Scherer Smith & Kenny LLP serves mid-sized and fast-growing entrepreneurial companies. From complex litigation to business, real estate, intellectual property and employment law, our team brings strategic thinking, pragmatism and intense dedication to our clients’ success.
Partner Notes
As we move through Spring and start to look more excitedly at returning to the office more often in person, we would like to welcome our new legal assistant, Sian, to the SS&K team! Sian is working with the corporate and real estate side group and we believe you will greatly enjoy working with her.
The question that keeps coming up in nearly every conversation I have these days is “when will you go back to the office?” We’ve been going to the office as needed but I think what they are really asking is “will you return to normal or what do you think it will look like when you go back in a more organized fashion?” From a personal standpoint, like many of you out there, I’ve enjoyed skipping my commute (although the ferry rides were often beautiful and a peaceful way to end the day) and having some additional time to swim and take walks with my wife in the mornings. An unexpected, but very enjoyable, result of this time at home has been spending more time with my twin daughters before they head off to college this fall. Something I would not have been able to do had we just continued with the daily commute and going to the office five days a week.
With that said, I do miss the impromptu lunches and conversations, especially with members of the firm that I don’t regularly interact with for client work. I am looking forward to all of us being back in the office on some of the same days to connect again more regularly with everyone at the firm without doing it over Zoom! There is real value in these connections and making work a personal place that you enjoy going to and not just a transactional place to get your work done is important to us. It’s such a huge part of everyone’s life, making it enjoyable in the long term is key to our firm’s values. I anticipate that in the coming months we will settle into a more formal arrangement where everyone is in on a certain day to allow for this overlap in schedules and a chance to connect in person.
From a legal perspective, our employment team has been fielding questions all the time from clients wanting to know answers to such questions as when can they ask employees to come back, should they ask them to come back, and can they require or ask about vaccinations etc.? If you are interested in learning more about the issues involved and best-practices I encourage you to reach out to Denis at Denis@sfcounsel.com.
We wish you good luck and patience during the coming months as we all navigate this new period in our work and lives.
- Written by Brandon Smith
Employer Alert Related to COVID-19: (1) Expansion of the California Family Rights Act, (2) California 2021 COVID-19 Supplemental Paid Sick Leave, and (3) COBRA Premium Assistance from April 1, 2021 to September 30, 2021
Employment law in the best of times presents an ever-changing landscape, but with the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccine rollout, it can be especially challenging for workers and employers. As a general, regularly-updated informational resource for California workers and employers, we recommend the website created by the California Labor & Workforce Development Agency on Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) Resources for Employers and Workers, available at https://www.labor.ca.gov/coronavirus2019/. The website has a dedicated COVID-19 Employer Portal that is designed to help California employers to find state and local COVID-19 guidance.
In addition to frequent public-health updates impacting workforce management, California employers need to be aware of several recent legislative developments designed to provide job protection and financial support for California employees. We summarize below a few of the more notable “new” laws.
Trademark Law Changes in 2021 Stimulus Legislation
Many of our clients may not know that the recent stimulus bill known as the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 (the “Act”) includes new trademark legislation that will have a sweeping impact on trademark owners. Specifically, the Act incorporates the Trademark Modernization Act of 2020 (“TMA”), which includes many substantive changes to the Lanham (Trademark) Act aimed at modernizing trademark law. The bill was passed by Congress on December 21, 2021 and was signed into law December 27, 2020. A brief description of the key changes are as follows:
