Employment

Expert Analysis

• Inside The Immigration Reform Bill's Business Provisions

  

  Provisions in the recently introduced U.S. Citizenship Act that aim to reduce the employment-based green card backlog and attract STEM students are welcome business immigration reforms, but the business community is skeptical of its more restrictive provisions, say attorneys at Akin Gump.

• A Cautionary Tale On Duplicative Noncompetes

  

  Duplicative or overlapping noncompete provisions in employment contracts can hinder enforcement of choice of forum and other restrictive covenants, the Delaware Chancery Court recently showed in AG Resource Holdings LLC v. Terral, and could mean preclusive judgments and duplicative litigation costs for companies, say attorneys at Dechert.

• Remote Working Tips For Lawyer Trainees And Their Firms

  

  The prospect of joining a law firm during the pandemic can cause added pressure, but with a few good practices — and a little help from their firms and supervising attorneys — lawyer trainees can get ahead of the curve while working remotely, say William Morris and Ted Landray at King & Spalding.

• Employer-Friendly Changes May Revive H-1B Visa Program

  

  Recent H-1B visa program improvements that are favorable to employers — such as e-registration and more predictability in U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services decision making — may lead companies to reconsider this visa category as a resource for adding foreign-national talent to their workforce, says Matthew Minor at Hammond Neal., says Matthew Minor at Hammond Neal.

• What Biden's Ethics Pledge Means For Gov't Revolving Door

  

  Attorneys at Nossaman look at how President Joe Biden’s ethics pledge goes beyond those of his predecessors by imposing post-employment shadow lobbying and golden parachute restrictions on his administration’s appointees — and how a House bill proposing expansion of federal ethics law could affect enforcement.

• Opinion

  Punishing Bar Exam Policies On Menstrual Products Must Go

  

  Law graduates across the states are sitting for the grueling two-day bar exam this week despite menstruation-related barriers, such as inadequate menstrual product and bathroom access, which could be eradicated with simple policy tweaks, say law professors Elizabeth Cooper, Margaret Johnson and Marcy Karin.

• Mitigating BIPA Suit Risk Under Alternative Liability Theories

  

  A recent Illinois federal court decision allowing a suit to proceed against Enterprise Leasing and its parent company for violating the state's Biometric Information Privacy Act shows why even companies that don't directly use biometric data must take proactive contractual measures to mitigate alternative liability exposure, says David Oberly at Blank Rome.

• It's Time For Law Firms To Start Loving And Leveraging Data

  

  The volume and diversity of data managed by law firms today — from client files to internal financial records — may seem daunting, but when properly organized, good data can help practitioners stay competitive by providing sharper insight into firm resources and cost of work, say Jaron Luttich and Barry Wiggins at Element Standard.

• Keys To Protecting Clients During Law Firm Dissolution

  

  Whether a law firm dissolution is amicable or adversarial, departing attorneys should take steps to maintain their legal and ethical responsibilities toward clients, and beware client confidentiality pitfalls when joining new firms, say John Schmidt and Colin Fitzgerald at Phillips Lytle.

• Opinion

  Time For Federal Action To Ban Noncompetes

  

  Now, more than ever, workers should have the freedom to work, so the pro-worker Biden administration should follow some states' lead and end the use of noncompetes, says Gerald Sauer at Sauer & Wagner.

• How Case Management Orders Can Support New Attorneys

  

  Courts are leading the way in ensuring oral argument opportunities for newer attorneys by incorporating innovative language in a variety of orders, and private parties can and should follow suit by incorporating similar language into case management orders, say Megan Jones and Halli Spraggins at Hausfeld.

• The Employment Immigration Landscape Is Already Changing

  

  Recently proposed immigration legislation and other Biden administration actions that suspended or reversed Trump-era orders affecting noncitizens are reforms that may provide stability for some employers of foreign nationals while creating new difficulties for others, says Eleanor Pelta at Morgan Lewis.

• Effective E-Discovery Of Chat Apps In Gov't Investigations

  

  With the increasing reliance on multiple messaging applications for business conversations in the remote working environment, companies can implement several best practices for collecting, reviewing and producing data, despite an absence of guidance on discovery obligations in government investigations, say Jason Weinstein and Katie Dubyak at Steptoe & Johnson.

• An In-House Counsel's Guide To Better Work Management

  

  Amid economic uncertainty and increasing pressure on corporate legal departments to do more with less, work management processes should be aimed at tracking legal teams' every contribution, including routine matters that can be reallocated to nonlegal staff, says Aaron Pierce at LexisNexis CounselLink.

• Jurisdiction Can Be A Key Tool For BIPA Class Action Defense

  

  As a wave of Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act class actions continues to flood courts, challenging personal jurisdiction has emerged as a key defense that companies can successfully leverage by taking such prudent steps as data mapping and inventory, says David Oberly at Blank Rome.