Chicago Trial Lawyer

December 28, 2022

Limiting NDAs for Sexual Harassment

Are NDAs for Sexual Harassment dead?

Employers will no longer be able to require workers to sign upfront non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) pertaining to sexual harassment incidents they have experienced or witnessed under new federal legislation that passed overwhelmingly through Congress and signed into law by President Biden on December 7.

One operative word here is “upfront.” The Speak Out Act does not prohibit businesses from negotiating for NDAs that cover sexual harassment as part of a court settlement. It simply means that aggrieved employees will need to speak out before filing any potential lawsuit that could lead to an NDA prohibiting them from doing so. The new legislation also does not apply retroactively, so employers that previously had NDAs in place will not suddenly be faced with a flood of public allegations from prior to the legislation’s signing; the prohibition on upfront NDAs applies only going forward.

November 9, 2022

How Often—and How—Do Family Businesses Survive Transition?

by George Bellas

How Do Family Businesses Survive Transition?

The Cornell University Smith Family Business Initiative says that more than three-quarters (77%) of small businesses rest on significant family involvement. Family Enterprise USA has counted 5.5 million family businesses in the U.S., finding that they contribute 57% of the U.S. GDP, employ 63% of workers and create 78% of all new jobs. And not all are small businesses: Businessweek.com has reported that 35% of Fortune 500 companies are family-controlled.

But the statistics on how often family businesses don’t sustain themselves over time—whether due to squabbling or for other reasons—paint a stark picture. According to Business Week, 40% of family-owned businesses reach the second generation, 13% get to a third and just 3% are passed down to a fourth generation or beyond. And familybusinesscenter.com calculates the average life span as 24 years.

October 18, 2022

What Would the ‘Workers’ Rights Amendment’ Mean for Your Business?

by George Bellas

What Would It Mean for Your Business?

Illinois voters will have the opportunity on Election Day, November 8, to vote “yea” or “nay” on an amendment to the state constitution that would protect workers’ rights to collectively bargain, while prohibiting state legislators from making Illinois a “right to work” state, in which workers in unionized workplaces can decide individually whether to join the union. The Amendment should have no practical effect on small businesses since small businesses are generally not unionized.

Known popularly as the “Workers’ Rights Amendment”—although its official name is the more prosaic Illinois Amendment 1—the measure would amend the Bill of Rights Article of the Illinois Constitution to give employee the ability to bargain collectively, through representatives they select to negotiate wages, hours, working conditions, and worker safety. The amendment, which received partisan support in both houses of the state legislature when it was approved for the ballot in May, also negates any local laws that prohibit this.

August 12, 2022

If the Alex Jones Text Fiasco was in Illinois?

by George Bellas

Texts can be held against you in court.

Alex Jones lawyers (perhaps inadvertently) turned 2-years of texts to the lawyers for the Sandy Hook families. What would be the repercussions for the disclosure if the trial were in Illinois?

The parents of a 6-year-old child that was killed in the Sandy Hook shooting had requested in discovery that Alex Jones turn over all the emails that related to shooting. Jones previously testified that he had searched his phone for texts about the Sandy Hook School shooting and found none, but Jones’s lawyers proved otherwise.

April 21, 2022

Student Loan Repayment

by George Bellas

Repayment of Student Debt by Employers

Retaining employees, and attracting new ones, has always been at the forefront of employer’s minds, but never more so than right now. An extension of the student loan repayment plan for employers is one attractive way to stabilize your workforce.

The CARES Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act) extended tax-free employer sponsored student loan repayment through 2025. This means that employers can give each employee up to $5,250 of non-taxable money to pay off student loans per year. The amount the employer contributes is deductible by the employer and it is not income to the employee. It is the best situation for both employer and employee!

January 13, 2022

Happy New Year? Legislation Impacting Small Businesses Takes Effect

by George Bellas

New Laws for Small Businesses in 2022

From salary and benefits, to the hiring process, to non-compete agreements, an array of new state legislation that affects small businesses in one way or another has taken effect as of the first of the new year, 2022.

The legislation focused non-compete agreements (SB 6

September 2, 2021

First Cannabis Litigation a Wafting Indication of What’s to Come

by George Bellas

Illinois Cannabis Business Market

Licenses for a legal cannabis business have been a hot topic lately, and now the the Illinois Supreme Court has made its first ruling related to the byzantine process of obtaining a license for a legalized cannabis business in the state, and it seems likely to be the first of many.

The legislative effort to limit the number of licenses the state issues drives up the value of said licenses to the point where it almost seems to bait those who don’t win the competitions to get one, and who sometimes end up angry and confused as to why.

April 22, 2021

What Can Small Businesses Do About the Maskless?

by George Bellas

What Can Small Businesses Do About the Maskless?

As more states lift requirements that people wear COVID-19 masks indoors when in public, what can small businesses do to protect their employees—and other customers who still prefer to wear masks?

As of April 5, more than one-third of states (18) lacked mask requirements, some of which never had them in the first place, according to the Associated Press. But business owners are certainly legally entitled to require them if they so choose, given that their public-facing spaces are still private property that they either rent or own, as long as they don’t discriminate. Customers who refuse to wear a mask, are asked to leave and stubbornly do not are therefore trespassing, and business owners could involve police if they so choose.

March 23, 2021

New County Ordinance, Supreme Court Orders to Impact Landlord

by George Bellas

New County Ordinance, Supreme Court Orders to Impact Landlords

Landlords in Illinois, especially those in non-home-rule portions of Cook County, will face a raft of changes this spring in the wake of three state Supreme Court orders issued in late February, and a new ordinance passed by the Cook County Board of Supervisors that takes effect June 1.

The Supreme Court’s orders respectively relate to Governor Pritzker’s eviction moratorium, which has been extended to April 3; how circuit courts can handle an anticipated flood of eviction cases once the moratorium ends; and the use of electronic signatures in eviction proceedings during the COVID-19 pandemic.

February 9, 2021

What Should—and Shouldn’t—Be in Your Workplace Vaccination Policy?

by George Bellas

How to Determine Your Workplace Vaccination Policy

As COVID-19 vaccines begin to become available for working-age people—first for those in healthcare, then those in other “frontline” occupations, then for those at risk due to medical conditions, and finally for the general 18-to-64 population—can employers implement mandatory vaccination policies?

In general, the answer is yes, according to the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, although employers need to be careful on a number of fronts, starting with ensuring that the way they craft their policy does not run afoul of the Americans with Disabilities Act.