [...]

Applicants don’t ‘like’ requests for social-media access

By Dolan Media Newswires
Published: July 23, 2012
Tags: Corporate Counsel, Social Media

Social media clearly has changed the way we interact with each other. We offer up-to-date commentary about the details of our lives with BlackBerries, iPhones, smart phones and other devices. And we can say what we want without fear of reprisal in the workplace because we limit access to that information to a select group [...]

Employees conspiring to steal your business?

By Virginia Lawyers Weekly
Published: July 23, 2012
Tags: Corporate Counsel, Employment

Every corporate counsel knows that departing employees often take some form of an employer’s confidential and proprietary information to use at their next job. It is a fact of business and to some limited extent, little can be done (cost-effectively) to wholly prevent some of a company’s know-how from leaving with an employee. It is [...]

IP litigation: What every in-house lawyer needs to know

By Dolan Media Newswires
Published: July 23, 2012
Tags: Corporate Counsel, Intellectual Property

Intellectual property is one of the most complicated areas of law. Love it or hate it, at some point or another every in-house lawyer is going to be faced with some type of IP dispute. It may be necessary to fend off an attack on a company’s business practices and defend against accusations of trademark, [...]

Sticking to the script: Ethics issues can arise with metadata mining

By Deborah Elkins
Published: July 23, 2012
Tags: Corporate Counsel, Ethics, Technology

Electronic documents can tell a tale at odds with the surface script, and dealing with “metadata” can present temptations to corporate counsel when an email hits the wrong person’s inbox. Metadata includes the hidden information that describes the history, tracking or management of an electronic document. Sometimes metadata revelations are merely embarrassing. During the recent [...]

Protecting trade secrets, biz goodwill across state lines

By Dolan Media Newswires
Published: July 23, 2012
Tags: Corporate Counsel, Intellectual Property

According to a recent study, more than half of all employees admit to stealing employers’ confidential data. Meanwhile, a key employee has just left your company for a competitor. Whether this employee would steal your information or not, at a minimum she knows some of your most important trade secrets. She also controls many significant [...]

Lawyers, EEOC see rise in pregnancy discrimination claims

By Sylvia Hsieh
Published: July 23, 2012
Tags: Corporate Counsel, Employment Discrimination

When Leopold Aguirre allegedly fired Abigail Shomo from her job as a waitress at his restaurant in Radford, it wasn’t because he was unhappy with her work. In fact, he said he was satisfied with her performance. Instead, he allegedly told her that his customers did not want to see “a belly” on a woman; [...]

New fee disclosure rules increase responsibilities

By Dolan Media Newswires
Published: July 23, 2012
Tags: Corporate Counsel, ERISA

From the Pension Protection Act of 2006 to fee disclosure regulations taking effect in 2012, employer-sponsored retirement plans have seen a flurry of changes from Congress and regulators. While these changes stand to improve retirement outcomes, they also impose a significant burden on employers and plan fiduciaries. In particular, the new fee disclosure regulations will [...]

Can we talk? Combatting the fear of runaway fees

By Deborah Elkins
Published: July 18, 2012
Tags: Corporate Counsel, Practice Tips, Virginia Bar Association

A couple of years ago, a lawyer and his partner went to pitch a client for work on a closely held business dispute. The competition was heavy and costs were a significant concern. “What are your rates?” one of the client’s representatives bluntly asked. They were high, the lawyer knew, and he knew they were [...]