The Treasury Department's Guidelines on Executive Pay
President Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner stood together on Feb. 4, 2009, to announce the Treasury Department's new set of guidelines restricting executive compensation at financial institutions that receive governmental money. Here's what this entails.
Giving 'Til It Hurts
Even with firm cuts and layoffs, no firm can afford to give up a community-related giving practice. It can, though, and should be, controlled.
New ABA Ruling on Lateral Hiring
The American Bar Association's House of Delegates voted on Feb. 16 to amend its Model Rule of Professional Conduct governing conflicts of interest stemming from lateral hiring. Here's a brief discussion of the amendment and what it means.
Issues Facing Law Firm Ethics Counsel
Many law firms, particularly larger ones, designate attorneys or committees to address and resolve a variety of issues, from hiring, legal and insurance concerns to ethics issues. This article focuses upon the ethics function, and the unique ethics issues that are faced today by law firm ethics counsel.
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How to Safeguard Employee Data
Employers should be aware of the rapid growth of data privacy and security laws, which may affect their methods of conducting business and handling personal employee information. The new laws carry with them a private right of action in some cases, civil penalties as much as $500,000 and in some states, administrative investigations.
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The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and What It Means for Employers
When is history simply that: "history"? Perhaps never under the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which sailed through the House and Senate in January and became the first piece of legislation signed into law by President Obama.
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The Importance of Performance Evaluations
It is that time of year when many managers are either presented with the daunting and time-consuming task of completing performance appraisals or have just finished their appraisals and are waiting to communicate the results to the employees. In either situation, the process is usually coupled with questions from managers as to why evaluations are necessary. Employees often wonder themselves.
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The Employee Free Choice Act
The proposed Employee Free Choice Act ("EFCA") would dramatically alter the landscape of labor-management relations in favor of unions seeking to organize employees of non-union employers. Businesses that do not prepare soon for the impact of this prospective law, as well as their employees, will be significantly affected.
Legal Economics
The upward spiral of legal costs, including the demands of Electronic Database Discovery (EDD) and the impact on early case assessment, puts pressure on departmental legal budgets. Artificial floors created by budgets derived from prior-year expenditures will give way to application of traditional return on investment (ROI) analysis to set appropriate cost levels.
The Whole Foods Antitrust Saga
A couple of years ago few people would have thought that a socially conscious company that specializes in selling organic groceries would find itself in a knock-down, drag-out brawl with the Federal Trade Commission. But that's just what has unfolded as a result of the FTC's challenge of the merger between Whole Foods Market, Inc. and Wild Oats Markets, Inc.
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