A knock on the door. A parcel left with reception. An envelope lying on your front step. When you open it, you read the first words, “a lawsuit has been filed against you.” You or your company are being sued. What do you do? Here are the basic first steps you should take upon receiving a complaint.
Continue Reading What to Do When You Receive a Legal Complaint
While monitoring your work email, you receive a message that puts a pit in your stomach. Your company’s General Counsel has sent you a “Litigation Hold Notice,” advising you that your emails, documents, and communications must be preserved. What does this mean? What do you need to do? Here are the basics on litigation hold notices, and a few simple tips on how to proceed once you receive one.
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For better or worse, trademark infringement claims enjoy relaxed standing requirements which enable plaintiffs to move quickly to quash would-be infringers. These requirements are at their lowest ebb when parties seek declaratory judgments. This results in some creative uses of the declaratory judgment claim.
Continue Reading Sexy Little Claims: Declaratory Judgments in Trademark Infringement Claims
It’s a situation anyone would dread—you just learned that you must give a deposition for your employer. Perhaps you received a subpoena, or maybe your employers’ in-house or outside counsel shared the bad news. You are nervous and overwhelmed, having never been deposed before. Here are a few simple tips on how to address this daunting situation.
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Former Alaska Governor and Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin recently lost the trial of her defamation case against The New York Times. Given the complexity of the legal issues and the unusual events at trial, a messy appeal is sure to follow. But if the appellate courts can see past the procedural novelties, Palin’s case could become a vehicle for revisiting the seminal case of New York Times v. Sullivan.
Continue Reading The Sarah Palin v. New York Times Appeal Will Be a Hot Mess
On September 30, 2021, the federal Departments of Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services issued “Requirements Related to Surprise Billing; Part II,” the second in a series of interim final regulations (the “Second NSA Rules”) implementing the No Surprises Act (“NSA”). This new federal law became effective for services on or after January 1, 2022.
Continue Reading Hotly Contested Dispute Resolution Rules in Second Federal No Surprises Act Interim Final Regulations Are Being Challenged in Court
We recently participated in what the New Jersey Law Journal called the “first complex civil jury trial to be conducted in person since the COVID-19 pandemic.” Although the case settled shortly after opening statements, this experience taught us that New Jersey courts are ready to try complex civil cases safely and responsibly with new COVID protocols that may force trial attorneys to depart from their usual practices. We published an article in the New Jersey Law Journal about this experience that may be of interest to our readers.
Continue Reading What an In-Person Trial Looks Like in a Socially Distanced New Jersey Court
Medical providers preparing to engage in arbitration with payors pursuant to the just-announced No Surprises Act dispute rules should be prepared to counter some tough tactics from payors. For health care providers, the first Interim Final Rule represents a reasonable solution against arbitrary rates for out-of-network services, but raises concerns that certain policies may result
As the “new normal” of pandemic virtual legal proceedings appears to be waning, a question arises as to which, if any, practices initially born out of necessity, but no longer so, should continue to be utilized. One such device previously employed sparingly, but which became de rigueur during COVID, is the virtual deposition. In some
“Cowboy” Joe West is the best-known, longest-serving, and (to some) most reviled umpire currently active in Major League Baseball. For example, in 2010 he was named the second-worst MLB umpire, barely losing to CB Bucknor in a call at the plate that today could only be decided by the replay umpires in