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.
SAFE Financing Round Checklist: A Practical Guide
The SAFE is the dominant instrument for raising startup seed capital, but its "simplicity" hides mechanics that routinely surprise founders. This checklist walks through deciding whether a SAFE is even the right instrument, choosing the four levers (valuation cap, discount, MFN, and trigger), understanding the post-money form that fixes investors' percentages and stacks dilution onto founders, modeling conversion and the phantom liquidation preference before signing, complying with the securities laws that govern every SAFE sale, and handling pro-rata side letters and closing mechanics. Each phase pairs the steps with the governing authority—Section 4(a)(2) and Regulation D, Rule 506, Form D, and the anti-fraud rules—and flags the traps, above all the SAFE pileup. It is general information, not legal advice; SAFEs are securities and their treatment varies by jurisdiction and facts.
Negotiating a Master Services Agreement and Statement of Work
The master services agreement and the statement of work do different jobs, and most disputes arise because one document did the other's work badly. This guide separates them. It explains what belongs in the master agreement, which sets the legal architecture once and is negotiated by lawyers, and what belongs in each statement of work, which defines the actual engagement and is usually written by the people who will perform it. It then works through the provisions that decide outcomes: scope and acceptance, which determine when the customer must pay; the pricing structures and change control that determine what happens when the work grows; service levels and their remedies; intellectual property ownership in a services context, where the default rules surprise customers; and the risk allocation architecture of warranties, indemnities, liability caps, and insurance. Later sections address data and security, personnel and subcontracting, termination and transition, and the order of precedence problem that undoes carefully negotiated terms.
Easements, Boundary Disputes, and Adverse Possession
Land disputes between neighbors follow a small number of recurring patterns, and almost all of them are decided by doctrines that were fully formed before the Civil War. Someone uses a driveway across a neighbor's land for thirty years; a fence sits eight feet inside the recorded line; a landlocked parcel has no legal access; a garage overhangs the boundary by fourteen inches. This article works through the law that resolves each: the several ways an easement can arise and the very different proof each requires, how scope and relocation disputes are analyzed, the elements of adverse possession and the boundary doctrines that reach the same result more easily, and the remedies available for an encroachment. It closes with the diligence practices that prevent these disputes and the litigation choices that resolve them.
Administering a 401(k) Plan: Fiduciary Process, Compliance, and Common Failures
Running a retirement plan is an operational discipline, and most plan failures are not investment failures but administrative ones: the wrong definition of compensation used for a match, an employee who should have been enrolled and was not, deferrals deposited late, or a plan document that no longer matches how the plan is actually run. This guide covers the year in the life of a plan. It starts with the documents that govern and the restatement cycle that keeps them current, then eligibility and entry, the compensation definition that causes more corrections than any other single item, and the contribution types and limits. It covers deposit timing and the fiduciary exposure it creates, nondiscrimination testing and the safe harbor designs that avoid it, and the annual reporting and disclosure calendar. Later sections address loans, distributions, and the correction programs that fix errors before they become disqualification events.
Taking and Defending an Expert Deposition: A Practical Guide
This guide walks lawyers, and the clients who pay for expert discovery, through an expert deposition from the day reports are exchanged to the Daubert hearing, in the order the work actually happens. The first part covers the taking side: deciding whether and how long to depose, getting the expert's file by Rule 34 request and Rule 45 subpoena, noticing the deposition and settling the Rule 26(b)(4)(E) fee, researching the expert, building a modular outline, conducting the examination, and turning the transcript into a Rule 37(c)(1) or Rule 702 motion. The second part covers the defending side: structuring the engagement so consultants and testifiers stay separate, responding to the notice and subpoena, preparing the expert on the three Rule 26(b)(4)(C) exceptions, defending with proper objections and instructions, and handling errata, supplementation, and a continued deposition. Along the way it addresses remote and foreign depositions, fee disputes, budgets, and the cases courts cite at each decision point. A day-by-day worked example follows a patent case's expert calendar from rebuttal reports to the Daubert filing, and the guide closes with common mistakes, an FAQ, and practical takeaways.
Import Compliance and Customs Entry Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist runs an import program from product selection through post entry review. It front loads the classification and trade remedy analysis that must happen before a purchase order, then works valuation including the assists importers most often omit, origin and marking, partner agency requirements, the setup items, the entry sequence with the deadlines that follow it, and the annual program tasks including drawback and self assessment. Separate sections cover what to do when an error is found and what a detention, penalty notice, or audit requires.
Trademark Coexistence and Consent Agreements: How Rivals Share a Name and Persuade the USPTO
This article explains how two businesses that use the same or similar marks can agree to share a name, and why the USPTO and the courts usually respect those agreements. It traces the doctrine from In re E.I. du Pont de Nemours through In re N.A.D., Bongrain, In re Mastic, and In re Four Seasons Hotels to recent Trademark Trial and Appeal Board decisions that accepted or rejected consents, and it explains the difference between a "naked" consent and a "clothed" agreement. It then covers the limits: identifications of goods that do not match the private deal, geographic carve-outs that require a concurrent use proceeding, antitrust rules against dividing markets, naked licensing risk, and the effect on third parties. Separate sections address enforcement between the parties, assignment and successors, bankruptcy after Mission Product Holdings, global coexistence, and tax. An extended worked example follows two companies from a Section 2(d) refusal to a signed agreement and a later acquisition. Common mistakes, an FAQ, and practical takeaways close the article.
Homeowners Associations and Condominium Law: Governance, Assessments, and Enforcement
A common interest community is a small private government with the power to tax, legislate, adjudicate, and foreclose, operated by volunteers who have usually received no training. The governing documents form a contract that runs with the land and binds every purchaser, but that contract sits beneath a growing overlay of state statutes, fair housing law, and judicial doctrines limiting what a board may enforce and how. The disputes that consume associations are predictable: unpaid assessments, architectural denials, underfunded reserves, selective enforcement, and the aftermath of developer control. This article covers the structure of the documents, the board's duties and the deference it receives, assessment and lien practice, enforcement mechanics, and the transition and construction defect issues that arise when the declarant leaves.
Chapter 11 First-Day Filing Checklist: A Practical Checklist
The first seventy-two hours of a Chapter 11 case determine whether the business survives long enough to reorganize, and the work that makes those hours succeed is done before the petition is filed. A debtor that files without a cash collateral stipulation, a thirteen-week budget, a payroll motion, and utility adequate assurance will run out of usable cash in the second week. This checklist covers the pre-filing preparation, the petition and required filings, the first-day motions in order of urgency, the operating requirements that begin immediately, and the early deadlines—including the compressed Subchapter V schedule—that must be calendared on the day of filing. It runs from the pre-filing preparation through the first-day hearing itself, and flags the motions that must be filed with the petition rather than in the following week.
Trademark Declaration Accuracy Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist is the pre-signature review for any sworn trademark filing with the USPTO. It covers checks common to every filing (owner, signer, signature mechanics, and record keeping), then gives separate phases for Section 1(a) applications, Section 1(b) and Section 44 applications, statements of use and amendments to allege use, Section 8 declarations, Section 15 declarations, Section 71 declarations, and foreign-domiciled filers. Each item names its authority, and red flags mark the errors most likely to lead to a fraud claim, an audit problem, or a USPTO sanction. A final phase covers what to do if a problem turns up after filing. It is written to be printed and used at the desk by a paralegal, lawyer, or business owner. The law and fees are stated as of 6 November 2026.
Stolen Domain Names: How Domain Hijacking Happens and the Legal Paths to Getting One Back
A stolen domain name is a theft problem first and a trademark problem second, and the remedies that work depend on how the name was taken and where it went. This article explains the common hijacking methods, from registrar account takeover and SIM swaps to lapsed registrant email domains and developers who registered the client's name in their own account, and separates registration hijacking from DNS hijacking. It then walks through the recovery paths in the order they usually matter: the registrars and the ICANN Transfer Policy, the registrar-only Transfer Dispute Resolution Policy, the UDRP and its limits, the in rem action under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, state-law conversion following Kremen v. Cohen, and federal computer-crime and stored-communications claims. It tells the key cases as stories, flags open questions such as how the re-registration split applies to thieves, and gives each side practical guidance. An extended worked example, common mistakes, an FAQ, and takeaways close the article.
Electronic Signatures and Records Under ESIGN and UETA: What Actually Binds
Electronic signatures have been legally valid across the United States for twenty-five years, and yet disputes about them are increasing rather than decreasing. The reason is that validity was never the hard question. The hard questions are attribution—proving that a particular person made the mark—and the handful of transactions that the statutes expressly carve out, where an electronic signature is not merely risky but ineffective. This article covers the architecture of the federal ESIGN Act and the state UETA, the elements that make an electronic signature enforceable, the consumer consent process that most companies implement incorrectly, the excluded categories, and the evidentiary problem of authenticating an electronic record years later. It closes with implementation guidance, including notarization, transferable records, and the practices that make an e-signature record hold up.