Expert Analysis

• SAG-AFTRA Contract Is A Landmark For AI And IP Interplay

  

  SAG-AFTRA's recently ratified contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers introduced a framework to safeguard performers' intellectual property rights and set the stage for future discussions on how those rights interact with artificial intelligence — which should put entertainment businesses on alert for compliance, says Evynne Grover at QBE.

• 4 Steps To Navigating Employee Dementia With Care

  

  A recent Connecticut suit brought by an employee terminated after her managers could not reasonably accommodate her Alzheimer's-related dementia should prompt employers to plan how they can compassionately address older employees whose cognitive impairments affect their job performance, while also protecting the company from potential disability and age discrimination claims, says Robin Shea at Constangy.

• Googling Prospective Jurors Is Usually A Fool's Errand

  

  Though a Massachusetts federal court recently barred Google from Googling potential jurors in a patent infringement case, the company need not worry about missing evidence of bias, because internet research of jury pools usually doesn’t yield the most valuable information — voir dire and questionnaires do, says Sarah Murray at Trialcraft.

• How Dartmouth Ruling Fits In NLRB Student-Athlete Playbook

  

  A groundbreaking decision from a National Labor Relations Board official on Feb. 5 — finding that Dartmouth men's basketball players are employees who can unionize — marks the latest development in the board’s push to bring student-athletes within the ambit of federal labor law, and could stimulate unionization efforts in other athletic programs, say Jennifer Cluverius and Patrick Wilson at Maynard Nexsen.

• Del.'s Tesla Pay Takedown Tells Boards What Not To Do

  

  The Delaware Chancery Court’s ruthless dissection of the Tesla board’s extreme departures from standard corporate governance in its January opinion striking down CEO Elon Musk’s $55 billion pay package offers a blow-by-blow guide to mistakes Delaware public companies can avoid when negotiating executive compensation, say attorneys at Cleary.

• A Look Into How Jurors Reach High Damages Awards

  

  In the wake of several large jury awards, Richard Gabriel and Emily Shaw at Decision Analysis shed light on challenges that jurors have in deciding them, the nonevidentiary and extra-legal methods they use to do so, and new research about the themes and jury characteristics of high-damages jurors.

• Compliance Tips For Employers Facing An Aggressive EEOC

  

  This year, the combination of an aggressive U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a renewed focus on large-scale recruiting and hiring claims, and the injection of the complicated landscape of AI in the workplace means employers should be prepared to defend, among other things, their use of technology during the hiring process, say attorneys at Seyfarth Shaw.

• Preparing For A New Wave Of Litigation Under Silicosis Rules

  

  After the Division of Occupational Safety and Health of California issued an emergency temporary standard to combat noncompliance with assessments of workers' exposure to particles of crystalline silica, companies that manufacture, distribute or sell silica-containing products will need aggressive case-specific discovery to navigate a new wave of litigation, say attorneys at Dechert.

• Employer Trial Tips For Fighting Worker PPE Pay Claims

  

  Courts have struggled for decades to reach consensus on whether employees must be paid for time spent donning and doffing personal protective equipment, but this convoluted legal history points to practical trial strategies to help employers defeat these Fair Labor Standards Act claims, say Michael Mueller and Evangeline Paschal at Hunton.

• Managing Competing Priorities In Witness Preparation

  

  There’s often a divide between what attorneys and witnesses want out of the deposition process, but litigation teams can use several strategies to resolve this tension and help witnesses be more comfortable with the difficult conditions of testifying, say Ava Hernández and Steve Wood at Courtroom Sciences.

• Reimagining Law Firm Culture To Break The Cycle Of Burnout

  

  While attorney burnout remains a perennial issue in the legal profession, shifting post-pandemic expectations mean that law firms must adapt their office cultures to retain talent, say Kevin Henderson and Eric Pacifici at SMB Law Group.

• Assessing Merger Guideline Feedback With Machine Learning

  

  Large language modeling appears to show that public sentiment matches agency intent around the new merger control guidelines from the Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Justice Department, says Andrew Sfekas at Cornerstone Research.

• Understanding And Working With The Millennials On Your Jury

  

  Every trial attorney will be facing a greater proportion of millennials on their jury, as they now comprise the largest generation in the U.S., and winning them over requires an understanding of their views on politics, corporations and damages, says Clint Townson at Townson Litigation Consulting.

• Grant Compliance Takeaways From Ga. Tech's FCA Settlement

  

  Georgia Tech’s recent False Claims Act settlement over its failure to detect compliance shortcomings in a grant program was unique in that it involved a voluntary repayment of funds prior to the resolution, offering a few key lessons for universities receiving research funding from the government, says Jonathan Porter at Husch Blackwell.

• Series

  Competing In Dressage Makes Me A Better Lawyer

  

  My lifelong participation in the sport of dressage — often called ballet on horses — has proven that several skills developed through training and competition are transferable to legal work, especially the ability to harness focus, persistence and versatility when negotiating a deal, says Stephanie Coco at V&E.