The assistant general counsel of a New Jersey-based bank company says she found herself in a touchy situation after a U.S. Congressman complained to her employer about her activism that targeted the lawmaker.

WNYC describes what happened:

The most powerful congressman in New Jersey, Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, wrote a fundraising letter in March to a board member of a local bank, warning him that a member of an activist group opposing the Republican worked at his bank.

The employee was questioned and criticized for her involvement in NJ 11th for Change, a group that formed after the election of Donald Trump and has been pressuring Frelinghuysen to meet with constituents in his district and oppose the Trump agenda.

“Needless to say, that did cause some issues at work that were difficult to overcome,” said Saily Avelenda of West Caldwell, New Jersey, who was a senior vice president and assistant general counsel at the bank before she resigned. She says the pressure she received over her political involvement was one of several reasons she decided to leave.

Read the WNYC article.

In today’s business environment, bank officers are heavily recruited by competitors, and these competitors offer opportunities for promotion and higher salaries and benefits, write Amber M. Rogers and Alan J. Marcuis for Hunton & Williams.

If a bank doesn’t have a contract with its officers, it must consider the legal ramifications of an officer departing to work for a competitor when an agreement is not in place.

“Having an employment agreement with an officer and other key employees is advisable, as it is the easiest way to protect the bank’s interest when an officer departs,” the authors explain. “With proper planning and preparation, any financial institution can proactively prevent the disruptive event and potential loss of business that can be caused by the announcement of an officer’s resignation.”

Read the article.

David Lat of Above the Law muses on the effect the most recent round of pay increases for BigLaw associates could have on the people who ultimately make the pay raises possible: the clients.

Cravath, Swaine & Moore recently announced it will start paying first-year associates annual salaries of $180,000, and some other firms have followed suit.

The article quotes some current and former in-house counsel with reservations about the Biglaw pay raises. “I understand that junior attorneys need training, but considering how much money these large firms make, why should the client have to pay for it?,” asks one in-house lawyer.

Another in-house lawyer said, “clients don’t notice the change, if at all, until the next negotiation over rates.”

“If firms try to pass too much of their increased overhead on to clients, the clients will balk — and in this day and age, with competition from great boutiques and alternative legal services providers, clients have significant leverage,” writes Lat.

Read the article.

Just one day after Cravath, Swaine & Moore announced an increase in associate salaries, bringing first-years’ pay up to $180,000, BigLaw firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley, & McCloy told its associates that it would match the new scale, according to Above the Law.

The site also reports that California litigation boutique Hueston Hennigan matched the new salaries only about four hours after Cravath’s announcement.

David Lat, Above the Law managing editor, wrote that Milbank Tweed has more than 600 lawyers and $700 million in annual revenue.

Read the article.

Above the Law is reporting that BigLaw firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore has hiked annual salaries for associates — ranging from $180,000 for first-year associates to $315,000 for eighth-years.

The report cites a memorandum, which Above the Law received from multiple Cravath sources, as saying, “The increase is effective July 1, 2016, and will be reflected in paychecks commencing on July 8, 2016.”

The author, David Lat, also says the news raises several questions, such as How did this event come to pass? Will other firms match the new Cravath scale? How fast will the matching happen? Will any other firm beat the new Cravath scale? and What does this mean for bonuses? He offers his opinions on each of those points.

Read the report.

Tom Monahan, the CEO of CEB, a multi-national best practice insight and technology company recently wrote an article in Fortune Magazine titled “Revving Up Your Corporate RPMs” that notes that, despite advances in technology, decision-making and change in the business world has actually slowed down in the last decade, writes ContractRoom on its blog.

His article offers these statistics:

• Hiring a new employee now takes 63 days on average – up from 42 in 2010;
• The average time to deliver an office IT project increased by more than a month from 2010 to 2015. It’s now over 10 months from start to delivery; and
• The time required for one company to sell something to another has risen 22% in the past five years.

in the article, Monahan suggests the reasons for this increase in corporate decision-making.

Read the article.

As National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, January 2016 offers the opportunity for federal contractors to reflect on the significant regulatory changes to the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) that occurred in 2015 as part of the fight to end human trafficking in federal contracts, according to an article published by Venable LLP.

“For instance, contractors should take this opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of the internal mechanisms established to comply with the new regulations. Contractors should pay particular importance to the effectiveness of their policies because noncompliance can lead to criminal, civil, and/or administrative consequences, as well as the declination to exercise options, contract termination, suspension of contract payments, and/or loss of award fee,” the article says.

Authors of the article are Paul A. Debolt, Dismas Locaria, Melanie Jones Totman and Michael T. Francel.

Read the article.

Winston & Strawn has compiled a list of more than 20 major news developments involving contract settlements and ongoing contract negotiation during the final month of 2015.

The list is published on Lexology.com.

Read the article.

A judge has voided the remaining $5 million of a $7.1-million jury award to a former Los Angeles Times sports columnist, ruling that he was not entitled to any damages on his claims that the newspaper discriminated against him because of his age and a disability, the Times reports.

The ruling nullifies the jury’s findings on key issues in a six-week trial, including whether Simers was forced out or quit his job after he was disciplined for not fully disclosing a conflict of interest, as his editors contended.

“On Monday, MacLaughlin ruled that there was insufficient evidence to support Simers’ claim of constructive termination, namely that the newspaper had created or permitted intolerable working conditions,” the Times reports. “Instead, the judge ruled, Simers had quit his $234,000-a-year job of his own accord.”

Read the article.

A recent case from the Massachusetts Superior Court presents a stark reminder that whether conduct is viewed as a “mere breach” or part of a deceptive or unfair course of conduct can be in the eye of the beholder, writes Shep Davidson in The In-House Advisor blog, published by Burns & Levinson LLP.

“In American Translation Partners, Inc. v. Lahey Clinic Hospital, Inc., ATP entered into a three-year contract with Lahey to provide interpreters to assist Lahey’s medical professionals in their interactions with non-English speaking patients,” he writes. The contract stated that Lahey would not hire interpreters who had worked for ATP within the past 24 months. ATP later sued, claiming Lahey had breached that rule.

The Superior Court wrote:

“Did Lahey intentionally breach the contract and did it do so to either punish ATP or to gain a financial benefit? Persuasive evidence will have to be offered that Lahey knew that it was likely breaching the Services Agreement but decided to do so anyway either as a lever in its ongoing contract negotiations with ATP or to simply reap unfair benefits. On this record, summary judgment in favor of Lahey must be denied.”

Read the article.

The enforceability of a confidentiality covenant in an employment agreement without time or geographical limitations may turn, at least in part, on how the information that may not be disclosed is defined, writes Paul E. Freehling in Seyfarth Shaw‘s Trading Secrets blog.

He describes a case involving a salesman for a medical device manufacturer, Orthofix, Inc. v. Hunter. The salesman signed a confidentiality covenant at the time he was hired, but years later he resigned and went to work for a competitor. The former employer sued him, but, because the covenant had neither temporal nor geographic limitations, the trial court invalidated the covenant and dismissed the breach of contract claim.  The appellate court reversed, holding that no such limits are required for a confidentiality agreement.

Read the article.

A recent summary order from the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit – which exercises federal appellate jurisdiction over New York, Connecticut and Vermont — serves as a reminder that an employer’s reliance upon its employee handbook can also prove its undoing, writes Michael McKeon of Pullman & Comley in an article published on JDSupra.com.

“In Langenkamp v. Olson, the Second Circuit reversed the federal trial court’s dismissal of a breach-of-contract claim brought by a non-tenured faculty member of New York University. The appellate court held that by expressly incorporating the Faculty Handbook into its offer of employment, NYU had transformed its provisions into contractual terms,” McKeon writes.

His article explains that it is critical that employers use care when drafting and referencing such handbooks.

Read the article.

A contract between an executive and an employer does not always have to be in writing, writes Jason M. Knott of Zuckerman Spaeder in an article published on Lexology.com.

“Sometimes, employees can enforce oral promises,” he writes. “Agreements can also be implied based on the parties’ conduct, even when no one made a promise, either in writing or orally.”

He discusses a ruling in a Third U.S. Court of Appeals case, Steudtner v. Duane Reade, Inc., to shows that contracts that aren’t in writing can be much harder to enforce.

Read the article.

Employers generally embrace a policy of utilizing at-will employment as often as possible, where employers and employees can end their relationship with each other at any time and for any (legal) reason, writes F. Kytle Frye III of Fisher & Phillips LLP in an article posted on JDSupra.com. Written employment contracts are usually reserved for select executives and a few professionals.

“Numerous states, often through judicial pronouncements, have recognized varying exceptions to the at-will employment concept, such as allowing employees to challenge their termination as a violation of public policy,” he writes.

“The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals recently published a decision which sharply limits the application of the public policy exception. Interestingly, this limitation does not apply to at-will employees, but to employees with employment contracts. Somewhat ominously, the decision does not extend to all such contracts, creating an air of uncertainty for any healthcare business with employment contractual situations.”

Read the article.

A Houston federal jury has returned a verdict in favor of National Oilwell Varco, L.P., (NYSE: NOV), finding no wrongdoing in an employment discrimination lawsuit filed by eight African Americans who sought $120 million in damages.

Houston-based NOV, an oilfield equipment supplier, argued that these employees were not treated differently because of their race. The jury heard 12 days of testimony in the trial before Judge Lee H. Rosenthal in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

The plaintiffs were represented by high-profile civil rights lawyer Angela M. Alioto of San Francisco’s Law Offices of Mayor Joseph L. Alioto and Angela Alioto in their claims of racial discrimination, hostile work environment and retaliation.

Read more about the case.

A Houston federal jury this week returned a verdict in favor of National Oilwell Varco, L.P., (NYSE: NOV), finding no wrongdoing in an employment discrimination lawsuit filed by eight African-Americans who sought $120 million in damages.

Houston-based NOV, an oilfield equipment supplier, argued that these employees were not treated differently because of their race. The jury heard 12 days of testimony in the trial before Judge Lee H. Rosenthal in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

The plaintiffs were represented by high-profile civil rights lawyer Angela M. Alioto of San Francisco’s Law Offices of Mayor Joseph L. Alioto and Angela Alioto in their claims of racial discrimination, hostile work environment and retaliation. Their lawsuit alleged that non-African-Americans received raises and promotions that were denied to the plaintiffs, in addition to claiming that racial slurs were frequently used in the workplace. However, the jury found that NOV had not violated the rights of the plaintiffs, seven former NOV employees and one current NOV employee.

NOV’s trial team was led by special trial counsel John Zavitsanos of Houston’s Ahmad, Zavitsanos, Anaipakos, Alavi & Mensing P.C., or AZA.  He offered evidence that showed there were several non-discriminatory reasons some of the workers did not receive promotions, were not asked to return to their jobs after taking unauthorized leave or were fired for cause.

“NOV always has promoted a diverse workplace where discrimination isn’t tolerated,” says Zavitsanos. “This was nothing more than an attempt by a discrimination law firm to pull out a playbook that has worked in other cases in hopes of cashing in.”

Also representing NOV along with Zavitsanos were attorneys Monique Gougisha Doucette and Christopher E. Moore of Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart’s New Orleans office. Assisting on the case was law school graduate Nathan Campbell, who is not yet licensed to practice law.

The plaintiffs in Vital, et al. v. National Oilwell Varco, No. 4:12-cv-01357, included former NOV employees Junious Vital, DeWarren Bellard, Damon Darby, Herbert Heard, Edward Jiles, Jerome Johnson, David Lane and current employee Billy Rose.