Family Law

• Adoption

Criminal Law

• Theft
• Murder
  He represented people charged criminally with most of the identified human frailties - from murder to being disorderly - and on both sides of civil disputes ranging from contract disputes and injuries to mind and body to violations of civil rights, human dignity, and common sense.
• Money Laundering
  Human rights laws; and the financial crimes agency FinCEN has adopted a nationwide rule that would require small businesses to file reports identifying their owners in an effort to thwart money-laundering – the rule, however, is already being challenged in court by a small business organization. I also want to note a legal trend in

Business and Corporate Law

• Corporate Law
  Hether, and when, to "pierce the corporate veil" has been called the most heavily litigated issue in corporate law. Most likely, this is because it is litigated not in the context of a corporate dispute, but in tort actions in which a corporation is found to be un- or under-insured, and otherwise unable to respond in damages for injuries to others. There are a lot of decisions on various aspects of the issue, but sadly, precious little principled analysis.
• Business Disputes
  AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, 131 S. Ct. 1740 (2011). However, the FAA certainly does not require arbitration of all contract disputes, or even all disputes arising under contracts containing an arbitration clause. The Supreme Court held in
• Limited Liability Companies
  It is commonplace today for several providers of professional services - lawyers, physicians, accountants, and others - to go into business together, and structure their business as a corporation, a limited liability company, or the more recent limited liability partnership. There is a proliferation of suffixes denoting these combinations, such as P.C. or P.A. (for corporations), P.L.L.C. (for limited liability companies) and L.L.P. (limited liability partnership). The use of the traditional partnership form is becoming a rarity. Large professional enterprises that once organized as general partnerships, later formed into "partnerships of professional corporations," and have more recently been evolving into newer forms such as the limited liability partnership or "Swiss Verein" (a club or confederation with a structure for governance, but lacking common ownership, sharing of profits and losses, and systems for assuming or limiting liability). The aim of this series of essays is to bring some clarity to the often mysterious world of the corporate practice of the professions.
• Construction Contracts
• Trade Secrets
• Intellectual Property
• Unfair Competition
  The parallel development of the doctrine of the "corporate practice of medicine" emphasized the need to preserve physicians' autonomy. However, its earliest proponent, the American Medical Association, guilelessly expressed its concerns over maintaining "reasonable competition among the physicians of a community" (Principles of Medical Ethics, 1912), condemning "contracts that create more than 'reasonable competition' " and promote "underbidding to obtain contracts" (1933), creating conditions of "unfair competition" (1934). The FTC ultimately found that these restrictions were anticompetitive (n.7).

Employment Law

• Employment Contract
  Whether California's latest attempt to curb federally mandated arbitration will withstand the ultimate test is debatable. On one hand, the new Civil Code provision, on its face, does not single out arbitration, nor does it invalidate arbitration of all matters in the employment relationship (i.e., only those that implicate the protections of the Labor Code). But it is very likely that the Supreme Court will find that thwarting the FAA is central to its purpose. On the other hand, the new provision purports to define an improper condition of employment that, carried to its logical extreme, could oust California's Labor Commissioner from jurisdiction over large fields of employment, and presumably hindering the state's ability to regulate employment practices. The proper resolution may be found in the recognition that the contract of employment is a complex contract involving an ongoing relationship in which work is exchanged for compensation, under fairly heavy state and federal regulation. The state is, in a sense, a party to all employment contracts by reason of the many rules engrafted onto such contracts by state law. It would not require great imagination to envision a regulatory scheme in which the state, as a party, stood ready to take up the cause of any employee injured by a violation of the rules governing employment (much as the EEOC is empowered to do). In this sense, the state is at least an interested party. As a general rule, an arbitration provision is not binding on parties who did not assent to it. Unfortunately, it does not appear that California's new rule takes this additional step, and for that reason, it is probably doomed to the fate met by the state's many anti-arbitration policies that preceded it.
• Employment Litigation
  When his clients, who were all of the employees of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention of the Department of Justice, were ordered to disclose discussions with their lawyers about an employment dispute, he persuaded a panel of appellate judges of the error of both the agency head who gave the order, and the district judge who agreed with it.
• Non-compete Agreement
  2. The District of Columbia has already enacted a law severely limiting the use of non-compete clauses in employment. That law took effect on October 1, 2022. Section 32-581.03a of the law requires employers to provide disclosures to employees if its policies include the exceptions to the definition of a non-compete provision, either within 30 days after October 1, 2022, or whenever the employer changes its policy. Employers are also required to provide a specific notice to its highly compensated employees (those earning more than $150,000 per year, or medical specialists who earn more than $250,000 per year, as follows: “The District’s Ban on Non-Compete Agreements Amendment Act of 2020 limits the use of non-compete agreements. It allows employers to request non-compete agreements from highly compensated employees, as that term is defined in the Ban on Non-Compete Agreements Amendment Act of 2020, under certain conditions. [Name of employer] has determined that you are a highly compensated employee. For more information about the Ban on Non-Compete Agreements Amendment Act of 2020, contact the District of Columbia Department of Employment Services (DOES).”.

Property Law

• Construction Litigation

Trusts and Estates

• Estate Planning
• Wills
• Trusts
• Probate

Finance Law

• Tax Law