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.
Small-Dollar Credit and Credit Repair Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist gives the sequence for someone already inside a payday or title loan, starting with the step that stops the largest ongoing loss. It covers revoking the ACH authorization and stopping the bank fee cascade, the two-minute lawfulness check that in many states produces a void loan, the transaction history where rollover violations become visible, and the extended payment plan many states require lenders to offer on request. It sets out the cheaper credit available to refinance out, the title loan sequence with its redemption and notice rights, the collection threats that are unlawful, and the defenses that work in a collection lawsuit. It ends with what actually improves a credit report and the advance fee prohibition that makes most credit repair contracts unlawful.
Professional Licensing and Discipline: Boards, Investigations, Hearings, and Sanctions
A professional license is a property interest that a state agency can suspend or revoke, often through a board composed of the licensee's own competitors, and the consequences reach far beyond the license itself. This article explains how licensing boards are structured and why that structure creates recurring due process and antitrust problems, how a complaint becomes an investigation and an investigation becomes charges, the summary suspension power and the prompt hearing it requires, what process is actually due and what the standard of proof usually is, the sanctions available and the negotiated resolutions that resolve most matters, the reporting databases and reciprocal discipline that multiply a single sanction across states, and the reinstatement path.
Tax Problem Resolution Checklist
A working checklist for a tax debt, sequenced from the emergency to the resolution. It opens with the deadlines that must be calendared the day a notice arrives and the immediate steps for a levy in progress. It covers pulling and reading all four transcript types, identifying unfiled years and substitute returns, reconstructing records, and computing reasonable collection potential before anyone quotes a fee. It includes the financial statement documentation list with the expense categories most often under-claimed, the four resolution paths with the facts that point to each, penalty abatement and innocent spouse requests, lien withdrawal and discharge, and the free representation most people do not know exists.
Tax Controversy Toolkit: Hearing Requests, Financial Statements, and Relief Applications
Working templates for a tax collection case. It includes a notice triage worksheet that converts an envelope into a deadline, a transcript request and collection statute worksheet, an emergency levy release request, and a collection due process statement that actually raises the issues Appeals can act on. It provides a record reconstruction log for filing old returns, a reasonable collection potential worksheet you can complete before anyone quotes a fee, and an allowable expense worksheet with the categories most often under-claimed. It closes with penalty abatement and reasonable cause letters, an innocent spouse declaration outline, lien withdrawal and discharge requests, and a Taxpayer Advocate hardship request.
Resolving a Tax Debt with the IRS: A Practical Guide
This guide walks through resolving a tax debt in the order the work actually happens: stop the bleeding, pull the transcripts, get compliant on filing, compute the numbers, then choose the resolution that fits. It explains how to read an account transcript for the collection statute expiration date, how to reconstruct records for years you no longer have, and how to compute your own reasonable collection potential before anyone quotes you a fee. It covers emergency levy releases, the thirty-day hearing deadline, the four resolution paths and how to choose between them, penalty abatement requests that are granted for the asking, and the free representation available to people who assume they cannot afford help.
Personal Income Tax Problems: Unfiled Returns, Liens, Levies, and Offers in Compromise
Almost every tax problem is a collection problem, and almost every collection problem has a procedural answer that most people never learn about. This article explains what actually happens when returns go unfiled, how a substitute return inflates a balance and why filing a real one usually reduces it, and what a federal tax lien does that is different from a levy. It walks through the two hearing rights that stop collection while a case is reviewed, the four ways to resolve a balance you cannot pay in full, and the penalty relief that is granted for the asking far more often than people expect. It covers innocent spouse relief, the deadlines that quietly end both refunds and collection, and where to get free help that is genuinely good.
Lookalike Domain Response Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist turns a lookalike domain incident into phased tasks that can be worked from a printed page. It opens with preparation and five-minute triage, then covers the money, evidence capture, containment, communications, and same-day abuse reports. Later phases address escalation to registries and ICANN, insurer and counterparty steps, the choice among the URS, the UDRP, and federal court, and the papers needed for each. A separate phase covers a registrant who was wrongly reported, and a final phase covers lessons learned and defensive work. Each task names the authority or source behind it, with notes on practice and red flags where mistakes tend to happen.
Bayh-Dole Compliance Checklist: A Practical Checklist
Bayh-Dole compliance is a system of deadlines and records, and institutions lose rights for administrative reasons rather than substantive ones. This checklist runs the full sequence: identifying subject inventions when funding is mixed, meeting the disclosure and election deadlines, including the government support statement, flowing the statutory conditions through to licensees, collecting the utilization data that only licensees possess, and maintaining the title records that determine whether a patent is enforceable at all. It includes sections for licensees receiving Bayh-Dole flow-through terms, for sponsored research negotiation, and for audit readiness. It runs from invention disclosure through election of title, filing, and utilization reporting. Every item is written so that a "no" tells you what to do next.
Navigating Military Justice and Servicemember Rights: A Practical Guide
This guide is the sequence for a servicemember facing a legal problem, in either system. It covers what to say and not say when an investigator appears, how to decide between an Article 15 and a court-martial, how to prepare for an administrative separation board that ends more careers than courts-martial do, how to invoke each Servicemembers Civil Relief Act protection in writing, how to assert USERRA reemployment rights and where to file, how to build a discharge upgrade or records correction application, and the transition checklist that determines VA outcomes for decades.
Licensing University Technology: A Practical Guide for Companies and Inventors
Licensing technology out of a university is a negotiation between parties with genuinely different constraints, and most of the friction comes from each side not understanding the other's. This guide explains both. For companies, it covers what a technology transfer office can and cannot agree to, how to run diligence on a university patent, and which terms are movable. For inventors and founders, it covers disclosure timing, the publication decisions that destroy value, conflict of interest management, and what a startup license should look like. It includes a term sheet, a negotiation sequence, budget expectations, and the errors that reliably cost money on both sides.
Filing and Fighting a Property Insurance Claim: A Practical Guide
This guide takes a property insurance claim from the hour of the loss through appraisal, complaint, and suit. It covers what to photograph before anything is moved, the mitigation duty and how emergency expenses are reimbursed, why requesting the complete policy with endorsements is the first legal act of the claim, how to prepare for the adjuster inspection and what to hand over, building a contents inventory that does not understate the loss, the sworn proof of loss deadline that forfeits claims, how to claim the depreciation holdback that millions of dollars go unclaimed on, when to demand appraisal, how to survive an examination under oath, and how to read a denial letter.
University Technology Transfer and Bayh-Dole: Who Owns Federally Funded Inventions
The Bayh-Dole Act let universities and small businesses keep title to inventions made with federal money, and it reshaped American research commercialization more than any other statute of its era. This article explains how it works: what makes an invention a subject invention, the disclosure and election deadlines that forfeit rights when missed, the government's retained license and march-in rights, and the domestic manufacturing preference. It covers the assignment problem the Supreme Court identified in Stanford v. Roche and how institutions fixed it, the mechanics of university licensing from disclosure through startup formation, and the recurring negotiation points between institutions and companies over sponsored research, background rights, and publication.