Girls In Tech

You may remember that in my last blog entry I informed our readers that many lawyers are now using blogs as a marketing tool to promote themselves, their law firms, and their expertise.  The typical employment law blog, however, is usually far from interesting.  They often include items such as riveting summaries of the latest wage and hour cases and settlements along with “helpful” tips.  I can summarize an example for you here: Wal-Mart agrees to pay $86 million to settle wage and hour claims for alleged failure to pay former California workers for overtime and unused vacation pay.  (See In re Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Wage and Hour Litigation.) To avoid class actions like the one filed against Walmart, it is important to make sure your company policies are up to date with current law.  Your employment lawyer can help you avoid Wal-Mart’s mistakes.  YAWN!  

Thankfully, Mark Tosh, employment lawyer and Chief Legal Officer of Manpower Inc.’s* North America Operations, has created a better kind of legal “blawg” – the Manpower Employment Blawg.  Highlights from the “blawg” include: Tosh’s weekly legal analysis of NBC’s “The Office”, covering both serious issues and seriously funny jokes; regular contests for readers and webinar viewers to win prizes by spotting fake laws and missed legal issues from his “Office” analyses; a link to the best lawyer jokes; and Tosh, himself, playing Elvis in the video “How To Hire If You Want To Get Fired.”

In addition to providing witty and interesting content, Tosh’s “blawg” also provides a credible and reliable source of informative legal tips and resources for executives and human resources professionals, including “cheat sheets” on numerous employment laws, legal news updates, a sample social media policy for the workplace, and a great piece on “Why You Should Care About Employment Law.” You can also follow the Manpower Employment Blawg on Twitter at @manpowerblawg.

Meredith D. Williams is an employment lawyer in Los Angeles, California and a partner at Miller | Williams LLP, an employment litigation and counseling law firm, providing businesses of all sizes, as well as selected employees, experienced and cost-effective legal services in a wide range of employment-related litigation and counseling matters, including matters involving discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and wage and hour issues.

Contact Meredith at mwilliams@millerwilliamslaw.com

*Manpower Inc. is a world-wide recruiting, staffing, and human resources consulting firm headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Tags: Blawg, Blog, employment law, girls in tech, legal, Los Angeles, Manpower Inc., Mark Tosh, Meredith D Williams, Miller Williams, nbc, The Office, Wal-Mart
Posted in All Chapters, Los Angeles | 1 Comment »

More and more we all turn to Google for answers to our every day questions.  Dear Google: how far in advance can I buy movie tickets for the new Sex and the City Movie? Dear Google: will vitamin C serum really stop these fine lines around my eyes from getting worse?  We ask Google for answers from our Blackberries and iPhones over lunch.  We ask Google for measurement conversions when cooking – how many cups are in a pint?  We even ask Google for answers to medical questions.  But can we ask Google for legal advice? Google can answer everything else, right? So why not legal questions? Can’t Google lower our business’s legal costs?

True to my attorney-self, I answer: it depends. Yes, Google can answer any legal question you pose and make you more knowledgeable about a relevant legal issue.  No, Google cannot apply the law to your business’s particular legal situation, taking into account the variable factors that inevitably make each legal issue unique; nor can Google identify related legal issues that will arise in the future and help you avoid costly legal mistakes.  Additionally, while there is a wealth of legal information online, only some of it is reliable.  Attorneys are increasingly using websites and blogs as a marketing and referral reinforcement tool, providing basic legal information in their areas of practice and legal updates on emerging issues.  As a result, there are a growing number of attorneys providing sources of legal research online; and when you pose your legal question to Google, Google will faithfully respond by providing you a list of links to numerous potential answers, including links to these websites and blogs.

When determining the reliability of a legal resource on the Internet, use common sense.  The best sources of legal information are on state and federal government websites and state bar association websites.  Both of these sources provide information which can be very helpful for businesses in a variety legal practice areas.  For example, The State Bar of California’s website provides information on bringing a case in small claims court, which is often an effective recourse for recovering outstanding unpaid accounts.  State and federal government websites also generally have business portals, combining online business resources, including legal resources, in one place on their websites, such as the U.S. Government’s Business.gov.

When viewing legal information on individual attorneys’ and law firm’s websites, take a look at the attorney profiles to give you a sense of who is giving you the advice and what their experience is.  Most of the largest law firms, which charge many hundreds of dollars by the hour for their legal advice, frequently post articles about emerging legal issues in just about every area of the law.  Because these law firms are protective of their reputations and tend to hire highly qualified attorneys, their websites and blogs can provide a reliable source of legal information.

At the end of the day, however, actual human attorneys are in a better position to answer your legal questions than Google, although Google can certainly make you a more legally savvy business woman.  

Tags: attorney blogs, attorney websites, blackberries, business woman, girls in tech, Google, iphone, legal, legal information, Meredith Davis Williams, State Bar of California
Posted in All Chapters, All Chapters, Los Angeles | No Comments »

As many of you know I was in a rear end accident two weeks ago. I was stopped at a red light and the other driver (probably on his phone), slammed into me going about 30 miles per hour. Over $10,000 in damages to my car and many doctors and x-rays later, I am still not feeling 100%. As an avid tweeter http://www.sysomos.com/insidetwitter/and facebooker http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/02/02/fastest-growing-demographic-on-facebook-women-over-55/, I decided to take to the internet while in my state of bed rest. I complained about the accident and the pain I was in and was moved by the loving responses of so many family and friends.

About a week after the accident, I continued with my online conversations remarking on the ongoing pain and headaches, as well as the irony of living in LA, and the fact that the gentleman who hit me happened to be marginally famous. A friend from high school commented on one of my facebook posts with a warning. She had been in a similar accident a year prior with another more famous actor. She told me (off my wall) that during the discovery process for her case, the opposing attorney entered her facebook updates as evidence that she was in fact filing a fraudulent claim. I immediately removed every accident related post and tweet.

I began to get angry with the thought that something that so drastically affected my life was something that, for legal purposes, I should not share with my family and friends on my social media properties. Heeding the warnings on my employment 2.0 blog posted several months ago, I found that for the first time, I had to censure myself on the web and I didn’t like it one bit.

The fact remains that twitter and facebook information is in the public domain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain and there is no expectation of privacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expectation_of_privacy. This means that if you have been involved in a car accident and claim that as a result you can no longer participate in the activities you normally do, a smart defense attorney will do a background search on you online and determine whether or not you have posted incriminating information about yourself in the lawsuit. So be warned once again, information that you put online will likely be discoverable, so do so at your own risk.

Tags: accidents, facebook, lawsuit, legal, public domain, right to privacy, twitter
Posted in Los Angeles | 2 Comments »

A hot topic in the current online media community as well as the business/legal arena has been the topic of regulating advertising and affiliate marketing. Advertising historically has consisted of traditional mediums such as television, radio, print, outdoor collateral and product placement, just to name a few. In the last decade, additional avenues such as the web, branded entertainment, viral videos and blogs have changed the direction of advertising and marketing dramatically. This has begged the question of whether regulation on a new level was necessary and to what degree the Federal Trade Commission should require mandatory disclosure of advertising. (see http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/tech/tec09.shtm)

The first step is defining advertising in broad terms. Advertising is almost any communication with consumers. Because of the breadth of this definition advertisers and markets are held to high standards both statewide and federally. The FTC has prohibited advertising and marketing that is deemed to be “unfair or deceptive”. This is further defined as any advertising that is likely to materially mislead the average reasonable consumer.

But what does that mean to us as consumers? The FTC has recognized the evolving challenges presented by new media advertising and marketing and has created mandatory “clear and conspicuous” disclosure rules. Under the FTC standards, any disclosures must be easily accessible, in a large enough print and understandable by the average consumer. The line is drawn at whether the disclosure is considered “unfair” to consumers. This includes any advertising which is contradictory, in “mouse type” or disclosures made after the fact.

To advertisers and marketers this means additional challenges and uncertainty in promoting their product or message to targeted consumers. One way around the challenges is to promote user-generated content, to make advertising more integrated as a conversation then as obvious as a banner ad or flier. This also allows for a dialog on a topic which can generate ongoing viral exposure on multiple media properties simultaneously. Not only does this advertising “conversation” adhere to the FTC standards, but it minimizes in many ways the previously required budget necessary to reach the same number of consumers.

The takeaway here for business owners is this: Advertizing and marketing is evolving into new hybrids. The recognition of multiple new outlets for all things marketing and advertising is not only suggested but almost required in this day and age. And why not jump on the bandwagon. If “new media” simultaneously helps you bottom line and minimizes potential liabilities, I’m all for it.

Laurel Kaufman, Esq.
Co-Founder, AK Consulting Group
www.ak-cg.com
follow me on twitter @LaurelKaufman
facebook: Laurel Kaufman
818.263.6213 p
818.301.2068 f

Tags: advertising, busines, FTC, legal, marketing, media, regulation
Posted in Los Angeles | 2 Comments »

Join Women 2.0 for Startup Essentials, October 13-15, 2009! Held in San Francisco, all three evening sessions will include networking and a discussion workshop. Each night features a speaker covering their topic of expertise: development issues, legal issues, and PR issues. Find out the best way to support your venture in each of these areas on a tight budget.

Food and drinks will be provided.

Register at: http://www.eventbee.com/view/startupessentials
Startup Essentials: http://www.women2.org/october-2009-startup-essentials/

Tags: development, legal, PR, start-up, women 2.0
Posted in All Chapters, San Francisco | No Comments »

What do you call 300 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?

We have all heard the jokes about how lawyers are the scum of the earth, tearing apart the very moral fiber of a civilized society. Unfortunately this idea has permeated the minds of entrepreneurs so much so that it ends up costing them more in the long run. The idea that someone has to be protected if not represented legally on any and all business deals, documents even intellectual property is a concept not easily grasped by most, and even less so by the current Web 2.0 generation. The effect of this voracious use of the web whether for business or social networking, is that we are in a constant state of information sharing. While there are amazing advantages to this ability to communicate in real time, when it comes to privileged information, information that is sensitive in nature and may be at the very foundation of a business new entrepreneurs are spreading the news so to speak without taking the steps necessary to make sure that they are legally protected.

Why is this happening , and what are the consequences?

Let’s face it, everyone is struggling right now. I am writing this article while contemplating whether I actually am in dire need of the second iced latte or whether that $5 dollars would better serve me in the form of a martini later (definitely the martini). This thought process speaks to the very nature of the problem, money. The idea that startups actually spend money no matter how diminutive on a document as simple as a non-compete/non-disclosure agreement is incomprehensible. People think, “Why do I need to spend money on legal when I’m just showing friends and family?” Or, “I don’t have much to spend, I want every penny to go towards the idea or the product fabrication itself.” This, my friends, is the fundamental difference between an entrepreneur and a savvy businessperson.

So take this as my first tip of many more to come: If you have a unique concept, a developing idea, the next big thing, protect it. Spend a few hundred dollars to make sure that people you reach out to whether for funding or just for advice can’t turn around and rip you off. It happens more then you know.

Tags: intellectual property, legal, money, protect
Posted in Los Angeles | 1 Comment »