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Oct31
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 The following is not meant to be legal advice.
For attorneys working in stock administration, they may be checking the Form 4 of an officer or director and see that the options granted are split between Incentive Stock Options and Non-Qualified Options. How is the split made? There is a limit for Incentive Stock Options. According to IRC Section 422(d), an employer may not grant an employee more than $100,000 in stock options that first become exercisable in any one year.
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Oct31
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Thomas Walker, who practices civil litigation and settlement of employment law and discrimination claims, with expertise in ERISA and deferred compensation programs, spoke in San Francisco, CA on October 27, 2007 on how employers are able to prevent employment lawsuits. ...
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Oct30
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. Thomas Walker, an attorney in Silicon Valley, with a JD from Thomas Jefferson School of Law, talk on discrimination in San Francisco, CA on October 27, 2007 gave insight to how someone...
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. From a talk on October 27, 2007 by Thomas Walker, who has represented executives and employees at technology companies in the San Francisco bay area, an employee who gets terminated may...
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Oct29
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. On October 27, 2007 Thomas Walker, Walker Law, a professor and attorney who practices employment and ERISA law, in Palo Alto, CA, spoke in San Francisco, CA on discrimination. Walker mentioned...
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. Requests for Proposals from customers at a software or technology company are usually driven by business people, not the in house attorney. The documents are usually completed by the sales person. ...
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Oct27
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. When negotiating contracts, venue may come into play. When agreeing to venue, the parties should make it the exclusive jurisdiction. Otherwise, there may be no point in agreeing to venue ahead...
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The following is not meant to be legal advice.On October 22, 2007, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) extended until December 31, 2008, the period for employers to comply with the final Section 409A regulations. Employers have wage reporting and withholding...
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Oct26
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Password Protecting Documents The following is not meant to be legal advice. When negotiating agreements, an attorney might password protect documents so that the other side does not alter a part of the document without him/her knowing. Password protecting documents...
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The following is not meant to be legal advice.Those attorneys new to in house may come across a lot issues that he/she is not familiar with. Take for instance a question on Visas. Most attorneys are not experts on immigration...
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. Some attorneys do not advise copyright registrations for software companies. Usually a software company does not gain anything from registering copyrights and it is burdensome to do so. Most companies only...
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Oct25
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. On October 20, 2007, Diana Maier gave a talk in San Francisco on separation payments in the employment context. Maier mentioned that severance agreements were a good investment for companies because...
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. On October 20, 2007, Diana Maier, a partner at a San Francisco law firm, gave a talk on investigations in employment cases. Not having adequate investigations creates liabilities for employers...
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The buzz topic for October 22, 2007 was the opinion of some that there are declining deals with Microsoft and Google and libraries. It seems that some people think the two companies have low access or restrictions to research libraries. ...
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Oct24
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. On October 20, 2007, Diana Maier, a partner with a San Francisco law firm, specializing in employment laws, gave a talk on what makes good target defendants in employment cases. Target...
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The following is not meant to be legal advice.When negotiating software license agreements with customers, there are sections that are often requested to be changed. For example, if the software is licensed based on audience size, there may be conflict...
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Oct23
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. On October 20, 2007, Diana Maier, a graduate of Stanford law school, and partner at a San Francisco law firm, gave a talk on causes of action for employment cases. ...
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Oct22
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. California enacted a family military leave act. The leave may be taken when the military spouse is on leave from deployment during military conflict. The act can be read in Section...
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The following is not mean to be legal advice. To make export enforcement a priority, on commercial and military items, the United States government announced a new program to the detect and prosecute violations of the export control laws. A...
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. On October 20, 2007, Diana Maier, an attorney in San Francisco, specializing in employment laws, gave a talk to human resource professionals on employment causes of actions. Has what occurred in...
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Oct21
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. On October 9, 2007, the United States Supreme Court heard argument in Stoneridge Investment Partners, LLC v. Scientific-Atlanta, Inc. The case is about how a plaintiffs may bring securities class action...
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. Some items to listen for in earnings calls: When listening to earnings releases of a technology company, there may be talk on the recognition of revenues. Some companies look at both...
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. Is the risk with respect to software patent infringement low when a technology portion of a product is composed of off the shelf products with a company’s code? What if the...
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Oct20
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. Is it necessary to relate in technology agreements that warranties implied by law are excluded? Can implied warranties be excluded anyway? Why exclude implied warranties if they are already implied by...
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. Sometimes at the end of a quarter in a software company, the sales person brings to the legal department commitment letters to review. Are commitment letters of significance?...
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. Sometimes a company may want flexibility in getting out of a relationship with a termination at will clause. However, this may be overbearing to a distributor or partner who has invested...
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Oct19
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. As many people have known, in California, for the past 4 years, there has been legislation requiring supervisors to be trained on sexual harassment prevention. The Fair Employment and Housing...
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. The attorney working in house comes across letters of intents. Letters of intents are ok if the terms are as if they will be when they are binding. The attorney...
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. Exclusivity clauses are alright when it is the other party requesting exclusivity. For instance, a party cannot enter into substantially the same relationship with a competitor or offer substantially similar titles...
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Oct18
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. In re Netsmart Technologies, Inc. provides guidance on how boards should conduct a market review, and negotiate deal protections when engaging in mergers and acquisitions. When a company does not do...
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. The following was read from a publication by CT Corporation. CT Corporation materials are designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject matter covered. Material is made...
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. A federal judge in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California issued a preliminary injunction that prevents the Department of Homeland Security from implementing new rules on...
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Oct17
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. In obtaining D & O insurance coverage, a company might consider bilateral discovery. Bilateral discovery is useful when the financials of a company take a turn for the bad, and the...
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. When conducting due diligence of a target that has been hit with a patent lawsuit claiming patent infringement, the potential acquirer may be interested in obtaining a patent opinion in order...
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. Should a company ask an independent contractor to have his/her own insurance while consulting for the company? It is usually recommended that the independent contractor have his/her own insurance in order...
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Oct16
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. The legal department in a corporation is in an advisement role. Sometimes the business people may ask the attorney to sign a document. Unless the attorney is in the officer level...
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. When negotiating license agreements, the issue of governing law comes up often. Sometimes in the provision, there is language on international treaties, such as the UN provision. Because treaties may supercede...
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For the attorney who does not know much about computer commands, the following are some common commands: To get rid of cache: If the attorney surfs a lot on the web and does not want others to see which sites...
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. In Brinker v. Hohnbaum, the California Court of Appeal issued a ruling reversing an order certifying a class alleging violations of the California Labor Code. The decision was made on October 12,...
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Oct15
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. The attorney working in house will soon see a trend in legal policies as he/she hops from job to job and company to company. There seems to be a uniformity in...
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Oct14
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. What is considered a reasonable administrative fee under ERISA Section 206? Do most people assume that there are fees when they sign up for 401(k) accounts? Under ERISA Section 206, if...
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Oct13
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. If a company were about to file for bankruptcy, what happens to the accrued paid time off of its employees? Usually, paid time off is an item that needs to be...
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. In the private section unions have lost importance. To get new members, unions now use voluntary recognition (such as card check) agreements or employment situations where the goal is to organize...
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The following is not mean to be legal advice. For the company hiring employees in Germany, it might want to research the termination rights of the employees prior to hire. It seems that there are certain time frames in which...
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Oct12
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. Hypothetical: A former general counsel for a technology company in Oakland, CA knows of the company’s talks about a PIPE from the CFO. She leaves the company to take care of...
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Oct11
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. Hypothetical: One of the plan participants (former employee) at a company’s 401(k) plan asks for a rollover distribution. The employee says he is charged a $20 check fee from the trust...
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Oct 8
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. The attorney working for a broker-dealer may consider calling the NASD for information on office set up when both a bank and broker-dealer is involved....
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For those attorneys who want a program to input files of data on people such as representatives in a broker-dealer, Sidekick may be a program to look into. Sidekick allows people to back up files with commands involving tools, backup,...
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. When reviewing a liquidation report to determine trade suitability, a broker-dealer might look into the rules of the NASD. Usually the broker-dealer reviews trades over $5000 (gross) to see if there...
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Oct 7
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. An attorney representing an entity should be aware of a criminal prosecution. A case brought by the United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut is an example of the criminal...
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In a buzz topic in September, two women were singled out on Southwest flights and told that their outfits were inappropriate. Should businesses have a say in what their employees wear? It seems that it is not against most employment...
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In September 2007, Alan Greenspan released a new book called “The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World.” The book topped best-seller lists on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. The book came at the heals of another hot topic,...
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Oct 6
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. On Tuesday, October , 2007, a federal judge in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California had a hearing where the court extended for up to ten...
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. Catching up on some of the buzz topics in September, there was the event with Senator John Kerry at the University of Florida on Monday, September 17, 2007. In the event...
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The buzz topic for October 3, 2007 was Verizon announcing a new suite of phones including the LG VX10000 Voyager. The phones are being compared to Apple’s iPhone. The device supposedly runs on the faster Verizon Wireless data network and has...
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Oct 5
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The buzz topic for October 4, 2007 was that Russia marked the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik. The Sputnik was the tiny satellite whose crackly beeps launched the Space Race between the Cold War superpowers, as reported by...
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NASD Rule 2310 on suitability requires a broker-dealer to obtain suitability information from clients, but the requirement depends on whether the trade is solicited. If a trade is solicited, the broker-dealer needs to obtain suitability information from the client. If...
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Oct 4
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. ACAT form is discussed under NASD Rule 11870. A customer may sign an ACAT form to do transfers in a mutual fund account. It is okay to use negative response letters...
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. A master insurance license is a regular license that gets renewed each year according to the New York State Insurance Department. With the license, the entity is allowed to sell...
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Oct 3
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The following is not meant to be legal advice. Every representative at a broker-dealer needs to complete continuing education. The firm element are house rules that require the firm to administer continuing education every year. In the 1990s, the hours...
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Oct 1
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On September 27, 2007, there was a talk by John D. Mitchell, Chief Architect at Krugle in Redwood City, CA. For those who have never been to Redwood City, CA, it is the home of Oracle Corporation. Though the talk...
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