Insights

As the start of 2025 has already shown with the destructive Los Angeles wildfires, the impact of climate change on businesses and homes can be devastating. Many owners and construction contractors were already grappling with the significant damage caused by a very active 2024 Atlantic hurricane season in Florida and the Southeast, and concerns about what the coming years will bring are at the forefront of their minds.

Several new laws approved by the Illinois General Assembly and signed into law this year by Governor JB Pritzker are aimed at protecting and expanding the rights of employees in the state.  The new measures’ effect will also be felt by employers, who will likely need to examine their policies and practices in the new year.

On November 15, 2024, a federal judge in Texas struck down the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) final rule (Rule) expanding overtime eligibility for millions of workers by raising the salary threshold to be considered “exempt” from overtime. (Recall that generally non-exempt employees get paid one and a half times their regular rate of pay for all hours worked over 40 in a week.) Judge Sean Jordan, of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, ruled that the DOL exceeded its authority in enacting the overtime expansion.

National Estate Planning Awareness week was adopted in 2008 by the House of Representatives to help the public understand the importance of estate planning. In honor of National Estate Planning Week, we wanted to highlight a few reasons why estate planning is so important:

In the first definitive ruling on the Federal Trade Commission’s Final Rule banning most noncompete agreements, the Texas federal judge that previously granted a preliminary injunction to temporarily block the Final Rule from taking effect (see our blog post on that ruling) has now entered judgment in the plaintiffs’ favor to “hold unlawful” and “set aside” the rule nationwide under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).

The key to a successful construction project often lies in how much work you do long before the first shovel of dirt is turned. But where should an owner or developer focus their time and resources for the best possible result?