JD Scoop

For your reference, here's a look at the many legal implications of President Obama's Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act (HIRE Act) signed into law on March 18, 2010:

The HIRE Act: A JD Supra Business Law Brief

Hiring Incentives To Restore Employment Act Signed Into Law
...The Act exempts a qualified employer from paying the employer's share of the social security employment taxes (6.2 percent of the first $106,800 of wages) for wages paid in 2010 for any new employee hired after February 3, 2010, and before January 1, 2011, if the new employee (1) was previously unemployed and (2) does not replace another employee of the employer.
[By: Fox Rothschild | In: Labor & Employment Law]

Why Employment History Matters More for 2010 New Hires
...A qualified employee under the HIRE Act is an individual who: began employment with a qualified employer after February 3, 2010, and before January 1, 2011; has been unemployed or employed for less than 40 hours during the 60-day period ending on the date employment relating to the exemption begins; is not a family member of or related in certain other ways to the employer; and is not hired to replace another employee, unless that other employee was terminated for cause or quit voluntarily.
[By: McAfee & Taft | In: Labor & Employment Law]

Significant Tax Changes in Recently-Enacted "HIRE Act"
...The Act extends provisions from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (the "Recovery Act") that double the amount small businesses can immediately write off their taxes for capital investments and purchases of certain capital expenditures made in 2010 from $125,000 to $250,000 under Internal Revenue Code Section 179.
[By: Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP | In: Tax Law]

President Signs HIRE Act - Provides For Business Tax Incentives and New Withholding and Reporting Requirements For Foreign Financial Institutions
...The Act also includes a revenue offset imposing new withholding and reporting obligations on foreign financial institutions in an effort to combat the failure of U.S. persons to report income through the use of foreign financial accounts.
[By: Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge | In: International Law & Trade]

HIRE Act Allows Direct Subsidies for Issuers of Certain Qualified Tax Credit Bonds
...The HIRE Act allows issuers of certain QTCBs to receive direct subsidy payments, not unlike those already available to issuers of Build America Bonds (BABs) and Recovery Zone Economic Development Bonds.
[By: Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge | In: Finance & Banking]

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Additional HIRE Act commentary & analysis:

• HIRE Act -- The New Hiring Incentives ... by Sands Anderson PC
• New Tax Incentives for Hiring and Retaining Employees ... by Warner Norcross & Judd
• Why It Might Be a Good Idea to HIRE Additional Employees This Year ... by Cole Schotz
• Tax Relief for Your Business in 2010 ... by Doron Eghbali
• Tax Benefits to Employers (the new HIRE Act) ... by John LaBar
• Nonprofits and the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act ... by Antonio "Tony" Arocho
• "Show Me the Money". . . President Signs the HIRE Act ... by Miller & Martin PLLC
• IRS Issues Employee Affidavit for the HIRE Act ... by Ford & Harrison LLP
• The Hire Act ... by Armstrong Teasdale LLP
  

Follow JD Supra's HIRE Act RSS feed for future updates.

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Related:

- On JD Supra: Labor & Employment Law | Tax Law
- On Facebook: Business Law | Tax Law
- On Twitter: @Tax_Alerts | @Biz_Law

Lawyers, join your colleagues on JD Supra. Showcase your expertise: upload your articles, alerts, commentary, and legal analysis today.

Here's a look at the ten most-viewed legal marketing and law practice articles on JD Supra for the last thirty days:

1. Why Google May Beat Westlaw at Its Own Game - by Louis G. Adolfsen
2. The Best Online Social Network for Lawyers Is... - by Nancy Myrland
3. Template for Social Networking Policy - by Larry Bodine
4. Top 10 Social Media Mistakes - by TopLawyerCoach.com
5. Letter to NC Ethics Committee Re Cloud Computing - by Carolyn Elefant
6. How to Find Time for Social Media Engagement and Be a Lawyer, Too (Pt.1) - by Donna Seyle
7. Is Acrobat Really Necessary? - by Beverly Michaelis Oregon Law Practice Management
8. Moving Your Practice into the Cloud - by Clio
9. How To Make Time For Legal Marketing and Business Development - by Paula Black
10. Three Ways Law Firms Can Utilize an Expert Witness to Improve Efficiency - by Barry Epstein

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Related:
- Law Practice Digest, April 2010 (Online Version)
- On JD Supra: Legal Marketing | Law Practice
- On: Twitter | Facebook

For your reference, here's a list of recent articles summarizing the many legal implications of President Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka the Healthcare Reform Bill. Click for full-text version.)

Included: commentary on how H.R. 3590 affects not only health insurance, but also taxation, employment, criminal law, consumer protection, business law, tech law, pharma, finance & banking, and other related areas of the law.

Healthcare Reform Bill: Legal Implications Reading List

- Health Care Reform: Where Are We Now?
...The legislation also would close the "Medicare doughnut hole," a gap in Medicare coverage that requires one in eight Medicare beneficiaries to pay thousands of dollars for prescription drugs from their own pockets. The legislation would close this gap over time.
[By: Dinsmore & Shohl LLP | In: Health Law]

- Health Care Reform to Impact Employers
...companies with 50 or more employees that do not offer health benefits could be assessed a penalty of $2,000 per employee. Companies with fewer than 50 workers would be exempt, but would be eligible to receive tax incentives and credits for offering health care coverage.
[By: Schottenstein Zox & Dunn | In: Labor & Employment Law]
 
- Health Reform Bill Eases 'Intent' Requirement in Anti-Kickback Statute
...The Health Care Reform bill passed by Congress adds shifts the playing field in anti-kickback litigation by lowering the intent requirement to achieve a successful prosecution.
[By: Gregory Piche Holland & Hart | In: Criminal Law]

- IRS Health Care Reform Enforcement Lacks Authority
...the bill makes it compulsory for individuals to purchase health insurance and businesses to offer it. Many would be receiving subsidies to finance this insurance.
[By: Darrin Mish, Tampa Tax Attorney | In: Tax Law]

- Therapeutic Discovery Project Tax Credit and Cash Grants in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010
...creates a new investment tax credit and cash grant program for certain drug development or other medical advances by taxpayers not employing more than 250 employees. The credits and grants are available for a "qualifying therapeutic discovery project"...
[By: Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge LLP | In: Finance & Banking, Tax Law]

- Qualifying Therapeutic Discovery Project Credits and Grants
...The Secretary of the Treasury will, upon application by a taxpayer, provide the taxpayer with a grant of 50% of the qualified investment in lieu of the tax credit.
[By: Fenwick & West LLP | In: Health Law, Tax Law]

- Billion-Dollar Tax Credit and Grant Opportunity for Life Sciences Companies
...Congress has appropriated up to $1 billion in tax credits and grants to defray the costs of therapeutic research by small and mid-size life sciences companies.
[By: Mintz Levin - Health Sciences Practice | In: Science, Computers & Technology]

- Health Reform 2010: Key Provisions Affecting the Pharmaceutical Industry
...summary chart of the key provisions of the health care reform act that affect the pharmaceutical industry.
[By: Foley Hoag LLP | In: Health Law]

-  Qui Tam? Now More Plaintiffs Will Qualify:
...An important mechanism for bringing suit against healthcare providers and pharmaceutical and medical device companies - the Qui Tam Action - has been expanded as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
[By: Foley Hoag LLP | In: Consumer Protection]

- Health Care Reform's Fraud-Fighting Provisions Increase the Potential for Liability for All in the Health Care Industry
...the Act and the Reconciliation, taken together, also require vast changes to the Medicare and Medicaid programs, including new and strengthened mechanisms for combating fraud, waste, and abuse in the state and federal health care programs.
[By Mintz Levin | In: Insurance Law]

- Health Care Act Codifies "Economic Substance" Doctrine, Expands Medicare Taxes on High Income Earners, and Imposes Reporting Requirements...
...The Act codifies the common law "economic substance doctrine" for transactions entered into after March 30, 2010, expands the Medicare taxes on high income earners as from January 1, 2013, and imposes information reporting requirements on certain payments made to corporations after December 31, 2011.
[By: Morrison & Foerster | In: Business Law]

- New Requirements for Nonprofit Hospitals under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010
...Under the Act, every nonprofit hospital facility is required to conduct a community health needs assessment at least once every three years and adopt an implementation strategy to meet the community health needs identified through such assessment.
[By: Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge LLP | In: Tax Law, Business Organizations]

- Health Care Reform: What Will It Mean for Your Health Plan?
...If your plan provides dependent coverage, you will need to offer coverage to adult children up to age 26 who do not have coverage under their employer's health plan.
[By: Warner Norcross & Judd | In: Insurance Law]

- Select Private Insurance Reforms In Health Reform
...useful chart and timetable from Boston-based national law firm, Foley Hoag.
[By: Foley Hoag LLP | In: Insurance Law]

- Impact of Employers and Employer-Sponsored Health Plans For Schools and Colleges
...advisory focuses on the Act's impact on employers and employer-sponsored health plans.
[By: Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge LLP | Labor & Employment Law]

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We'll be adding additional commentary as we see it come in.

For the latest updates, add RSS feeds of the following JD Supra searches to your reader:
Patient Protection Affordable Care | Healthcare Reform | HR 3590

Also see on JD Supra: Insurance Law | Health Law | Consumer Protection | Business Law

Lawyers, have health care reform analysis to add to the mix?

Increase your online reach now. Upload articles, alerts, blog posts, newsletters, filings, and other legal docs on JD Supra.

Do you know how to make the most of your time on the world's largest business network?

Here's an update to my December, 2009, reading list for Lawyers on LinkedIn. If you haven't seen the original, please start there.

LinkedIn for Lawyers: Updated Reading List

• LinkedIn is More Than Just Your Profile - "personalize your invitations," "keep your status current," and other tips from Allison Shields...
• 10 Things NOT to do on LinkedIn - "don't leave your public profile unedited" and more from @LinkedInExpert, Viveka von Rosen.
• 5 Easy Steps to Building a Company Profile on LinkedIn - create a company profile in mere minutes, starting with these 5 tips...
• Ten Ways for Small Businesses to Use LinkedIn - a recent (April 6) update by Guy Kawasaki of his 2007 "10 Ways to Use LinkedIn," with solid suggestions from the folks at LinkedIn...
• 5 Tips for Creating, Promoting, and Managing a LinkedIn Group - 15 tips total from the folks at HubSpot (5 each for creating, promoting, managing) including: "create a group for your industry not your company" ...
• LinkedIn in Plain English [Video] - interesting video showing how LinkedIn can help to solve business problems by making your network visible to you...
• Using LinkedIn to Help You Find Work as a Lawyer - by Debra Bruce, includes a look at some of the risks such as accomodating state "specialization" rules...
• How to Use LinkedIn from Microsoft Outlook - from Business Insider, a quick look at LinkedIn integration with Outlook. Includes video tips. Good stuff...
• Using LinkedIn Groups for Legal Marketing Purposes - personal take by legal writer Janet Ellen Raasch on how exactly she manages the signal and noise in LinkedIn groups...

Keep in mind: we run a LinkedIn group for lawyers and legal professionals using JD Supra. Please join us if you haven't done so yet.

We also deliver the legal articles and documents uploaded on JD Supra to numerous professional groups on LinkedIn. Visit JD Supra's Legal News Feeds page for a list of groups.

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Related:

- LinkedIn for Lawyers: A How-to Reading List

Ready to showcase your expertise online? Upload your articles, alerts, blog posts, filings, and other legal docs on JD Supra now.

Here's a look at some of the latest lawyers and law firms to be publishing their work on JD Supra. We're happy to welcome them to the site:

Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, one of the largest law firms in the world focused solely on intellectual property law. With 375 lawyers and offices in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, Finnegan practices all aspects of patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret law including counseling, prosecution, licensing, and litigation.

Featured Doc: The Uneasy Future of Software and Business-Method Patents

Thompson Coburn, which represents clients from every industrial and corporate sector, including energy, banking, transportation, manufacturing and communications, with more than 350 lawyers and 35 practice areas.

Featured Doc: Swiss Bank Pays Record $536 Million Fine for OFAC Violations

Baldwins Intellectual Property, a New Zealand firm which works with New Zealand, Australian and international clients to cover the full cycle of intellectual property management - from acquisition of intellectual property rights to strategic development, commercialization and enforcement of these rights. 

Featured Doc: Court of Appeal overturns ban on GE applications

King, Krebs & Jurgens, a full service firm with offices in New Orleans & Houston and affiliate offices in India and Greece

Featured Doc: Comments on Estate Planning Tax Changes

Hanna, Brophy, MacLean, McAleer & Jensen, which specializes in workers' compensation defense and employment-related litigation. The firm has twelve offices located throughout California.

Featured Doc: Which Rating Schedule Applies?

With 220 attorneys practicing across Michigan, Warner, Norcross & Judd provides comprehensive legal services to a broad range of clients, from multinational corporations to small businesses.

Featured Doc: Failure of criminal defense counsel to warn his client about collateral immigration consequences of plea constitutes ineffective assistance of counsel

Kimberly Diego, whose Denver criminal defense practice includes all state felonies and misdemeanors, along with municipal and traffic offenses.

Featured Doc: HB 1023 - Facilitating Job Searches for Felons

Justin Schneider, staff attorney at CDM Legal Action Works Center, a non-profit public interest law firm specializing in family law, property, probate, and social security.

Featured Doc: Probation for Illegals?: Whether Texas Judges Should Consider a Defendant's Undocumented Status Before Sentencing

Marc Epstein of Gaims Weil West & Epstein, a business litigation firm in Los Angeles, California.

Featured Doc: Appellee's Brief - to support summary judgment against discrimination claims

Barry Epstein of Russell Novak & Co., an authority on Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (U.S. GAAP) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). He is the lead author of Wiley GAAP 2010, Wiley IFRS 2010, and other titles.

Featured Doc: When Window Dressing Becomes Fraud: Repo 105 Was Much More Than Window Dressing 101

What about you? Are you looking for an effective way to showcase expertise and connect with new clients, colleagues, and the media?

Join JD Supra. Create a professional profile and start posting your legal work online!

Did you know that Yahoo! News (the biggest news site on the Web) has a Twitter account and Facebook page? True. Both accounts stream links to latest news headlines as curated by editors at Yahoo!

No big deal. These days, everyone's on Twitter and Facebook. At time of writing just over 13,000 people follow the Y! News Twitter feed. Over 16,000 fans (aka "readers") connect to Y! News on Facebook. And growing daily.

Yahoo! advertises their new social media outposts on news.yahoo.com with prominent banner ads. I've been struck by just how often those ads run. Clearly the folks at Yahoo! are committed to increasing readership on both platforms. Their Twitter ad:






And Facebook:

Here's why I think this is a big deal: Yahoo! News is the most visited news site on the Web.

Today, the site's daily direct traffic so utterly surpasses its fan and follower numbers on Facebook and Twitter that one might argue those social media audience numbers are hardly worth the time. And yet, Yahoo! participates - and, more to the point, actively builds a new audience on both platforms.

Is Yahoo! News concerned by a diminishing traffic share? I don't know; maybe. (It's hard to feel sorry for the site. If you're no longer the most visited news source on the web - if you are, say, the third or even of fifth most visited site ... that's still a lot of people stopping by daily.) 

Whatever the reason Yahoo! has gone in search of a new audience, I'm more interested in the way it has done it.

Fact is, the mother of all news sites has jumped into the business of curating and distributing stories on Facebook and Twitter - joining the likes of The New York Times, CNN, The Washington Post, Fox News, and all the other media outlets quicker to arrive at the social media party. (To say nothing of those emerging media enterprises who've founded their very businesses in part on the power and reach of Twitter and Facebook, and probably wouldn't exist without them.)

Much has been written about the changing shape of journalism in these transformative times - and I defer to those smart people who will continue to write about it. My point is narrower:

By jumping onto Facebook and Twitter and actively promoting their presence there, Yahoo! News affirms what we have been saying for quite some time: both platforms are terrific sources for worthwhile readership if you have information to share. It's really that simple.

To my mind, this plunge into social media by Yahoo! News is one more validation of the kind of engaged, viral readership available on both platforms (especially Facebook).

Here's a recent story to pass through my Facebook news stream

An hour after posting, 58 people have "liked" the piece; 63 have commented on it. (In comparison, on Yahoo! News proper, less than half that number - 23 people - have commented on the story.)

This isn't simply about the ability for readers to post thoughts at the end of content; Yahoo! News has allowed commenting for quite some time. The difference is: when you comment on a Facebook story (or click that you "like" it) there's a greater chance that your friends will become aware of that story, too. Your actions around that news item don't take place in a vaccuum - in fact, they can drive attention from within your own circle of friends.

I think Yahoo! understands the "sticky" nature of readership on Facebook. What they also "get" (I suspect) is that with each new fan, they now have the chance to communicate directly with their readers in a way they didn't have before - via fan page member updates. I also suspect they finally realize what others have known for a while: Facebook is emerging as a primary source for news. Yahoo! is going to where there's an audience.

And what does this have to do with lawyers?

While the debate unfolds about whether the legal profession belongs on Facebook at all, we've been answering a related question: are lawyers' clients on Facebook? And more to the point: is there a readership for legal content on the site? 

And so, along with other means of syndication and distribution, we've been building subject-specific legal news hubs of our own on Facebook, each with its own audience in mind: the people lawyers want to reach.

One such page - Real Estate Law - just reached a readership of 3,200 fans. A good start. Here's an example of how the page's fans (many of them real estate professionals) respond to JD Supra's legal content:

And this example from our Business Law page, with a readership today of just over 2,400:

Here's what our Real Estate Law readers have to say about the page in general:

People on Facebook interested in substantive topics like real estate and business law? Sure. At this point, the platform is too big (400 million and growing) really to generalize what people want to do there. Again, we do know from the numbers that Facebook is the world's largest news reader - and I think that includes niche news like Law, in which lawyers with particular expertise can showcase what they are good at. (In these early times, we've also seen instances of lawyers hearing directly from prospective clients because of the content we curate on Facebook.)

In discussions about Facebook, so much time is spent arguing the various merits of how to use or abuse our profiles (playing Mafia Wars, connecting with friends we haven't seen since kindergarten, etc.) that we start to miss the bigger picture. For many people in all sorts of professions, Facebook has become a primary "daily screen of engagement" (my awkward phrase) - the place to go for news and updates on all subjects of interest.

Good for brands who want to engage customers with games, conversations, and the like? Check. Good for news sites? Absolutely. Also good for professional services? Yes. Especially if you see the merits of sharing useful information online in order to establish your expertise and reach people you might not otherwise have reached. And, more importantly, if you're willing to write to the needs and questions of your ideal audience.

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Related

- JD Supra Finds a Facebook Audience for Legal Articles (Inside Facebook)
- Facebook for Law Firms (Jordan Furlong at Stem Legal)
- Why Brands are Becoming Media (Mashable)
- Three Apps for Your Law Firm's Facebook Page (JD Supra)
- Have You Seen Your Professional Info on Facebook?
- JD Supra Everywhere
 

Ready to showcase your expertise online? Upload your client alerts, articles, newsletters, blog posts, court filings, and other legal docs on JD Supra now.

For your reference, here's a look at some of the top-viewed client alerts, articles, blog posts, and filings on JD Supra for March, 2010.

1. The Valukas Report on the Lehman Collapse and E-discovery: Stratify and CaseLogistix Win the Day
[By: The Posse List | In: Finance & Banking; eDiscovery]

2. In re Celebrity Resorts, LLC: Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Case Summary
[By: Randall Reese, netDockets |In: Bankruptcy Law]

3. Hiring Incentives To Restore Employment Act Signed Into Law
[By: Fox Rothschild  |In: Labor & Employment, Tax Law]

4. Toyota, NHTSA Investigating California Runaway Prius Incident
[By: Robert Kraft |In: Consumer Protection]

5. President Signs HIRE Act - Allows Direct Subsidies for Issuers of Certain Qualified Tax Credit Bonds
[By: Edwards Angell | Labor & Employment, Tax Law]

6. Health Care Reform to Impact Employers
[By: Schottenstein Zox & Dunn Co. |In: Health Law, Labor & Employment]

7. Impact of Federal Estate Tax Repeal Effective in 2010
[By: Miller & Martin PLLC |In: Wills, Trusts & Estates, Tax Law]

8. Seven Things to Know About Loan Modifications to Save You Time and Money
[By: Jeff Butler PEARSON & BUTLER |In: Real Estate, Bankruptcy]

9. Jones v. Harris Associates: Supreme Court Decision on Mutual Fund Fees
[By: Doug Cornelius  |In: Securities Law]

10. When Window Dressing Becomes Fraud: Repo 105 Was Much More Than Window Dressing 101
[By: Barry Epstein Russell Novak & Co | In: Finance & Banking, Securities Law]

11. What Not To Do Before Filing Bankruptcy
[By:Denise Brown |In: Consumer Protection, Bankruptcy]

12. False Patent Marking: The Next Frontier for IP Litigation
[By: Morrison & Foerster |In: Intellectual Property, Commercial Law & Contracts]

13. The Neufeld Memo Can Change The Whole H-1B Nonimmigrant Visa Landscape in the U.S.
[By: Nachman & Associates, P.C. |In: Immigration Law, Labor & Employment Law]

14. Delayed Diagnosis of Spinal Tumor Results in $47,950,000 Medical Malpractice Jury Verdict
[By: John Hochfelder |In: Personal Injury, Civil Procedure]

15. New Michigan "No Smoking" Law
[By: Warner Norcross & Judd |In: Labor & Employment Law]

16. New Help From Government to Accelerate Short Sales
[By: Doron Eghbali Law Advocate Group, LLP |In: Real Estate Law]

17. In re Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.: 
Report of Court-Appointed Examiner (Vol1)
[By: netDockets |In: Bankruptcy, Finance & Banking]

18. Social Media Concerns for Litigators
[By: Mary Volk TexasBarCLE |In: Law Practice]

19. IMMIGRATION REFORM: The One Sided Debate
[By: Bashyam Spiro, LLP |In: Immigration Law]

20. SCOTUS Confirms Chapter 13 Can Include Student Loan
[By: Sands Anderson PC |In: Bankruptcy]

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Did you know: we regularly send our members timely marketing/editorial intelligence. Our monthly JD Supra Trending Reports list current hot topics by industry/practice, with recommendations for how to write about each. Currently we offer reports for Real Estate, Immigration, Business Law, Taxes, Bankruptcy, Employment Law, Intellectual Property, Personal & Family Law, Personal Injury, and others. Contact us if you'd like to receive one or more of these mailings.

Ready to get noticed online? Upload your client alerts, articles, newsletters, blog posts, court filings, and other legal docs on JD Supra now.