EFCA -- Voting "at a Time Certain"
Michael Fox analyzes an article on deciding whether a union should represent you in your workplace.
The National Law Journal
As Congress considers a tougher layoff notification law, employment lawyers are warning employers to brace for more scrutiny and potential litigation involving how they execute mass layoffs. On Capitol Hill, members of both the House and Senate are considering amending the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act -- the federal law that mandates layoff notices -- by requiring more and smaller employers to notify workers of mass layoffs or plant closings, and doubling penalties for failure to do so.
The National Law Journal
Disability discrimination complaints are on the rise in the workplace, with several employers getting hit with disability bias lawsuits in recent months. "I have noticed, anecdotally, kind of an aggressive approach by the EEOC in this area," said Joel Rice of Chicago's Fisher & Phillips. "I don't know specifically what's driving it. But in my experience, the EEOC does seem to be more aggressively pursuing disability cases." A glimpse at the court dockets suggests he's on to something.
New Jersey Law Journal
Web 2.0 -- interactive, user-generated content and social networking Web sites -- has created the opportunity to make public all aspects of one's private life. But there are potential pitfalls that can face both employers and employees, prospective and current, writes attorney Jonathan S. Goodgold. He says it is only a matter of time before the floodgates of litigation open, testing the boundaries that can be established as to the rights and expectations of both employers and employees on Web 2.0.
New York Law Journal
In a recent ruling, a New York appellate court came down in favor of finality of judgments and rejected an employer's appeal seeking to correct a blatant error in a ruling which allowed an injured worker to recover directly against his employer in contravention of New York's Workers' Compensation Law. Attorney Joseph D'Ambrosio discusses the lessons to be learned from the decision.
Legal Week
As London law firms cut jobs and freeze pay levels, the public sector has become an increasingly attractive option to lawyers. The hitch is that the job market is currently awash with recently laid off London professionals, meaning the competition to land public sector legal roles has never been stiffer. So what are the prospects like for lawyers looking to make the switch? And how do you make yourself stand out from the crowd?
Legal Week
Rio Tinto has entered into an agreement with outsourcing provider CPA Global to offshore legal work to a team of lawyers in India. CPA Global is providing a team of 12 Delhi-based lawyers to handle tasks such as contract review, drafting and legal research -- in a move projected to reduce Rio Tinto's annual legal spending by 20 percent. The company estimates that the new India venture, which became operational on May 1, will be seven times cheaper than its lawyers in London.
New Jersey Law Journal
Earlier this year, the U.S. Congress voted in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to put strict limits on recipients of Troubled Assets Relief Program funding in regard to their employment of temporary highly skilled workers from overseas through the H-1B visa program. Attorney Yan Bennett reviews the requirements that H-1B-dependent employers should consider to avoid running afoul of federal regulation regarding the employment of foreign workers.
The National Law Journal
A Los Angeles Superior Court judge last month affirmed an arbitration award in a wrongful termination suit of more than $4.1 billion, sending shock waves through the labor and employment bar. Alston & Bird partner Michael D. Young spoke to The National Law Journal about the lessons to be learned from the outcome in this case regarding arbitration agreements and the arbitration process. He also broke down the award to explain how the arbitrator came up with such an astronomically high number.
Corporate Counsel
Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy last fall was a nightmare for Lawrence Bortstein, the company's global head of technology law. But it also presented him with the opportunity to realize a dream. First it spurred him to consider his career options. Then, after he decided that he was ready to start his own law firm, it gave him his first client: the Lehman estate. Bortstein's new firm is doing some of the same things for the estate that his old in-house team did for the company before it collapsed.
