Government Contracts

Series

Pursuing Wellness: Steps Toward A Supportive Firm Culture

As an early advocate of the American Bar Association's year-old well-being pledge, we launched an integrated program to create and sustain a supportive workplace culture with initiatives focused on raising mental health awareness, embracing creativity and giving back to the community, says Casey Ryan at Reed Smith.

Series

Pursuing Wellness: Mental Health Education As A Firm Priority

Our firm drives a holistic concept of well-being through educational opportunities, such as a series of expert-led workshops intended to address mental health and substance abuse issues that we vowed to fight when we signed the American Bar Association's well-being pledge one year ago, says Krista Logelin at Morgan Lewis.

Series

Pursuing Wellness: A Firm's Work With Mental Health Experts

Signing the American Bar Association's well-being pledge last year was a natural progression of our firm's commitment to employee wellness, which has included developing partnerships with professionals in the mental health space to provide customized programming to firm attorneys and staff, say Annette Sciallo and Mark Goldberg at Latham.

Series

Pursuing Wellness: When A Firm Brings Counseling On Site

One year ago, our firm signed the American Bar Association's well-being pledge and embraced a commitment to providing on-site behavioral health resources, which has since become a key aspect of our well-being program, say Meg Meserole and Kimberly Merkel at Akin Gump.

Series

Pursuing Wellness: Inside A Firm Meditation Program

After our firm signed the American Bar Association’s well-being pledge one year ago, we launched two key programs that included weekly meditation sessions and monthly on-site chair massages to help people address both the mental and physical aspects of working at a law firm, says Marci Eisenstein at Schiff Hardin.

Early Sampling Of Electronic Info Is Underutilized In Discovery

The early and prompt provision of samples from all electronically stored information sources as a part of ESI protocol search methodology is consistent with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and may allow for significant cost savings during discovery, says Zachary Caplan at Berger Montague.

Opinion

California, Follow NY's Lead And Pass An FCA Tax Bill

Legislation poised to expand California’s False Claims Act to include tax cases recently stalled, but in New York similar legislation provided whistleblowers with incentive to come forward and earned the state revenue, says Justin Wagner, a former assistant attorney general in New York's Taxpayer Protection Bureau.

The Factors Courts Consider In Deposition Location Disputes

In the absence of a federal rule governing deposition location, federal courts are frequently called on to resolve objections to out-of-state deposition notices. Recent decisions reveal what information is crucial to courts in making the determination, says Kevin O’Brien at Porter Wright.

Audit Shows Where DOD Cyber Enforcement Is Headed Next

Contractors can expect the U.S. Department of Defense to ramp up its oversight and enforcement efforts to protect controlled unclassified information on contractor-owned networks and systems, in order to address common noncompliance deficiencies revealed in a recent government audit, say Todd Overman and Roee Talmor at Bass Berry.

Gov't Win In AseraCare FCA Case Benefits Both Sides

While Monday’s Eleventh Circuit decision in United States v. AseraCare provides the government the opportunity to continue litigating its claims, False Claims Act defendants will undoubtedly take refuge in the less plaintiff-friendly falsity standard articulated by the court, say Derek Adams at Feldesman Tucker and Erica Blachman Hitchings at the Whistleblower Law Collaborative.

What To Consider Before Filing For A Rule 57 Speedy Hearing

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 57 and its state counterparts provide a method for expediting claims for declaratory judgment that warrants closer attention than it has historically received from litigants and courts, say attorneys at Gibson Dunn.

Series

Why I Became A Lawyer: Expanding The Meaning Of Diversity

My conservative, Catholic parents never skipped a beat when accepting that I was gay, and encouraged me to follow my dreams wherever they might lead. But I did not expect they would lead to the law, until I met an inspiring college professor, says James Holmes of Clyde & Co.

Adapting To Gov't Contractor Rules Banning Chinese Telecom

The U.S. government's revised Federal Acquisition Regulation, which prohibits federal agencies from acquiring telecommunications equipment and services produced by certain Chinese companies, applies across a strikingly broad range of contract values and types, say David Fletcher and Julia Fox at Perkins Coie.

Bid Protest Spotlight: Critical Info, Timeliness, Classification

In this month's bid protest roundup, Alissandra Young of Morrison & Foerster looks at three August U.S. Government Accountability rulings — covering agency decisions to withhold proprietary data from prospective offerors, the GAO's strict timeliness rules regarding challenges to improprieties of solicitations, and agency classification of a procurement.

How The Wayback Machine Can Strengthen Your Case

The Wayback Machine, which archives screenshots of websites at particular points in time, can be an invaluable tool in litigation, but attorneys need to follow a few simple steps early in the discovery process to increase the odds of being able to use materials obtained from the archive, says Timothy Freeman of Tanenbaum Keale.