Articles Posted in Employment

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For many Silicon Valley companies, incentive stock options are an important investment strategy for maintaining long-term relationships with employees. It is important to find the investment strategy which is right for your business. The experienced Silicon Valley corporate attorneys at Structure Law Group will help your business identify its employment and investment needs, and access the tools which most efficiently meet these needs.

What Are Your Goals?

The first step in implementing incentive stock options is to consider the specific goals you wish to meet by use of such options. Do you hope to retain employees who might be considering employment elsewhere? Are there specific sales or design goals you need to meet? By identifying the specific problem, employers can determine whether incentive stock options are the appropriate tool to meet their goals.

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Employment law is a constantly changing landscape of regulations promulgated on a national state, and even local level. Wages, gender discrimination, hours, working conditions, safety precautions, and many other aspects of the employee-employer relationship are regulated by federal, state and local employment laws. A San Jose employment law attorney can help protect employers’ rights while also helping to ensure compliance with employment laws and regulations.  Following are California laws which have been recently updated to provide employees with more legal protections.

Situations in Which Employees Have the Legal Right to Take Time off Work

Sections 230 and 230.1 of the California Labor Code provide specific rights to workers who have been the victim of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking. In general, these laws protect an employee’s right to take time off work to attend to matters related to the crime they have suffered. These matters include: obtaining a restraining order or other legal protection, seeking medical attention, obtaining services from domestic violence shelters or rape crisis centers, participating in psychological counseling, and creating a safety plan to prevent the recurrence of the crime. Employers are prohibited from terminating, discriminating, or retaliating against an employee who exercises these rights.

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California is one of the most innovative and creative job markets in the world. Every year, advances in a wide variety of industries reach consumers as a direct result of work done by California employees. Fashion, entertainment, technology – these are just a few of the many industries which develop cutting-edge consumer goods in California. Employers can protect their valuable intellectual property in this creative and fast-paced market by making sure to have their employees sign a non-disclosure agreement. With strategic employment agreements, such as non-disclosure agreements, employers can create legally enforceable protections for their products, designs, developments, and other intellectual property.

What is Intellectual Property?

Intellectual property is a broad term which applies to creations of the mind. It can apply to artistic works, such a manuscripts or songs. It can apply to branding, such as logos, colors, and package designs. It can also apply to designs for inventions and consumer goods. All of these types of intellectual property have value, which is owned by an employer who hired a worker to create them. In some cases, this intellectual property can be a highly valuable asset. Employers should seek out an experienced California Employment Attorney to help ensure they have the correct strategic employment agreements to take precautions to protect their intellectual property.

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Fotolia_148839470_Subscription_Monthly_M-300x200Risk management is an important strategy for any business. Silicon Valley businesses can protect themselves from liability with effective indemnification provisions – These provisions can be instrumental to easing the financial burden of a lawsuit against your company.  Rather than your company paying for the legal costs of a lawsuit due to one of your business partners, you can obligate your business partners to pay for the legal costs through an indemnification provision. Learn more about the terms and conditions of indemnification and how to protect your business from future legal liability.

How Do I Indemnify My Business?

The first step to drafting an effective legal indemnification is identifying the specific types of liability your business needs to be indemnified from. For example, some businesses, such as theme parks, are based around services which are potentially dangerous to consumers. It is important that these businesses appropriately indemnify themselves against claims by those who use their business facilities. Specifically, theme parks may want to consider obtaining an indemnification in any contract with repair or technician companies providing repair and maintenance to their theme park rides. Professionals with high rates of malpractice claims (such as obstetricians) must also consider the appropriate means for indemnifying themselves against legal claims by patients.

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Silicon Valley companies have human resource (HR) departments to manage employment issues. HR departments both limit the company’s exposure to legal liability for employment-related claims and

facilitate the timely resolution of workplace disputes. For small companies, however, it can be difficult to train, staff, and maintain HR employees. A Silicon Valley employment law attorney can help you determine whether an HR department is right for your business.

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The Cost-Benefit Analysis of Human Resources 

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Changing employment can be a stressful, life-changing event. Severance benefits can, however, ease the transition period. With sound advice from a skilled employment law attorney, Californiafotolia_127084189-300x300 employees and employers can both negotiate severance packages which suit their needs.

While it may seem like a severance package is simply a final lump sum figure, the reality is that it can be a complex combination of many different components. An effective negotiation begins with identifying which of those components are most important to you. For example: many employees may be concerned with continued access to health insurance, and may therefore negotiate a lower lump sum payout in exchange for continued coverage. Employers, on the other hand, may be concerned with preventing a future lawsuit against the company. These employers may negotiate a comprehensive release of liability in exchange for the employee’s agreement not to sue the company.

Some people imagine negotiations as a poker game, in which neither party reveals his or her ultimate goals. This will not result in any resolution – let alone one which satisfies both sides. Instead, it is important for each side to be clear about what is most important so that solutions can be tailored to the needs of all involved parties.

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A breach of contract can be a costly expense which causes an array of legal damages to a business. In some cases, this damage can be mitigated by negotiating a settlement with the breaching party

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in advance. In other situations, the contract must be resolved in litigation. And in the most egregious cases, a court can award a plaintiff punitive damages to deter the defendant from engaging in the behavior in the future. The experienced Los Angeles contract attorneys at Structure Law Group can help you explore all options after any breach of contract.

What are Punitive Damages?

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When multiple individuals begin conducting business together, they may have effectively created a partnership, even if they didn’t intend to do so.  Thus, even though partnerships can be formed without the partners actually signing a partnership agreement, the partnership and its partners become subject to state laws governing partnerships.  The California business attorneys at Structure Law Group, LLP understand the laws and mechanics required to build a strong foundation for a partnership.  Being careful and meticulous about the partnership formation process can also help to prevent litigation if and when a dispute arises between and among business partners.

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Partnership Agreements

 Although not required under California law, as discussed above, entering into a partnership agreement when forming a partnership is highly recommended.  A partnership agreement is a legally binding contract that, among other things, dictates the roles of the partners and establishes guidelines for management of the partnership.  In addition, partnership agreements set out how potential legal disputes will be resolved.

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If your business employs at least one person, you should always be aware of the ever-changing wage and hour laws in California and your particular city. In addition, if your company has locations and employees in multiple states or cities, you need to be in compliance with the laws of those jurisdictions, as well. One important aspect of employment law is that many states and cities are raising the required minimum hourly wage. Ignorance of the changes to minimum wage laws is not a valid defense to violating those laws and noncompliance can be costly. Contact the California employment attorneys at Structure Law Group, LLP to stay up-to-date on the latest employment law.  The following is a brief overview of the recent updates to minimum wage in California and increases in other parts of the United States.

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 California Minimum Wage Adjustments

 California has a legislative plan in effect that aims to raise the minimum wage across the state to $15.00 per hour by the start of 2022 for most businesses and by 2023 for smaller businesses. There is one set of guidelines for companies that employ 26 or more individuals and another set for companies with 25 or fewer, so it is important to know which set of guidelines applies to your business.  However, depending on where you conduct your business, a higher minimum wage may apply than what has been enacted by the California legislature, as many cities across the state have increased the minimum wage on their own.  For example, San Francisco raised its minimum wage to $13.64, which will increase to $14.00 per hour on July 1, 2017.  San Jose’s minimum wage is currently $10.50 for all employers and will increase to $12.00 per hour on July 1, 2017.  It is critical to know what the local and state minimum wage is in order to ensure compliance and the employment attorneys at SLG can help.

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As the owner of a corporation, LLC, or other business, you want employees on your team who improve efficiency and increase profits. However, as cautious as you may be during the hiring process, there is always the chance that an employee may become a problem. In some cases, talking to an employee and discussing an issue can result in them changing their behavior for the better. In other cases, behavior may get worse. You may be getting complaints from your customers, vendors or even other employees. In such cases, it may be best to terminate the employment relationship.

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 Often, the problem is that not many people take getting fired lightly.  While California is an “at-will” employment state, meaning employees can be fired for any legal reason (e.g., non-discriminatory) or no reason at all, many people get angry and look for a reason to hold the business accountable for their job loss, even if it did nothing wrong. For example, if you excuse a male employee for being late regularly yet fire a female employee for tardiness, you may be accused of sex discrimination. Allegations of discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and wrongful termination can be made. Even if such allegations are unfounded, you could have to spend valuable time, energy, and money defending against these claims.

The experienced employment law attorneys at Structure Law Group, LLP can help you establish employment practices and employee handbooks that will allow the employment process to run more smoothly.  The following are some things to consider when firing a problem employee:

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