Blogs

Business and Financial Services

Internet Defamation Guide – 10 Questions to Spot or Avoid Online Defamation

As internet speech grows, so do internet defamation cases. It is easier today to ruin names, brands, and reputations with online negative statements. Yet it is also easier today to raise issues and advocate change before a widespread audience connected by the internet. These 10 questions should help an online company spot or a blogger…

August 2, 2018

Business and Financial Services

Virginia Employers: Are Your Non-Competes Enforceable?

Restrictive covenants continue to be among the most hotly contested employment law issues in Virginia. Non-solicitation and non-competition clauses are fundamentally important to a business like yours. Drafted well, they provide your company with significant legal protections against a key employee usurping the sales opportunities and client relationships developed while in your employ to start a competing business or to provide an unfair advantage to one of your competitors. However, Virginia…

August 1, 2018

Business and Financial Services

Freedom of Speech or Freedom from Defamation? – 5 Takeaways from Yelp’s Recent Court Victory

Earlier this month, California’s highest court ruled that Yelp did not have to remove defamatory posts despite having been ordered to do so. In the plurality opinion, the California Supreme Court held in Hassell v. Bird that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (“CDA”) immunized Yelp from the “take-down” order.1 The Hassell…

July 18, 2018

Employment Law

Montgomery County and D.C. Minimum Wage Rates Increase

Montgomery County, Maryland Effective July 1, 2018, the minimum wage payable by employers in Montgomery County, Maryland, increased to $12.25 per hour, from the previous minimum wage rate of $11.50 per hour for large employers (those with 51 or more employees in the county). For mid-size employers (11 and 50 employees) and small employers (10…

July 6, 2018

Business and Financial Services

DOL Explains When Employees Must Be Paid for Travel Time

Eighty years ago the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) established federal minimum wage and overtime requirements for hourly employees. The law’s basic tenet seems straightforward: Employers must pay employees for their “work.” Yet for many employers, compliance with the FLSA on issues such as employee travel time continues to be problematic because the FLSA does not really explain when an employee is at “work.” The FLSA and Portal-to-Portal Act The Supreme Court initially explained that “work”…

July 6, 2018

Business and Financial Services

First Amendment Protections For Internet Company / AI “Speech”

Freedom of speech has long applied beyond the spoken and written word. The Supreme Court has held that it applies to conduct, such as burning a flag, and it is currently considering whether it applies to the baking of wedding cakes in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. But what about internet search engine…

May 17, 2018

Employment Law

5 Steps to Limit Liability for Sexual Harassment at Work

A previous blog post discussed sexual harassment in the workplace in the age of the #MeToo Movement. This post discusses steps that an employer can take to avoid liability for harassment, or at least minimize legal exposure. Have a Sexual Harassment Policy An employer should have a clearly articulated sexual harassment policy that: expressly prohibits…

March 16, 2018

Divorce and Family Law

Do You Have a Pre-Nuptial Agreement that Has a Provision for Alimony?

If you have questions concerning this article, please contact one of the attorneys listed here. Then you need to read this. The new Federal income tax law could affect you in a big way. For divorces after December 31, 2018, alimony will no longer be tax deductible by the person who pays it. Nor will it be taxable to the person who receives it. Everyone hopes that their marriage will last forever, but in the event yours ends in divorce, alimony – also called spousal support – could be an issue.…

March 2, 2018

Employment Law

DOL Adopts More Flexible Test to Determine When Interns Must Be Paid Under The Fair Labor Standards Act

Just as many employers are heading into the 2018 summer-intern recruitment season, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) announced that it has abandoned the rigid six-factor test in use since 2010 to determine whether interns of for-profit entities must be treated as paid employees. Under the DOL’s previous six-factor test, an intern was deemed to…

February 13, 2018

Employment Law

Maryland Paid Sick Leave Law Goes Into Effect on February 11, 2018

On January 12, 2018, Maryland became the latest state to require employers to provide paid sick leave to employees, when the Maryland General Assembly overrode Governor Larry Hogan’s veto of the bill last year. The bill – known as the Healthy Working Families Act – will become law on February 11, 2018, unless the General…

January 26, 2018