Hatmaker Law Group presents free monthly employment law webinars, providing educational opportunities for employers, owners, managers, accountants, attorneys and human resource professionals to stay current with up-to-date information on important California employment law issues.

September’s topic is “How To Conduct Workplace Investigations That Hold Up In Court.”

The webinar will be Wednesday, Sept. 17, from noon until 1 p.m. Pacific time.

Register online at www.hatmakerlaw.com/events/.

Or Contact: Laura Dakin at (559) 374-0077 or email laura@hatmakerlaw.com

HR.com will present a complimentary webcast on verifying past employment and education and obtaining references. The webinar will be Thursday, Sept. 4, beginning at 2:30 p.m. Eastern time.

Les Rosen, Attorney and CEO of Employment Screening Resources, will be the presenter.

On its website, HR.com says this workshop reviews legal and effective technique for the reference checking process and how to verify education and spot phony credentials. There are now even web sites where applicants can purchase very convincing fake eduction and employment histories, complete with authentic looking documentation and live operators who will verify the false information. New technologies and approaches will also be reviewed, as well as special issue involving international credentials and the role of Web 2.0 in the process, HR.com says.

Register for the webinar.

The Compliance Map will host a free webinar covering a demo of its enterprise software solution for the management of environmental compliance regulations, directives and product stewardship. The event will be Thursday, Sept. 4, from 10 am. to 11 a.m. PDT.

The presentation will cover how Compliance Map manages regulatory obligations arising from environmental compliance directives.

Other topics will include:

• Maintaining and building remittance reports for Extended Producer Responsibility Directives such as WEEE, Packaging, Battery, Beverage & Oil
• Conflict Minerals smelter & supplier management and reporting mechanisms using the EICC GeSI format
• Data collection management and report distribution using the Compliance Map supply chain management tools to facilitate data gathering as well as automatically responding to customer enquiries
• BOM tools to roll-up compliance verdicts such as RoHS, REACH SVHCs, Phthalates, EMC, MDD and aid in gap analysis and integration with ERP & PLM systems such as SAP, Agile, PTC, etc…
• Compliance & corporate governance including project and process management

Register for the complimentary webinar.

Faced with everything from unpredictable weather to changing renewable energy portfolios to volatile fuel prices, utilities can only be certain about one thing: uncertainty.

Energy Central will present a complimentary webinar Thursday, Sept. 4, beginning at noon Eastern time on the state of the utilities industry.

Energy Central’s Sierra Energy Group surveyed 70 utilities professionals in IT, finance, trading and risk management roles to better understand what keeps them awake at night.

Analyst Mike Smith of Sierra Energy Group and industry expert Corwin Moczygemba, Managing Director of Opportune’s Process and Technology practice, will discuss the top trends, challenges and best practices in the ttilities industry, including:

• Staying current with regulatory compliance
• How to improve trading and risk management processes to decrease costs and create efficiencies
• Insights on commodity price volatility, asset optimization and managing supply and demand
• Leveraging smart grid investments
• The convergence of utilities and natural gas

Register for the event.

HOMER Energy joins market partner Trojan Battery Company for an online educational presentation, followed by a live question and answer session on ways microgrid integrators and operators can develop top-performing systems using HOMER simulations and Trojan industrial batteries with Smart Carbon™ technology.

The event is scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 2, beginning at 11 a.m. Central time.

The presentation will include a live demonstration on how HOMER users can optimize microgrid designs using HOMER and Trojan Industrial batteries, specifically designed to address the impact of PSOC on cycling batteries in solar microgrid applications.

Register for the online event.

UBIC is making available a complimentary on-demand ARMA webinar on issues and solutions related to finding, transferring and reviewing digital evidence, through Sept. 30.

Business is increasingly global, and that inevitably brings disputes and regulatory investigations whose subject-matter and evidence crosses jurisdictional boundaries, says UBIC. The US approach to electronic discovery, whether in civil litigation or at the hands of regulators and criminal investigators, is much wider than is permitted elsewhere, even before questions of privacy and data protection arise.

The EU led the way with such restrictions, and now most other jurisdictions, including China, have followed. How can US courts, lawyers and regulators reconcile the proper demands of US proceedings with the equally proper restraints of other jurisdictions? Our panel will describe the problems and offer practical solutions for minimizing the conflicts.

Speakers are Chris Dale, eDisclosure Project, English Solicitor; Patrick Burke, Counsel, Reed Smith, LLP; Patrick Zeller; Corporate E-Discovery & Privacy Counsel, Gilead Sciences; Paul Starrett (Moderator); Counsel and Chief Global Risk Officer, UBIC, Inc.

View the on-demand webinar.

Equifax will present a complimentary webinar on the top risks in the I-9 and E-Verify process and how employers can avoid them. The webinar will be Wednesday, Sept. 10, at 2 p.m. Eastern time.

Equifax says the Form I-9 isn’t long, but it’s jam-packed with risk. Additionally, E-Verify is auditing your data, conducting reviews of your E-Verify practices and when appropriate refers cases to the other agencies for audit. How can an HR professional make sure the entire hiring practice is compliant? In a world where audits are more frequent, penalties can be expensive, and brand recognition can be tarnished by even the smallest of irregularities, it’s wise to know the top errors to watch for in I-9 and E-Verify compliance. Even seemingly small errors can leave your company exposed to fines and penalties, Equifax says on its website.

This session will explore the Top 10 most common errors in I-9 and E-Verify compliance and offer compliance hints and remediation steps to help make sure your workplace avoids these lurking traps.

Get more information and register for the webinar.

Optimus BT will present a complimentary webinar for legal and contract teams looking to manage full contract lifecycle from drafting contracts, to approvals, eSignatures and contract administration.

The webinar will be Thursday, August 28, beginning at 11 a.m. Eastern time.

This webinar will show case how eContracts, a SharePoint and Office 365 based software, can be used to implement various contract management processes within the enterprise with a special focus on legal document collaboration and workflow processes related to managing contract reviews and approvals between various parts of the organization, Optimus BT says on its website.

The webinar also will demonstrate eSignature capabilities as part of this overall demonstration of automating enterprise contract processes.

Register for the webinar.

The Association of Corporate Counsel offers a free on-demand webcast focusing on advanced drafting and negotiating strategies that may be used in connection with virtually every type of contract. The webcast was sponsored by Arent Fox LLP.

The strategies discussed in this 90-minute webcast are useful for technology agreements, contracts concerning the provision of products and services to state and local governments, and agreements relating to mergers and acquisitions.  The presenters also discuss how to respond effectively to various drafting and negotiation strategies that the other party may employ.

Speakers are Alan Fishel, Partner, Arent Fox; and Jessica Lorden, Associate General Counsel, IBM Corporation.

Kendrick Royer, Assistant General Counsel, Occidental Petroleum Corporation, is moderator.

Watch the webcast.

Are your contracting and revenue management processes jamming you up? Revitas offers a free on-demand webcast designed to help participants set up a well-planned route to relieve the jams.

Navigating a route filled with obstacles – poorly designed or outdated processes, miscommunications, oversights, and variable external conditions – can hinder any organizations ability to reach their goals efficiently and effectively, Reivtas says on its website.

This recorded webcast, “Traffic Update: Re-Routing to the Intersection of Contract and Revenue Management”, explores approaches to properly managing contracting and revenue management processes and map out a route for success. Watch now to learn:

• Best practices for integrating your contracts and financials
• The value and impact of accurate financial accruals
• Impacts of poor contracts on your bottom line
• Consequences of  viewing contracts as only a legal device

Watch the on-demand webinar.

Solar Power World will present a complimentary webinar on assessing risks and uncertainties throughout the development of photovoltaic plants. The webinar will be Thursday, Sept. 4, beginning at 2 p.m. Eastern time.

Safety, performance, availability and achieving expected energy yields are critical factors from early planning and design, to commissioning, to the in-service lifetime of a PV plant, Solar Power World says on its website. UL, the sponsor, will examine issues that investors, developers and operators address when assessing risks and uncertainties throughout the PV plant development.

This webinar will discuss potential risks and mitigation strategies.

Attend this webinar to learn:

• What the potential risks are during PV Plant developments
• Ways to manage and mitigate risk in PV Plant developments

Register for the webinar.

Termination for convenience clauses can be found in almost any type of contract, so it is important to understand just what these clauses can (and cannot) accomplish, writes Roberts McGivney Zagotta LLC in its blog.

In the United States, there is no national standard or uniformly applicable rule for the interpretation of TFC clauses, each state may apply its own law — or, more specifically, the law of the state the parties consent to apply governs, the firm writes. However, TFC clauses generally cause confusion for businesses because of their name: such clauses, misleadingly do NOT generally allow one party to simply terminate a contract for simple “convenience”.

The article describes a termination-for-convenience-clause case the firm handled for one of its clients.

Read the article.

Whether you’re bringing on a new hire or renegotiating a current employee’s contract, you need to stay on the legal level in negotiations, writes FindLaw on its website. Brett Snider wrote the article for FindLaw’s Free Enterprise blog.

As Forbes reports, many employers are getting pretty brazen with how they (mis)treat potential employees in salary negotiations or interviews, the posting says. But you don’t want to begin your employee-employer relationship to begin on tenuous or legally shaky ground.

The five tips include: “Don’t Make Promises You Can’t Keep” and “Be Open to Changing Boilerplate Clauses.”

Read the article.

Indemnity provisions in construction contracts are not mere boilerplate that can be overlooked, the National Law Review says on its website.

During the contracting process, indemnity clauses require careful thought, negotiation and drafting. And when an accident occurs or another problem arises, the parties should thoroughly review the indemnity language of their contract.

That is the main lesson of a recent Barnes & Thornburg appellate victory.

The posting, written by Kenneth M. Gorenberg, a partner in the Chicago office of Barnes & Thornburg LLP and a member of the firm’s Litigation Department, describes the background of the construction contract case and the developments leading to the appellate ruling.

Read the article.

The U.S. Energy Department offers a free on-demand webinar titled “Increasing Renewable Energy with Hydrogen Storage and Fuel Cell Technologies.”

The webinar features representatives from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and focuses on how to integrate hydrogen and fuel cell technologies into the transportation, industrial and other sectors.

Learn about the unique ways hydrogen storage systems can support the electrical grid and complement renewable generation. This talk also looks at the architecture of hydrogen storage systems and examine the economic competitiveness of those systems when compared with conventional systems.

See the webinar.

The IEEE Power & Energy Society Young Professionals will present a webinar on the potential of electric vehicles (EVs) to reduce fossil fuel consumption and increase energy independence.

The webinar will be Thursday, August 28, at 3 p.m. Eastern time.

If EVs’ charging is managed properly, they can also be a tool for fortifying the grid and increasing the integration of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, the association says on its website. However there are many differences in the ownership experience between a traditional internal combustion vehicle and an EV. These range from maintenance requirements and daily refueling, to road tripping and group charging with other EV owners.

This presentation will focus on the various issues associated with daily EV usage and EV ownership. This information is important to consider when planning for mass EV adoption. It is also important to convey to the public so they are more informed about life with an EV, the association says on its website.

Register for the webinar.

Bridgeway University will present a webcast that explores the balancing act of reducing legal costs while managing risk. The webinar will be Tuesday, August 26, at 12 p.m. Central time.

Unless carefully managed, simply cutting costs can undermine one of the legal department’s most important functions: managing risk. Join Joy Saphla, Managing Director of Duff & Phelps Legal Management Consulting Practice as she discusses how imprudent cost reductions can be counter-productive when not aligned with risk management philosophies and goals. She will share practical ways a legal department can deliver sustainable cost reductions, while delivering first-rate legal service that can enhance risk management and deliver tangible value.

Special guests will be Joy Saphla, Managing Director of Duff & Phelps, and David Lamb, General Counsel of the Scott Fetzer Company.

Register for the webinar.

Environmental XPRT offers a 30-minute complimentary on-demand webinar on the top five health, safety and environment risks in the oil and gas industry.

Oil and gas industry professionals must juggle competing and complex priorities on a daily basis, Environmental XPRT says on its website. From conducting inspections to maintaining compliance with countless regulations, it can be difficult to proactively manage all of your HSE and quality risks while also ensuring the success of your day-to-day operations and the safety of your workers.

“To successfully address the top HSE and quality risks you face, you need the right strategies, policies and procedures in place,” the site says.

See the on-demand webinar.

The Network for Public Health Law, CDC’s Public Health Law Program and the American Health Lawyers Association co-sponsored a webinar on the legal implications of ebola, and the audio and slides from that event are available on-demand.

The webinar describes the recent outbreak of the Ebola virus in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, discuss legal issues that arise when infected patients enter the U.S., and explore legal powers and duties health department personnel have if an Ebola outbreak occurs in the U.S. Speakers will accept questions from participants at the end of the presentation.

The moderator was Matthew Penn, M.L.I.S., J.D., Director, Public Health Law Program, Office for State, Tribal, Local, and Territorial Support, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Speakers:

• Brian Bird, M.S.P.H., D.V.D., Ph.D., Veterinary Medical Officer, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases

• Jane Jordan, J.D., Deputy General Counsel/Chief Counsel for Health Affairs and Acting Vice President for Governmental Affairs, Emory University Hospital
• James Hodge, Jr., J.D., L.L.M., Director, the Network for Public Health Law — Western Region at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law

Listen to the audio and see the presentations slides.

Platt’s and Bentek Energy will present a free webinar on how the gas market looks, now that winter is on the horizon.

The event will be Thursday, Sept. 18, at 1 p.m. Eastern time.

Natural gas storage inventories this April were depleted to levels not seen for more than 10 years, leading to concerns about supply meeting demand, the sponsors say on their website. Ample production and lower gas demand from power generation have eased concerns about storage returning to normal levels.

Yet, with winter on the horizon, how does the market look moving forward? How will gas prices and pricing locations react to new pipeline capacity and demand sources moving forward?

New infrastructure, new forms of demand and record-levels of production all promise to make for an interesting narrative for the market over both the short and long term.

Register for the webinar.