06/17/2019
The Virginia General Assembly passed a new law regarding employers’ personnel records. Effective July 1, 2019, Virginia employers must provide a current or former employee (or his/her attorney), upon request, documents reflecting: Dates of employment with the employer; Wages or salary history during the employment; Job description and job title during the employment; or Any… Read more »
06/04/2019
Contract terms addressing indemnity and requirements to hold another harmless or responsible for the defense of another are contract terms that appear in virtually all construction contracts. Despite their almost universal incorporation, they are frequently misunderstood! Everyday business decisions are made, and contracts incorporating these terms are signed, yet these terms are often misunderstood, not… Read more »
05/20/2019
Various construction-industry organizations, such as the AIA, DBIA, and EJCDC, offer coordinated families of contract documents. Because every project is unique, those documents anticipate customization by providing blank spaces in certain terms. Using the AIA family of documents as an example, the very first page of B101-2017, Standard Form of Agreement Between Owner and Architect,… Read more »
05/17/2019
A guaranty is an agreement under which an individual (or entity) agrees to satisfy the underlying obligations of a primary obligor if such obligor defaults on the underlying obligation. With respect to a lease guaranty, the guarantor is often the principal or owner playing a key role in the tenant entity or a parent/affiliate of… Read more »
05/07/2019
A publication for Thompson Reuters Journal of the American College of Construction Lawyers Journal by attorneys William Franczek, Elena Mihaly, and Andrew Selman.
04/25/2019
The law on marijuana is changing so rapidly that I anticipate this article will be outdated before I finish it. Check back here regularly for updates! Virginia Law Marijuana remains illegal both federally and in Virginia. Some Virginia jurisdictions are dialing down enforcement of criminal penalties, but they remain on the books. Since marijuana remains… Read more »
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 »
