Legal Updates

In recent years, Illinois’ costly and strict Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”), 740 ILCS § 14/1 et seq., has been used by the plaintiffs’ class action bar in Illinois and around the country to extract significant monetary settlements from unwary companies, causing substantial disruption to their businesses. Maryland legislators recently introduced a biometric information privacy law that echoes BIPA. The proposed law, titled “Commercial Law – Consumer Protection – Biometric Identifiers and Biometric Information Privacy,” would become only the second in the country to provide a private right of action to plaintiffs and allow successful litigants to recover attorneys’ fees and litigation costs. Read more…

If you’re an employment lawyer, you see employment related issues – almost – everywhere …current events, sports, and pop culture. And, it’s just that perspective that brings us to the curious case of Lady Gaga’s dog walker’s employment status.

As has been widely reported, Lady Gaga’s dog walker was ambushed while walking two of her French bulldogs in Hollywood, California. The dog walker, who was shot, is recovering and after several days the dogs have been returned. Read more…

On February 25, 2021, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Equality Act for a second time in recent years. This time, however, with Democrats in control of the Senate and the White House, the bill actually has a meaningful chance of becoming law, in at least some form. Among other things, the Equality Act amends the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to expressly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. As it relates to employers, the proposed law would establish sexual orientation and gender identity as protected employee and prospective employee classes under Title VII (the section of the Civil Rights Act addressing employment discrimination and retaliation), which already covers race, national origin, gender and several other protected classes. Read more…