Commercial Law

The issue of legislative action (or inaction as the case may be) in matrimonial matters is always of interest. At present, there are many issues that call for such action and others that are still kicking hopelessly around in this election year. Two such issues come to mind just now, one finally resolved, the other apparently destined to "wait 'till next year.

This article explores the question of whether diagnostic labels have a legitimate place in the custody evaluation context and related evidentiary considerations of reliability, validity, relevance, and prejudice.

BAPCPA made significant changes in the treatment of alimony, child support and other obligations arising out of the dissolution of the marital relationship. This article refers to these obligations collectively as "family law obligations." Although many articles appeared in 2005 regarding the changes made by BAPCPA, it is worth revisiting these changes as they apply to the family law practitioner because the current economic downturn will lead to many more consumer bankruptcy filings in the remainder of 2008 and in 2009.

While politicians scramble to preserve Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, more trouble for financial markets looms on the horizon. Proposed changes to accounting rules for securitization vehicles could decrease the significant role of structured finance in providing the liquidity that sustained recent economic expansion.

In light of recent aggressive enforcement efforts of New York's Labor Laws by both the New York State Attorney General's Office and the New York State Department of Labor ("NYSDOL"), prudent employers should consider the effect of these new enactments on their pay and leave practices and take action to ensure compliance.

The Retraining and Notification Act ("WARN" or The Act) creates some uncertainty for employers because it contains two potentially conflicting definitions of the term "mass layoff" ' one that looks to a 30-day period and another that aggregates layoffs over a 90-day period. This article analyzes a recent ruling that addresses the problem.

It's been suggested by several readers that our orientation toward professional services marketing, as opposed to product marketing, is a prejudice. Admittedly, it's at least a bias against a pervasive academic view that the techniques of marketing a product apply equally to marketing a professional service. And indeed, the most successful professional services marketers tend to look to other professional services firms for answers and the best ideas, as well as for validation of their own ideas and processes. Still, it would be foolish to automatically preclude any idea that's been forged in a marketplace of ideas. In a rational world, we take ideas from any reasonable place, accept the good ones, and eliminate the ones that are bad or not applicable. That means that are things to be learned by professional services marketers from the Toyotas and Microsofts and Dells of the world.

The latest happenings in the med mal arena.