News & Legal Updates Archive

Cleveland Metropolitan School District CEO Eric Gordon kicked off McDonald Hopkins’ Leaders in Education Lunch Series on Tuesday, April 2, with a candid discussion covering the past, present and future of Cleveland schools. While he admits the CMSD still has a long way to go to reach its goals, Gordon shows how the school district has moved the needle since his installation as CEO in 2011, providing a blueprint for other at-risk urban school systems in the state and throughout the nation.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed into law the two-year Transportation Budget on April 3, 2019, without any line item vetoes. The signing resolves contentious negotiations between the governor and the General Assembly over infrastructure spending and funding alternatives.

While the rest of us were busy filling out our NCAA tournament brackets, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) was engaged in another kind of March Madness. In a flurry of activity during the month of March, the DOL issued two notices of significant Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) rulemaking along with three new Opinion Letters on Family and Medical Leave Act and FLSA issues.

McDonald Hopkins' invites you to be a part of our upcoming Leaders in Education Lunch Series! McDonald’s Hopkins’ Cleveland Managing Member, David Kall, and firm President Shawn Rile, each joined WKYC's Hollie Strano & Alexa Lee on Live on Lakeside today to share more.

Unfortunately, being prepared for active shooter situations and other incidents of workplace violence is now a necessity. The following are 10 things employers should know or do related to the threat of workplace violence.

Last week a state court judge in North Carolina struck down an amendment that would cap the state income tax rate at 7 percent because the North Carolina General Assembly did not have the power to place the amendment on the ballot in the first place due to gerrymandered districts.

Part II of this series on maximizing recoveries from post-confirmation litigation explains why litigation trust beneficiaries who want to minimize risks and maximize potential recoveries from litigation should focus on preserving causes of action, reviewing release and exculpation provisions, transferring litigation privileges and enhancing protections for litigation trusts, and exploring the possibilities of using litigation funding to maximize recoveries.

HIPAA covered entities (healthcare providers, health plans and health care clearinghouses) that discovered a breach of protected health information (PHI) in 2018 involving fewer than 500 individuals are required to report those breaches by March 1, 2019.

JPMorgan Chase announced the creation of its own digital currency, the JPM Coin, making it the first major bank to do so. The financial services industry, highly regulated and traditionally conservative, has largely stayed out of the digital currency space, but the introduction and successful use of the JPM Coin may pave the way for the industry to cautiously embrace digital currencies. 

Now more than ever, employers must look to protect their business assets from unfair competition through the use of reasonable restrictive covenant agreements. However, a restrictive covenant agreement is only as good as it is legal. It is imperative in using restrictive covenants to recognize the fundamentals in drafting a legally enforceable document.

After facing unexpected resistance, Amazon made a shocking announcement that it would abandon its plans for a second headquarters in Long Island City. Politicians, lawmakers, union leaders, and members of the surrounding community starkly opposed Amazon’s HQ2, citing a number of concerns including the nearly $3 billion in tax incentives that had been promised to Amazon.

Hayley J. Gladstone has joined McDonald Hopkins LLC as Counsel in the firm’s Executive Compensation and Governance Practice. Based in the firm’s growing Chicago office, Gladstone brings nine years of executive compensation and employee benefits experience to the group, which advises public and private companies, startups, entrepreneurs and executives across a variety of industries.

There has been a lot of commentary on an IRS report that the average tax refund for 2018 was lower by $170 compared to 2017 - and some immediately concluded this was evidence that the 2017 Tax Act was not really a tax reduction. Here is a quick way to determine if your tax was reduced under the new law.

A cryptocurrency exchange is an ideal target for cyberattack. Should an attacker gain access to an exchange’s reserves, the thief would gain control over a large sum of diversified cryptocurrencies, perfect for conducting anonymized transactions across the internet. As a result, the operators of these exchanges have faced increasingly complex cybersecurity attacks from bad actors against these reserves. Seeking the perceived safety of cold storage has its own dangers.

Alec Davidson has joined McDonald Hopkins LLC in the Cleveland office as an associate in the firm’s Business Department, where his practice will enhance the Commercial Finance, Real Estate and Public Finance Practice Groups.

Walmart was recently ordered to pay a total of $95.5 million in damages to Variety Stores for infringing on the small retailer’s “Backyard” trademark. The decision marks the end of a five year legal battle and highlights the importance of monitoring your trademarks and knowing how and when to address trademark infringement.

Google is on the receiving end of the first major enforcement action of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), to the tune of €50 million for lack of transparency and information and a failure to obtain valid consent for targeted advertising.

On Episode 26 of MH Business Exchange, McDonald Hopkins corporate and transactional attorney Jeff Van Winkle joins host Mike Witzke to to discuss CFIUS and how the new FIRRMA pilot program is impacting foreign investment into U.S.