Of Interest
Paid Sick and Safe Leave Now Required In Montgomery County, MD
If you are a business owner in Montgomery County, MD and have more than one employee who works in the County, you must provide your employee(s) with paid sick and safe leave unless: the employee does not have a regular work schedule, contacts the employer for work assignments and schedules work within 48 hours after contact, has no obligation to work for the employer unless he/she initiates the contact AND is not employed by a temporary placement agency; the employee regularly works less than ni...
Legal Tools all Employers Should Consider: Importance of Employment Releases and Arbitration Clauses
Quite some time ago, the young attorney mentioned to his mentor that “the laws must have been so much easier on business when you were young.” Replied his mentor, “sure, that’s what I said to my mentor!” For employers, the law keeps moving away from the employer to the employee. However, there are still a few tools left that all employers should consider. These tools are the employment release forms and carefully-drawn employment handbooks containing mandatory arbitration clauses. ...
Limiting Employer Liability: The DC Wage Theft Prevention Amendment Act of 2014
This past DC Council Session, the Council passed The Wage Theft Prevention Amendment Act of 2014 (“Act”); following the Congressional review period, the Act became effective last year. The Act amended several DC wage and hour laws, greatly increased employer obligations and expanded the potential for employer liability.1 Accordingly, employers must review this article to learn how to mitigate liability under this new law. Generally, the Act requires employers to document pay for al...
Docu-“don’t”-sign: Don’t rely on Docusign!
Are you relying on Docusign as proof of a signature? You shouldn’t be. When the World Wide Web launched in 1993, it changed the world. An entirely new domain was opened to the public and we began to see a shift from commerce to “e-commerce,” mail to “e-mail,” book to “e-book,” and sports to “e-sports.” Then, about ten years after the emergence of the internet, Docusign, a company that wanted to “centralize and simplify agreement processes” ushered in an era that saw ...
REDEMPTION FOR THE BROKERAGE COMMUNITY: DC CIRCUIT REVERSES DENIAL OF $780,000.00+ COMMISSION
(JLL was Denied Commissions by Trial Court – Appellate Court Reverses) Over the last decade, a single broker representing both parties in a transaction has become increasingly common for the sake of efficiency; that is what Jones Lang LaSalle Brokerage (“JLL”) had in mind when it signed up 1441 L Associates L.L.C. to lease its building at 1441 L Street, NW. Earlier this year, US District Court Judge Florence Pan (District of Columbia.) ruled in Jones Lang LaSalle Brokerage Inc v. 14...
WHO IS THE OWNER? CONTRACTORS, BROKERS AND AGENTS BEWARE!
IF YOU AREN’T CAREFUL, YOU WILL NOT COLLECT. Here is the scenario … you spend months working on a project and you are a bit behind in billing or collecting from the owner. The owner is “ghosting you” and you pull your team off the job. You now want to file a mechanics lien or file suit against the owner when your attorney tells you that the owner is not the property management company or project manager but a limited liability company or partnership which is not the party that signed...
ATTENTION DC PROPERTY OWNERS — IS YOUR PROPERTY VACANT?
BE CAREFUL, YOU MAY BE IN STORE FOR A BIG AND UNFORTUNATE SURPRISE FROM DC TAX AND REVENUE! Many laws start off as well-intended … but end up both taking on a life of their own. Another example where, because of government implementation, the good laws get out of control. This is often the case with the District’s implementation of its vacant and blighted nuisance laws. These laws are quite old – over 100 years – but have been changed in the last decade to permit the District t...
CLEVER ESTATE PLANNING FOR THE CLOSELY-HELD BUSINESS: RECAPITALIZATION AND FREEZE IN VALUE CAN SAVE SIGNIFICANT ESTATE TAXES
Even in bad market times, closely-held businesses continue to see growth. That growth is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the partnership or stock ownership becomes more valuable – but, at the same time – the more valuable the stock at the time of the owner’s death, the greater the tax burden on the owner’s estate. To avoid this problem, consider recapitalizing—specifically, converting some of your corporation’s common stock into preferred stock. Recapitalization is the restru...
Didn’t receive your PPP funding? There is another option.
For businesses that didn’t receive funding under the Paycheck Protection Program, Congress has approved the Employee Retention Credit to help them pull through the economic impacts of COVID-19. Under the Coronavirus, Relief, and Economic Security Act (“the CARES Act”), qualifying businesses can receive this tax credit worth as much as $5,000 per employee that they continue to pay throughout the 2020 calendar year.To qualify for the program, businesses just need to demonstrate either that ...
THE DC AREA’S “TRI-STATE LENDING CONUNDRUM”: RECOMMENDATIONS ON PAPERING A GOOD LOAN THAT “TOUCHES” DC/MD/VA
A senior lending officer once remarked, “the best loans are those that are well-underwritten and better papered.” Lending in our tri-jurisdiction area of DC, Maryland and Virginia is challenging today. Lenders must not only underwrite the loan and the borrower/guarantors for today, but also look forward during the term of the loan to protect the loan for default, trouble or calamity. Beyond that, it gets even trickier in our area. The lender may be organized in one state and fund...