04/10/2019
No design professional is perfect all the time. At some point, they make mistakes—specify the wrong materials, leave out a required element, overlook a code requirement, bust a calculation, among other things. Sometimes they catch and correct their mistakes before any harm occurs. Sometimes, though, mistakes in construction documents cause our clients to spend “extra”… Read more »
04/03/2019
On April 1, 2019, the Department of Labor (DOL) announced a proposed rule revising the standard for joint employer status under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Once the proposed rule is published in the Federal Register, the public will have 60 days to submit comments to DOL for review. Interested parties may submit comments… Read more »
04/02/2019
Ransomware has been one of the top cyber threats in the past several years. Thanks to the WannaCry attack of 2017 and others, most people have heard of this type of cyber threat, but many do not know how it works, how to protect against it, or what to do if they are infected. Here… Read more »
04/01/2019
Design professionals, like all professions (including lawyers), delight when the phone rings with a prospective new client on the line wanting to hire you for a new project. However, any lawyer who represents design professionals can tell you stories about projects that went south and ended up in litigation almost entirely because red flags at… Read more »
03/29/2019
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) will publish a proposed rule on March 29, 2019, to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) regulations regarding the regular rate of pay (RROP). Interested parties may submit comments on the proposal at www.regulations.gov in the rulemaking docket RIN 1235-AA24 by May 28, 2019. The proposed rule is… Read more »
03/26/2019
Generally, once parties sign a contract with an arbitration provision, disputes arising out of the contract are required to be heard by an objective arbitrator. After Congress passed the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) in 1925, the long-established federal policy has been to liberally favor arbitration agreements. Prior to the FAA, however, there was no guarantee… Read more »
03/08/2019
After much anticipation, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has finally proposed new regulations to increase the salary threshold for the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) “white collar” exemptions. The notice of proposed rulemaking would raise the salary threshold to $679 per week ($35,308 per year). Since 2004, the FLSA salary threshold for white collar… Read more »
02/26/2019
Poor business associations can jeopardize contractors’ and design professionals’ licenses Virginia regulations set forth a long list of “dos and don’ts” for contractors and design professionals. Most of the prohibitions concern the contractor’s or design professional’s own conduct. For example, contractors may not practice contracting without a license; they may not provide services using expired… Read more »
02/25/2019
On January 31, 2019, the President signed another Executive Order which purportedly “strengthen[s] Buy-American principles” for federally-funded infrastructure projects. This Executive Order was not President Trump’s first effort at creating a preference for American-made goods. Just four days into office, he signed a Presidential Memorandum aimed at requiring “materials and equipment produced in the United… Read more »
01/22/2019
Mediation is often confused with arbitration. They have similarities, including that both are overseen by third-party neutrals that do not have financial stakes in the outcomes. The key difference is that while arbitration results in the neutral evaluating the outcome (which typically is binding, but by agreement can be non-binding), while in mediation the third-party… Read more »
