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Wish you had more time to read the latest in the legal press? I have the solution. Read these five stories now, and they will cover 90% of the legal industry news that will come out the rest of the year. What can I say, except “you’re welcome.” 1. Lateral Partner Moves BigLaw Partner Frank Whitebread Leaves Smith, Jones & Davis to Join Jones & Smith WorldLaw 100 firm Jones & Smith announced this week that Frank Whitebread is joining the firm as a shareholder. Whitebread, a well-known transactional lawyer who does M&A deals in the energy industry, was formerly […]

What if I told you that to understand an employee’s confidentiality duties, you need to understand there are three kinds of confidential information covered by at least four different areas of law? You see, employers have three kinds of confidential information: Trade secrets Confidential information that is not a trade secret “Confidential” information that is not actually confidential A trade secret is confidential information that has “independent economic value” and is “not readily ascertainable” by competitors. Secret technology, secret business plans, the literal secret sauce—these are obvious trade secrets. Less obvious things like customer lists and company prices can be […]

Five Minute Law has obtained the confidential memo analyzing the enforceability of the $1 million-per-violation clause in the famous settlement agreement

The Greek yogurt wars provide a case study in the components of a typical trade secrets lawsuit.

On February 5, 2018, the day after the real Super Bowl, the Super Bowl of trade secrets trials started in federal court in San Francisco. You might have heard of some of the parties. The defendant was Uber—perhaps the most controversial startup of the last decade. You may not have heard of the plaintiff, Waymo, but you probably know Waymo’s owner, a little company called Google. The issue in a nutshell: did Google engineer Anthony Levandowski steal Google’s confidential self-driving car technology—they call it “LiDAR”—and take it to Uber? This is the type of “departing employee” case I like to […]

Need to know the basics of trade secrets law?

Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech can teach us some valuable lessons on persuasion

This year, try adopting a client-centric definition of productivity. And identify the top 5 productivity killers.

Thanks to all my Fivers for making 2017 the best year yet for my blog.

Is the reasonableness of a Texas non-compete a question of law or a question of fact? The right answer may surprise you.