Black Lives Matter. The lives of Black men matter. The lives of Black women matter. The lives of Black children matter. And the lives of a group that gets less attention in the national conversation also matter—the lives of Black Queer people matter. (I recognize that some may view the term “Queer” as pejorative, but I use that term here intentionally, as many in the Queer Community do, to embrace all who fall within the LGBTQ+ Community) ...
Co-hosted by the Texas Solar Power Association Developing EPC Contracts involves many different stakeholders from investors, developers, contractors, and equipment suppliers. Allocating risk to the party that is in the best position to manage and control the risk is important to keep costs contained. Factors such as technology, cost constraints, schedule, stakeholders, safety, and performance are just some of the major issues that affect risk allocation ...
All eyes were on health care in 2020, as the industry faced unprecedented challenges presented by the global coronavirus pandemic. Stories and images of overburdened frontline health care workers dominated the news cycle for most of the year, and the rapid development of one or more seemingly effective vaccines has engendered a cautious optimism for a return to normalcy in 2021 ...
We knew this year was going to be an especially bad one for the flu. In its November 2019 issue, Scientific American, one of the country's leading science publications, included a twenty-page article titled "The Influenza Outlook", which highlighted the escalating threat of influenza for the year 2020. Unfortunately, at present, the emergence and spread of the novel coronavirus makes the flu pale by comparison ...
On July 7, 2020, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued its final rule, the 2017 Payday, Vehicle Title, and Certain High-Cost Installment Loans Rule (Small Dollar Rule), which rescinded the ability to repay and underwriting provisions. The final rule does not, however, rescind or alter the payment provisions in the Small Dollar Rule, and the CFPB indicated that it would be moving forward with those provisions ...
Female attorneys are leaving the practice of law. Although this isn’t a new problem, it’s a problem that has plagued the legal profession for decades. Many departures go unexplained and leave legal employers reeling. While answers may be hard to come by, I suggest that legal employers look to an unlikely source for information: TikTok. TikTok is a social media networking platform that allows users to post short-form videos ranging from 15 seconds to several minutes ...
The owners of multistate businesses must consider many factors when deciding how to structure their business ventures, and state taxation should not be overlooked. The accompanying tables can assist in that evaluation for limited liability companies and limited liability partnerships. In recent years, LLCs and, to a lesser extent, limited partnerships and LLPs have become the popular choice for structuring or restructuring multistate business entities ...
Arbitration is one of the preferred mechanisms of dispute resolution in the construction industry. Understanding how an arbitration will unfold is useful in managing a dispute. Most domestic construction disputes are referred to arbitration through, and according to the rules, of the American Arbitration Association (AAA), but other organizations that follow different rules and processes do exist. For AAA arbitrations, the following steps provide a rough outline of a typical proceeding ...
Many construction contracts used in the industry include clauses mandating that any disputes be decided by binding arbitration rather than a jury or bench trial. The standard AIA forms provide the parties with the option of court or arbitration. Trial courts, overwhelmed by a flood of cases and supported with strong caselaw and statutory precedent, regularly enforce arbitration clauses ...
[!<CDATA[ As costly class action retirement plan litigation under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) proliferates, mandatory individual arbitration has become an increasingly appealing alternative for certain benefit plans. However, the benefits of arbitration can only be realized if it is enforceable ...
[!<CDATA[ In one of its recent opinions, Kellogg Brown & Root Services, Inc. v. Sec’y of the Army, the Federal Circuit issued new guidance on what contractors must show to prove the reasonableness of costs incurred following an (alleged) government-caused delay. The U.S. Army (the “Army”) and Kellogg Brown & Root Services, Inc. (“KBR”) contracted for KBR to deliver thousands of trailers to Iraq by an agreed-upon deadline ...
A recent opinion from the Court of Appeals of Georgia illustrates that contracts entered into with an unlicensed contractor, which are often unenforceable by an unlicensed contractor under many states’ laws, likely will not defeat the Federal Arbitration Act’s (FAA) deference to arbitration as the forum for determining whether a contract is valid and enforceable. In Jhun v. Imagine Castle, LLC, the Jhuns hired defendant Imagine Castle to perform remodeling work at their home ...
No-fault attendance policies may be on a watchlist for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. A recent matter before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, EEOC v. Eberspaecher North America Inc., suggests that the EEOC is interested in how those policies work. It seems the EEOC wants to determine if such policies potentially violate the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the agency may want to pursue that interest on a national scale ...
An important update to Georgia’s statutory lien waiver laws will take effect on January 1, 2021. This summer, Georgia enacted an amendment to O.C.G.A. § 44-14-366 (the Lien Waiver Statute), that alters the form for interim and final lien waivers. The new statute makes it clear that lien waivers only waive lien or bond rights against the property and do not waive the right to file a lawsuit for non-payment or other related claims ...
In which office are you located? Nashville Tell us a little about your practice. I work with clients that operate in the healthcare space or that are healthcare adjacent. My work primarily centers on providing guidance during mergers and acquisitions, as well as guiding clients through issues that arise from the complex nature of operating in a highly regulated industry. I also advise clients in matters involving clinical research and telemedicine ...
[!<CDATA[ In which office are you located? Houston, Texas Tell us a little about your practice. As an associate in the construction litigation practice group, I primarily handle commercial and residential construction disputes. The issues in my cases generally involve construction defects, contracts, lien foreclosures, negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, insurance defense, and DTPA matters ...
[!<CDATA[ In which office are you located? Houston Tell us a little about your practice. I primarily handle banking and financial services litigation matters here at the firm, although I jump on regulatory compliance matters when the opportunity presents itself. Our practice group focuses on state and federal laws and regulations governing financial institutions like lenders, servicers, credit furnishers, and the like ...
Novel technologies that seek to improve quality of life or simplify complex processes offer great promise. For example, medical technologies that detect or cure disease or supply chain technologies that allow for real time understanding of the location or destination of a specific product — make our lives easier and safer. They also pose potentially unforeseen complications ...
When a client or customer files for bankruptcy, a business’ treatment of that customer’s account must change. Many businesses have dedicated bankruptcy departments or teams that deal with these accounts. However, it can take a while before the account is flagged or transferred to the bankruptcy team. Further, some smaller business bankruptcy teams are comprised of other department employees just wearing a “bankruptcy hat” when working on those accounts ...
Batson v. Kentucky and its progeny were meant to eliminate bias in jury selection. But has that happened? This program will address that question and discuss issues of bias in the courtroom more broadly and will challenge viewers to recognize their own biases and to learn how those biases could affect their assessment of potential jurors, witnesses, judges, and adversaries ...
It is the rare construction project that is completed without any change in the work. In most sophisticated construction projects, the contractual mechanism for managing these changes involves the issuance of a change order. However, managing change orders is not something project teams are always well-trained on, which can cause issues for small and big contractors alike ...
With federal privacy legislation stalled and indefinitely delayed, states have moved forward to push an impressive number of privacy laws forward over the last several years. Some of these laws are still relatively obscure, but are being increasingly enforced by state regulators and through litigation ...
INTRODUCTION In one of his last speeches as Attorney General of the United States, Jeff Sessions proudly boasted: “We are sending a clear message to criminals across the country: we will find you. We will bring you to justice. And you will pay a very high price for what you have done.” This type of rhetoric is often reserved for serious criminal offenders ...
Bradley attorneys Aron Beezley and Nathaniel Greeson highlight the administrative bid protest landscape in New York given the state's abundant acquisition economy. New York state's budget is the second largest in the country, and with it, New York has some of the most developed state acquisition laws and procedures in the country. Accordingly, New York provides comparatively robust bid protest rights when it comes to state-level bid protests ...
A North Carolina court has required Cincinnati Insurance Company to provide business interruption and extra expense coverage to 16 North Carolina restaurants that lost the use of and access to their properties due to COVID-19 civil authority orders (see North State Deli, LLC, et al. v. Cincinnati Insurance Co. et al.) ...
