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.
Fraud Response and Elder Exploitation Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist is ordered by urgency, because in fraud response the sequence determines the outcome. It opens with the first hour after money moves and the exact words to use with a fraud department, then the four questions that identify a scam in progress and the two rules that defeat most of them. It sets out recovery prospects by payment method and the error resolution deadlines that cap liability, the complete reporting sequence with what each agency needs, and the account-securing steps that close off the access the scammer obtained. It closes with the elder exploitation sequence—the accounting an agent can be compelled to give, the transfer hold banks can now place, and the doctrines that recover property—plus the recovery scam and the tax injury that follow.
Trade Secret Remedies Toolkit: Damages Models, Head Start Analyses, and Injunction Briefing
This toolkit collects the working documents of a trade secret remedies case, each introduced by its purpose, its owner, and when to use it, and each followed by drafting commentary tied to the governing statutes and decisions. It begins with an early remedies assessment memo, a Rule 26 damages computation, and core damages discovery requests for both sides. The modeling templates cover actual loss, the defendant's profits with apportionment, avoided development costs worked through for a software company, reasonable royalties, a head start analysis worked through for a two-year head start on a manufacturing process, and a matrix that keeps every dollar in one bucket. The injunction templates include outlines for moving and opposing briefs, a bond worksheet, and model clauses for a proposed order that respects the DTSA's employment proviso. Later templates address the damages expert report and Rule 702 motions, a willful and malicious evidence log, a verdict form skeleton, fee motions, a post-trial deadline calendar, and settlement remedy terms. It closes with common drafting mistakes, an FAQ, and practical takeaways.
School Discipline and Student Rights: Suspension, Expulsion, Searches, and Speech
School discipline is the point where a child's education, a family's schedule, and a body of constitutional and statutory law collide, usually in a fifteen-minute meeting nobody prepared for. This article explains the due process that actually attaches to a suspension, which is less than parents expect for short removals and considerably more for long ones, and the additional protections that apply when the student has a disability—including the manifestation determination that changes everything and the stay-put rule most parents have never heard of. It covers student speech from the substantial disruption standard through the off-campus question the Supreme Court addressed recently, the reduced search standard that applies at school and its limits, and the involvement of school resource officers that converts a discipline matter into a delinquency case. It closes on truancy, records, and the alternatives to exclusion.
Responding to a Ransomware Attack: A Practical Guide for the First Two Weeks
This guide walks a company and its counsel through the first fourteen days after a ransomware attack, in the order the decisions actually arrive. It starts with the decision points to settle before acting, including whether the organization is a public entity barred from paying, which reporting regimes apply, and what the insurance policy requires. Twelve steps then cover containment without destroying evidence, the counsel-directed two-track forensic structure, insurer notice, law enforcement contact, scoping, the negotiation channel, sanctions screening, the short-clock regulatory reports, the payment decision and its execution or rejection, communications, the breach notification analysis, and litigation readiness. Each step explains what to do, why, the governing authority, pitfalls, timing, and cost drivers. A timeline table, an extended worked example following a public logistics company through all fourteen days, sections for vendors, customers, and public entities, common mistakes, an FAQ, and takeaways complete the guide.
Manufactured Homes and Mobile Home Parks: Titles, Lot Rents, and the Law of a Home You Cannot Move
A manufactured home is the only kind of housing where the resident usually owns the house and rents the ground it sits on, and that split is the source of nearly every problem in the field. This article explains the HUD code that governs how these homes are built, why the title is usually a vehicle-style certificate rather than a deed, and what converting to real property actually accomplishes. It covers the ground lease relationship—lot rent increases, park rules, utility pass-throughs, and the evictions that leave a homeowner with a house they cannot afford to move and cannot sell in place. It examines park closures and the relocation assistance and opportunity-to-purchase laws that a growing number of states have enacted, the financing gap between chattel loans and mortgages, and the warranty and installation claims available when a new home is defective.
Appealing a Health Insurance Denial: A Practical Guide
This guide runs a health insurance appeal from the day the denial arrives through external review and, if necessary, into court. It covers the first question that changes everything, whether the plan is self funded or insured, the claim file request that produces the clinical criteria and reviewer credentials the denial rests on, how to read those criteria against your own records, how to get a letter of medical necessity that answers each stated ground rather than praising the treatment in general, the internal appeal deadlines and expedited track, the external review that overturns a large share of denials and binds the plan, the regulatory complaints that produce movement, and the ERISA rule that makes the internal appeal the only chance to build a record.
Evaluating and Assessing a Civil Lawsuit
A rigorous early case assessment is the single most valuable—and most underinvested—hour a litigator spends on a dispute. This article walks corporate counsel and outside litigators through the full arc of assessing a civil lawsuit, following a hypothetical defendant from the moment a dispute surfaces to judgment and appeal. It works methodically through the questions that actually decide whether a case is worth bringing or fighting: can the plaintiff prove every element of the claim under the governing burden of proof; is there personal jurisdiction and proper venue; has the statute of limitations run; what are liability and damages worth separately; and—the question lawyers forget until it is too late—can a judgment ever be collected. It then turns to the quantitative tools that turn judgment into a defensible number (decision trees and expected value), the fee arrangements and ethical rules (Model Rules 1.5 and 1.7) that govern who pays and on what terms, and the modern frontier of e-discovery, predictive analytics, and third-party litigation funding. The throughline: assessment is not about predicting outcomes but about shaping them.
Recognizing and Responding to a Scam: A Practical Guide
This guide is organized around what to do rather than what to fear. It opens with the first hour after money has moved, in order, because the difference between recovering a wire and not recovering it is measured in hours. It then gives the four questions that identify almost any scam in progress and the two rules that defeat most of them without requiring any judgment in the moment. It walks through what recovery is realistically possible for each payment method and how to write a dispute that triggers error resolution obligations. It covers how to intervene with someone who does not believe you, which is the hardest problem in this area, and what to do about a family member exploiting an older relative. It ends with rebuilding, the recovery scam that targets known victims, and the tax injury nobody warns about.
Criminal Defense Toolkit: Bail, Discovery, Plea Bargaining, and Sentencing
This toolkit assembles the working documents of a criminal defense practice in the order they are needed. It includes the client instruction letter that prevents the most common self-inflicted damage, the evidence preservation letter aimed at body camera and third party video before it overwrites, a release plan template and bail argument outline, an enumerated discovery and Brady demand, suppression and Franks motion outlines, a plea evaluation memorandum that forces the collateral consequences analysis before any offer is conveyed, a sentencing memorandum framework built on the statutory factors, mitigation package guidance including how to instruct letter writers, and the post-disposition items that determine whether a record can ever be cleared.
Claiming Social Security: A Practical Guide to Timing, Spousal, and Survivor Benefits
This guide walks the Social Security decision from the earnings record check at fifty to the appeal of a wrong determination at seventy. It covers how to read the benefit estimate and what it assumes, how to check the record for missing years while corrections are still possible, the claiming decision framed as longevity insurance rather than a break-even bet, why the higher earner in a married couple holds the most valuable decision, how spousal and divorced-spouse benefits actually work under deemed filing, the survivor switching strategy that still exists, how to apply, and what to do about overpayments and denials.
Motor Carrier Toolkit: Qualification Files, DataQs Challenges, and Driver Protections
This toolkit provides the records, requests, logs, and complaints that protect a commercial driving career, ordered from the annual review that prevents most problems to the complaints that address the rest. It includes an annual records review sheet, requests for a certified driving record and a driver qualification file, a medical certificate tracker, and a script for screening a lawyer on CDL competence before a citation is resolved. It provides a DataQs challenge form keyed to the six correctable error types, an inspection log, a detention log that supports a wage claim and defends an hours question at once, the written refusal message that wins whistleblower and coercion cases, complaint outlines with their ninety and one hundred eighty day deadlines, a return-to-duty tracker, a settlement statement audit, a lease-purchase review, and a carrier compliance audit.
Amendment Toolkit: Redlined Pleadings, Rule 16 Good Cause Showings, and Futility Oppositions
This toolkit collects working templates for every document in a federal amendment dispute, built around a running patent example. It includes a meet-and-confer letter requesting consent, a stipulation and proposed order to amend and modify the schedule, a notice of motion and memorandum outline for leave to amend, a redline exhibit protocol, a Rule 16(b)(4) good-cause declaration with a diligence chronology, a relation-back analysis worksheet, a futility opposition outline, a prejudice declaration, and a proposed order granting leave on conditions. Each template states its purpose, owner, and timing, uses bracketed placeholders, and is followed by drafting commentary tied to the governing rules and cases. The running example follows a sensor company that learns of a new accused product after the amendment deadline, and an accused infringer that wants to add inequitable conduct. Practitioners should adapt each template to local rules and the assigned judge's practices.