Anyone who deals with human resources issues should consider attending the Upper Midwest Employment Law Institute on May 24 and 25 at RiverCentre in St. Paul. The conference offers 103 different substantive sessions and a terrific faculty (including me)! You will also walk away with terrific written materials, including the new Discipline and Discharge Handbook. [...]
Fire your unhappy employees!
What is the secret to having happy employees? According to this business owner, it’s two-fold: treat them well, and fire the unhappy ones. “As a manager you cannot make everyone happy. You can try, you can listen, you can solve some problems, you can try some more. But there comes a point when you are [...]
Employee Privacy Rights
This morning there are a couple of interesting privacy stories that serve as good reminders of best practices in this area. The first arises in connection with a union arbitration over discipline meted out to an employee of a municipal liquor store in Paynesville, Minnesota. As you know, these types of arbitrations usually depend largely [...]
Great advice on using e-mail
This article from yesterday’s NY Times on the continued importance of business travel contains some great advice from Don Lents, chairman of the Bryan Cave firm:
“You should never engage in a disagreement electronically. If you are going to disagree with somebody, you certainly don’t want to do it by e-mail, and if possible you don’t [...]
Creative Motion Practice
Reading this motion – To compel defense counsel to wear shoes without holes at trial – has got me thinking about all sorts of other motions that I’ve overlooked in the past. To wit:
Motion to require counsel to use mouthwash;
Motion to prohibit counsel from wearing that hideous tie (you know which one I mean);
Motion to [...]
OSHA is driving nicer cars
U.S. marshals last week seized a black 1992 corvette at the home of the president of Brocon Petroleum after the company failed to pay $7,500 in back wages to a former employee. The back wages were the result of a consent judgment filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey to resolve a [...]
In-house lawyers are working harder for less pay
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 [...]
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’ [...]
