atLaw
Michael R. Perry
617 226-3464
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Areas of Concentration
Business Litigation
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Although the full extent of the damage from the recent economic downturn has not yet been measured, one thing appears certain—the prolonged recession will lead to a significant increase in litigation over the course of next several years. The Fifth Annual Litigation Trends Survey issued by Fulbright & Jaworski indicates that, although new case filings and enforcement actions were down in the past two years—17 percent of U.S. companies surveyed stayed litigation free in 2006-2007 and 21 percent stayed litigation free in 2007-2008—this trend is not expected to continue in the coming year. Indeed, between, 2007 and 2008, 29 percent of firms with annual revenue in excess of a billion dollars were served with more than fifty new lawsuits. Forty-three percent of those in the same bracket anticipate that, in the coming year, there will be a significant increase in litigation. Moreover, in-house counsel anticipating a decrease in legal disputes involving their companies next year, are outnumbered by their counterparts believing the opposite, four-to-one.
In anticipation of this projected increase in litigation activity, companies should take steps to ensure that they have sufficient risk management strategies in place to avoid being caught flat-footed when the litigation tidal wave hits. Nowhere is this prevention strategy more important than in the employer/employee context. Increased economic pressure often results in increased tension between employees and their employers. As a result, companies need to make sure that they are complying with all applicable state and federal employment laws and regulations when engaging in any employee layoffs or terminations. Companies also need to be intimately familiar with laws governing issues such as unemployment benefits, continuing healthcare benefits, the negotiation of severance agreements and unpaid vacation time. Hanify & King recently issued an Employment Law Alert to its clients notifying them of changes to the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) as well as changes to COBRA regulations resulting from the enactment of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. (See the Firm News tab at www.hanify.com). In addition, members of our employment law group are available to conduct internal audits to ensure that companies are in full compliance with all applicable employment laws, and are always on-call in the event that clients have any questions regarding this important, and sometimes confusing, area of the law. In these trying economic times, an ounce of prevention can lead to a significant decrease in expensive and avoidable lawsuits.
More articles found in this edition of atLaw:
- Partner’s Letter
- Serving Our Clients in Difficult Economic Times
- Good Money After Bad? Deepening Insolvency—An Update
- Don’t Let One Bad Apple Spoil the Whole Bunch
- First, Pay All Wages
- Personal Information Protection
- Harold B. Murphy Joins American College of Bankruptcy
- Stephanie Scruggs Named Hanify & King Shareholder
