Commercial Law

  • Will Dave & Buster's ACA Employer-Mandate Plan Design Land It In Hot Water with ERISA?

    Under the Affordable Care Act, employers with 50 or more full-time, or full-time equivalent, employees are required to offer qualified health care coverage. These employers are referred to as applicable large employers (ALEs). If these ALEs fail to comply with this "employer mandate," then the employer may be faced with significant penalties. As such, employee counts and categorizations in employer organizations are critical under the ACA, and whether the employer mandate is satisfied.

    May 01, 2016Jennifer S. Kiesewetter

  • The Coming Tsunami in the Legal Profession

    There have been four waves of change over the last 50 years. We are now entering the fifth wave and this one will be a tsunami. The lawyers who do not recognize the trends will not be able to enter a new era and survive. The fifth wave will turn partnership leverage, compensation systems and the business model upside down. There is not much time to make the incremental changes that will support sustained profitability in law firms.

    May 01, 2016William C. Cobb

  • Industry Growth Forecast

    The Equipment Leasing & Finance Foundation (ELFA) has released its Q2 update to the 2016 Equipment Leasing & Finance U.S. Economic Outlook, which lowered its yearly equipment and software investment forecast to 2.7%, down from 4.4% growth forecast in its 2016 Annual Outlook released in December 2015.

    May 01, 2016

  • Closing the Expectation Gap With e-Discovery Technology

    Chief Justice John Roberts recently said that the new amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure should "achieve the goal of Rule 1 ' 'the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action and proceeding' ' only if the entire legal community, including the bench, bar, and legal academy, step up to the challenge of making real change."

    May 01, 2016Jim Gill

  • Section 181's Extension to Live Stage Productions Doesn't Set Clear Path for Producers, Investors

    At the end of 2015, Congress passed, as part of a large tax extender bill, the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act (PATH), an extension of '181 of the Internal Revenue Code. Section 181 has been available since 2004 to permit expedited deduction of the costs of a film or TV production. Since inception, this has had several sunset provisions, each of which was extended as part of year-end extender bills. The latest for the first time has extended the availability of '181 treatment to live stage productions.

    May 01, 2016Thomas D. Selz, Bernard C. Topper Jr. and Christopher A. Cacace

  • Quality Control Of Trademarks in Social Media

    Trademark licensors, including those in the entertainment industry, are scrambling to keep up with the evolving use of social media as a tool for business advertising. As technology changes, so must the provisions in a trademark license.

    May 01, 2016Catherine J. Holland

  • NLRB and the Joint Employer: Is Franchising On the Ropes?

    Recent NLRB decisions have rewritten the labor law map in a variety of ways, but nowhere more significantly than in the areas of franchising and outsourcing. With the decision in Browning-Ferris and decision by the NLRB's general counsel involving McDonald's, the definition of a "joint employer" has grown exponentially broader.

    May 01, 2016Paul F. Millus

  • Cloud Computing Security: More Opportunity, Less Threat

    If you follow the legal technology headlines you might have noticed that we've come full circle on cloud security. Rewind seven or so years, and mainstream cloud computing adoption was being thwarted by grave concerns about data security, data governance and data access. As the cloud became more pervasive in many industries globally, the legal market took note and slowly but surely more law firms went to the cloud.

    May 01, 2016David Hansen