A recent survey suggests that pay for corporate General Counsel will be flat at best this year, and that GCs are working harder because they have lost internal resources.
The silver lining is that for some in-house lawyers deferred compensation is higher. As companies’ bottom lines increase, deferred comp should grown. As one consultant described it: “What you [...]
In-house lawyers are working harder for less pay
Local laws prohibit discrimination against caregivers
A new report from the Center for Worklife Law concludes that at least 63 local governments in 22 states—including some of the nation’s major urban areas—have passed employment anti‐discrimination laws that go beyond federal and state statutes to ensure that those with caregiving responsibilities are not discriminated against at work. Cases filed under these laws may [...]
Supreme Court to hear case on privacy rights of public employees
The Supreme Court will hear a case later this term which will help establish the contours of privacy in the workplace, although the focus will be on public employees, not private.
Sgt. Jeff Quon was a member of the Ontario, California police department. The department had a written policy reserving the right to monitor “network activity [...]
Who owns the rights to e-books?
Authors and publishers are arguingover who owns the rights to publish electronic versions of backlist book titles. In the old days, before digital books were ever thought possible, the standard contract between author and publisher gave publishers the right to all works “in book form.” The question now is whether e-books are “in book form.”
In [...]
The Year in Ideas: Employment Law Edition
This week’s New York Times Magazine contains its annual Year in Ideas, which always makes for fascinating reading.
Two of the articles touched on employment law topics. The first, called “The Myth of the Deficient Older Worker”, describes a study by three economists who pitted “seniors” (those over 50) against “juniors” (those under 30) in three decision-making [...]
Florida to Judges: You can’t have friends (at least on Facebook)
Attention lawyers and Judges in Florida: You can no longer be Facebook friends. As reported in the NYT, the state’s Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee decided that when judges “friend” lawyers who may appear before them, it creates the appearance of a conflict of interest since “it reasonably conveys to others the impression that these lawyer ‘friends’ [...]
Upcoming CLE on Advanced Employment Issues
Minnesota CLE is planning a really impressive-looking CLE for the experienced employment law practitioner on January 29, 2010 in Minneapolis. It includes sessions on the intersection between employment law and
executive compensation
employee benefits
OSHA
bankruptcy
taxation of settlements and awards, and
intellectual property.
It will also include insights from corporate attorneys on contract negotiation, data privacy, and handling government enforcement.
(It is true [...]
Ready for some privacy turducken?
The Supreme Court seems likely to accept a case involving background checks on employees who do contract work for the government, a legal hodgepodge which one judge has analogized to a turducken (a turkey stuffed with a duck and a chicken).
The case was brought by a group of scientists and engineers at the Jet Propulsion [...]
Employers: Take care with background checks
The EEOC has sued a nationwide convention company alleging a pattern or practice of unlawful discrimination because the company has rejected job applicants based on their credit history, or if they have had one or more of various types of criminal charges or convictions. The EEOC alleges that this practice has had an unlawful discriminatory [...]
