Legal insights
Analysis from the front lines of IP & technology law.
Our attorneys write about the developments shaping intellectual property—from the PTAB and the Federal Circuit to the practical realities of protecting fast-moving technology.
Medical Malpractice: Standard of Care, Causation, Damages, and Defenses
A bad outcome is not malpractice, and that single distinction organizes the entire field. This article explains what the standard of care actually requires and how it is proved, why nearly every state now demands a supporting expert affidavit before a case may be filed, how causation is litigated including the loss of chance doctrine, how informed consent operates as a separate theory with its own standard, why the statute of limitations in these cases is unusually complicated because of the discovery rule and statutes of repose, how damages caps and collateral source modifications have reshaped recovery, who else can be liable through vicarious liability and corporate negligence, and the special regimes for federally funded clinics, emergency care, and vaccine injuries.
Responding to a College Conduct or Title IX Proceeding: A Practical Guide
This guide covers a college conduct or Title IX proceeding from the notice through the appeal, in the order the decisions have to be made. It opens with the first forty-eight hours, including the criminal exposure question that must be answered before anything is written down, and the advisor of choice provision that both parties routinely fail to use. It explains how to obtain the governing documents and map every procedural obligation, because whether the institution followed its own published process is frequently the strongest theory at a private college and a substantial part of the case at a public one. It covers interim measures, the investigation, hearing preparation, and the four strategies available. It closes with sanction negotiation and the collateral consequences—transcript notations, financial aid, immigration status, and licensure—that outlast any sanction.
Utility Shutoff and Billing Dispute Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist is ordered by urgency, because in utility matters the sequence decides the outcome. It opens with the five things to do the day a disconnection notice arrives, all of them free, then the medical certificate that can be obtained in an afternoon and is the strongest protection in this field. It sets out the notice requirements to check the utility against, the payment arrangements and named programs that are almost never volunteered, and the single question that explains most shocking bills. It covers the written dispute that keeps service on, the free commission complaint that resolves most problems in days, the assistance that goes unclaimed, and the landlord shutoff that is an unlawful eviction rather than a utility problem.
Social Security Disability Application and Appeal Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist runs a Social Security disability claim from the decision to file through federal court review, organized by the deadline that governs each stage. It covers the insured-status and earnings-record verification that should happen before anything else, the four application documents and how to complete each without undermining the claim, the medical evidence and the specific opinion questions that produce usable answers, the sixty-day appeal deadlines at every level, hearing preparation including the five-day evidence rule and the two vocational questions that win most hearings, and the post-award items—onset date review, work incentives, and overpayment response.
Contract Construction Toolkit: Canons, Clauses, and Dispute Positioning
A working kit for the two sides of contract construction. Section A is a reference table of the canons with what each actually decides and how to defeat it. Section B is model language for the fifteen clauses that most often determine how a contract is read, each with a note on what the language is doing. Section C is dispute positioning: the summary judgment posture, a discovery request set aimed at course of performance, an argument sequence, and a sample brief skeleton. Section D collects the primary authorities.
Damages Apportionment in Trademark Cases: A Practical Guide
When a defendant infringes a trademark on one product but runs a much larger business, how much can the plaintiff actually recover? The answer lies in the doctrine of apportionment, which limits recovery to the profits and damages actually attributable to the infringement rather than the defendant's entire revenue. This guide explains, in plain language for lawyers and business owners alike, how apportionment works under Section 35 of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1117(a). It maps the unusual burden-shifting structure—where the plaintiff proves the defendant's infringement-related sales, the defendant proves its costs and the share of profit not caused by the infringing mark, and sales are treated as profit until the defendant proves otherwise. It covers the two layers of apportionment, the proximate-cause requirement, the Supreme Court's 2025 narrowing of recoverable profits to the named defendant in Dewberry, the equitable factors the Second Circuit weighs, the role of willfulness after Romag, the alternative measures of actual damages (lost profits, reasonable royalty, and corrective advertising), and when courts exclude damages testimony as speculative. It closes with a worked example and practical takeaways for both sides.
Copyright Registration of Books, Manuscripts, and Speeches
Books, manuscripts, and speeches are "literary works" under U.S. copyright law, and registering them with the U.S. Copyright Office unlocks the right to sue, statutory damages, attorney's fees, and a public record of ownership. This guide explains how registration works for written and spoken expression, including the all-important fixation requirement that decides whether an extemporaneous speech is protected at all. It walks through published versus unpublished status, the deposit and best-edition rules, single versus standard versus group registration (including the GRTX option for short online literary works), preregistration for at-risk manuscripts, and the special wrinkles of ghostwriting, pen names, and anonymous authorship. A running worked example follows a debut novelist from first draft to certificate. The article closes with an FAQ, key takeaways, and a reminder that an ISBN is not a copyright.
Neighbor Disputes: Boundaries, Trees, Fences, Noise, and the Law of Nuisance
Neighbor law is where property doctrine meets human beings who have to see each other every morning, and the legal answer is frequently not the useful one. This article explains what a boundary actually is and why the fence is almost never it, how adverse possession and acquiescence can move a line that a deed says is somewhere else, and what an encroachment costs to fix. It covers the law of trees—the right to trim to the line, the liability for cutting past it, and the timber trespass statutes that multiply damages—along with fence obligations, spite fence statutes, and the surprisingly consequential law of surface water drainage. It then works through private nuisance, the balancing that decides it, and the remedies courts actually grant, before turning to the practical machinery of noise ordinances, code enforcement, mediation, and small claims.
Website Accessibility Self-Audit Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist lets a business, its developers, or its lawyer test a website against WCAG 2.1 Level AA, with the WCAG 2.2 additions, before a plaintiff does. It starts with scoping and tool setup, then works through the success criteria grouped by the four POUR principles, each with a concrete test and the legal reason it matters. Separate phases give scripted keyboard and screen reader walk-throughs of the pages that generate claims, and dedicated sections cover forms and checkout, media, PDFs, mobile apps, and third-party widgets. A governance phase covers the policy, accessibility statement, pipeline checks, training, vendor contracts, and records that make remediation durable. Red-flag boxes, a deadlines table, common failure points, and a short worked example close the checklist.
Motion in Limine Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist turns motion in limine practice into a sequence of concrete tasks, from the first reading of the judge's trial procedures to the post-trial motions that depend on a clean preservation record. It is organized in phases: procedures and calendar, inventory and triage, conferral and stipulations, drafting, expert motions, opposing, the pretrial conference and order, implementation before trial, preservation at trial, and post-trial follow-through. Each item names the governing rule or case and adds a short practical note where useful. Red-flag boxes mark the points where preservation is most often lost, and a deadlines table collects the dates that drive the work. A short worked example from an employment case and a list of common failure points close the checklist.
Filing a TTAB Notice of Opposition: A Practical Checklist
An opposition is a challenge to a pending trademark application before it registers, filed with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board within thirty days of publication in the Official Gazette. This checklist walks an opposer and its counsel through monitoring publication, securing extensions of time, confirming entitlement to a statutory cause of action, selecting and pleading the grounds, filing through ESTTA, and preparing for the institution order, the mandatory discovery conference, and the proceeding that follows. It explains the Board's narrow jurisdiction over registrability, the 15 U.S.C. Section 1063 deadline structure, and the strategic stakes of a Board proceeding after B&B Hardware. WHY notes and traps accompany each phase. Verify current TBMP guidance, 37 C.F.R. Part 2 rules, and fees before filing.
College Student Rights: Conduct Proceedings, Title IX, and Education Records
A college conduct proceeding can end a degree, a career path, and an immigration status, and it runs on procedures most students discover for the first time while inside them. This article explains the difference between a public institution's due process obligations and a private institution's contractual ones, and why the second is frequently the more useful theory. It distinguishes disciplinary dismissals from academic ones, which receive very different scrutiny, and covers the conduct process from notice through hearing and appeal. It then addresses Title IX grievance procedures—supportive measures, the advisor of choice, live hearings and cross-examination, the standard of proof—and the parallel criminal proceeding that makes every statement consequential. It closes with education records, transcript notations, the disability accommodations that apply throughout, and the financial and immigration consequences that outlast any sanction.