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.
Filing or Defending a Declaratory Judgment Action: A Practical Guide
A declaratory action is a forum-selection decision disguised as a remedy, and the analysis that should precede filing is frequently skipped. This guide covers both sides. For the party considering filing: whether a controversy exists, whether federal jurisdiction is available through the hypothetical coercive action, whether the forum is actually better, and whether the anticipatory-filing exception will defeat the point. For the party defending: attacking the controversy, attacking jurisdiction, seeking discretionary dismissal under Wilton, invoking the anticipatory exception, and mooting the case with a covenant not to sue. It closes with demand letter drafting and the standstill agreement that avoids the race entirely.
Unemployment Claim and Appeal Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist runs an unemployment claim from the day of separation through a hearing and an overpayment appeal. It is organized as sequences: the first forty-eight hours, the separation statement, the wage record, the fact-finding interview, weekly compliance, the appeal, hearing preparation, the hearing itself, and overpayments. Deadlines are flagged where they are short, which is nearly everywhere in this system. Both claimant and employer items are included, because the same hearing decides both. Use it with the accompanying article and guide.
Entity Conversion and Redomestication Checklist: A Practical Checklist
A statutory conversion is one filing and complete legal continuity, which makes it deceptively easy to treat as a clerical task. The analysis that should precede it is not clerical: the tax treatment differs sharply by direction, appraisal rights may attach, the lender's consent is almost certainly required, and secured parties must re-perfect within a short window or lose their liens. This checklist separates the analysis from the filing from the long tail of downstream updates, assigns each item an owner, and identifies the long-lead items—licenses, government contract novations, and lender consents—that determine the schedule. This checklist sequences the analysis, the approvals, the filings, and the post-conversion cleanup that a change of form actually requires.
Defending a Trade Secret Claim: Reverse Engineering, Independent Development, Public Disclosure, and Readily Ascertainable Information
This article explains how a trade secret claim actually gets defeated, element by element, for the company or engineer who receives a demand letter and honestly believes the work was its own. It reads the leading cases closely on what a trade secret is not: information generally known or readily ascertainable (with California's different treatment), information published in patents and applications, posted online, or sold in a product, and information an owner failed to guard. It then covers the two defenses the law protects by name, reverse engineering and independent derivation, and shows what those defenses look like as evidence, from git history and build logs to lab notebooks and clean room records. Later sections address employee general skill, contract limits, limitations after the Federal Circuit's 2026 decision in Insulet v. EOFlow, preemption of state tort claims, whistleblower immunity, unclean hands, and bad-faith fee shifting. Readers get the burdens, the splits, two worked hypotheticals, and an honest sense of which arguments win early and which wait for a jury.
Declaratory Judgment Actions: Jurisdiction, Discretion, and the Race to the Courthouse
The Declaratory Judgment Act lets a party who expects to be sued sue first, and that single feature makes it a forum-selection instrument as much as a remedy. This article explains what it does and does not permit: the actual controversy requirement and how MedImmune loosened it, the jurisdictional problem created by the well-pleaded complaint rule for federal question cases, the broad discretion courts retain to decline declaratory jurisdiction even when it exists, and the interaction with the first-filed rule that makes anticipatory declaratory suits contested. It covers the recurring contexts—insurance coverage, patents, contract interpretation—and the drafting consequences for anyone considering a demand letter. It also explains why a covenant not to sue can moot the case and what that costs the party granting it. The practical thesis is that a declaratory action is an affirmative litigation decision, not a reflex response to a letter.
Settlement Toolkit: Term Sheets, Releases, Offers of Judgment, and Enforcement
This toolkit collects the documents a settlement practice runs on: a valuation worksheet and authority confirmation that precede the negotiation, a term sheet complete enough to sign at nine in the evening, release language naming every releasing and released party, the dismissal order that solves the Kokkonen enforcement problem, a confession of judgment, confidentiality and non-disparagement clauses with the carve-outs that make them enforceable, a Rule 68 offer drafted so it is not construed against the offeror, a lien resolution worksheet, and a motion to enforce. Each is annotated with the failure it prevents. It includes a term sheet, a long-form settlement agreement with clause-by-clause notes, mutual and one-way release language, an offer of judgment, dismissal stipulations, and an enforcement motion outline. Each carries drafting notes on what the provision does and where it commonly fails. Adapt everything to the claims released, the governing law, and the court's practice on retaining jurisdiction.
Election Law Toolkit: Registration, Challenges, Recounts, and Campaign Compliance
This toolkit collects the working documents of elections: a registration verification log, absentee request and ballot cure language, a provisional ballot and polling place incident report, an accommodation request, public records requests for the voter file and election records, candidate filing and petition validation worksheets, a petition challenge response outline, committee registration and contribution intake forms, refund and disclaimer language, a coordination firewall memorandum, a reporting calendar, recount observer instructions with a ballot objection log, an election contest outline, and a redistricting testimony template.
Settlement Agreement Checklist: A Practical Checklist
Settlement documentation fails in a small number of predictable ways: a release that does not cover what someone thought, a party who did not sign, a court with no power to enforce, and liens nobody resolved. This checklist prevents each. It runs from pre-mediation valuation and authority through the term sheet that must be signed before anyone leaves the room, then through the drafting decisions that determine whether the deal holds—release scope, every party by name, enforcement before dismissal, confidentiality that can be complied with, allocation, and liens—and closes with the items that must be done before the file is shut. It covers authority, scope of release, payment mechanics, confidentiality, enforcement, tax reporting, and dismissal papers. Every item is written so that a "no" tells you what to do next.
Disputing a Medical Bill and Dealing with Medical Debt: A Practical Guide
This guide takes a medical bill from the envelope to resolution, in the order the work actually has to be done. It starts with the thirty minutes that matter most—requesting the itemized bill, matching it against the explanation of benefits, and finding the errors that appear in a large share of hospital bills. It then walks through the four ways a bill gets reduced: correcting errors, appealing an insurance denial, applying for hospital financial assistance, and negotiating a settlement. It explains what changes when the account goes to a collector, how to write a validation dispute that works, and why a partial payment on an old debt can be the most expensive fifty dollars you ever spend. It ends with the lawsuit—what an answer must contain, which defenses are waived if not raised, and what garnishment exemptions protect.
Apex Deposition Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist turns apex deposition practice into phased, check-off tasks for the party seeking a senior executive's or official's deposition and for the party resisting it. It starts with classifying the forum, the burden rule, and the witness, then moves through building the record of personal involvement, using less intrusive discovery, conferring, and serving the notice or subpoena. The resisting side's phases cover same-day triage, the internal investigation, the executive's declaration, and the motion for protective order with a proposed order. Later phases cover the ruling, review by objection or mandamus, compliance with sequencing orders, executive preparation, and the limited deposition itself, plus a separate phase for high-ranking government officials. Red-flag boxes, a deadlines table, a short worked example involving a startup founder, and a list of common failure points close the checklist.
Short-Term Rentals: Local Regulation, HOA Restrictions, Taxes, and Liability
Short-term rentals sit at the intersection of four bodies of law that were not written with them in mind, and the operator who understands only one of them is exposed on the other three. This article explains the local regulatory layer—permits, primary residence requirements, density caps, occupancy limits, and the enforcement mechanisms cities actually use—and then the private restrictions that frequently matter more, including HOA covenants, lease prohibitions, mortgage occupancy clauses, and the homeowner's policy exclusion that leaves many hosts effectively uninsured. It covers the tax layer, from transient occupancy taxes collected at the local level to the federal treatment of rental income including the fourteen-day rule and the passive activity limits. It closes with liability: guest injuries, neighbor nuisance claims, fair housing obligations, and the platform immunity that determines who a wronged guest or neighbor can actually sue.
Sentencing and Post-Conviction Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist runs a criminal case from sentencing preparation through federal habeas. It covers presentence report objections and the mitigation record, allocution preparation, the notice of appeal and the transcript order that must include everything, issue selection against preservation and the standard of review, the transition to collateral review and what claims survive, the ineffective assistance investigation including obtaining the trial and police files, the federal habeas deadline calculation done in writing, exhaustion and default, and the parallel avenues of compassionate release, retroactivity, parole, and record correction.