Linda Eagle co-founded a company to provide training for financial services employees. Two years later, the company was purchased and Linda was named CEO. But six months afterward, she was fired. Linda and the company then became embroiled in a lawsuit over – surprise! – Linda’s LinkedIn account. Linda claims that the company accessed her account, changed her password, and replaced her profile with that of the company’s new CEO. She says that by doing so,

Every company should have a policy for what records to keep and what to discard…and should review it annually. On the business side, a good policy can make sure that records are kept consistently and are accessible when required. It should balance the need for careful records against the cost of keeping outdated or useless materials. But there are important legal considerations as well. For instance, a number of federal and state laws require certain records

Federal wage-and-hour lawsuits against employers are at an all-time high. In fact, the number of employee lawsuits has quadrupled in the last 10 years, according to government figures. Most of the recent suits accuse companies of wrongly calling an employee an independent contractor. (The remainder are for failure to pay overtime, wage miscalculation, and similar issues.) Of course, more and more businesses want to treat their workers as contractors, because they can often avoid overtime rules,

Most companies need only a handful of Internet domain names to operate, but a lot of them buy up additional names to “play defense” and prevent competitors or disgruntled customers from hijacking their brand. It’s common for companies to not only register the standard “.com,” “.net” and “.org” domains, but also: Register the “.biz,” “.info” and “.us” extensions; Add common country-code extensions such as “.uk,” “.ca,” “.co,” etc.; Block their company name with the “.xxx” extension

With all the ups and downs in the real estate market in the last few years, it’s worth thinking about what would happen to a commercial tenant if the landlord were to go bankrupt, or be unable to pay its lenders. In general (and there are always exceptions), lenders have priority over tenants. So if a lender forecloses on a commercial property, the lender can invalidate the lease and evict the tenant – even if the

Commercial tenants, managers, licensees and franchise operators are often asked to sign a “radius restriction” as part of a contract. This limits them from operating a similar or competing business within a certain proximity of the current business. These restrictions are fair – up to a point. But if you’re negotiating one, on either side, it’s important to think carefully about the language in the contract so you don’t create confusion or disputes later.

A growing number of companies are conducting background checks to screen job applicants, looking for criminal records, credit problems, and other issues. But many employers are unaware that a federal law strictly limits how these checks can be conducted. Employers who make a mistake can be sued, and if they conduct such checks routinely, they could be subject to a class action. Recently, Wal-Mart paid $6.8 million to settle a class action under the law, and