Insights
What we are watching
Short pieces by our lawyers on the cases, statutes, and procedural developments we think matter to closely-held businesses in the Pacific Northwest. Roughly one per month.
May 28, 2026 · Tomás Aguirre · Employment
Oregon’s 2026 amendments to ORS 653.295: what changed for non-competes and what didn’t
The legislature’s spring session quietly narrowed the salary-threshold safe harbor and added a written-disclosure requirement that out-of-state employers are already failing. The change matters less for what it forbids and more for what it forces into the offer letter — three reasons the new draft language is harder to enforce than the old.
April 14, 2026 · Priya Nair · IP & Trade Secrets
Why most departed-employee TRO papers fail in the first 72 hours
Three patterns we see in the rejected TRO motions that get fixed on the second filing: vague identification of the secret, no forensic showing of access, and over-broad relief that telegraphs the over-reach. The first two are diligence; the third is judgment, and it’s the one that costs cases.
March 03, 2026 · Margaret Reid · Litigation
The deposition is the trial: a defense of full-prep over outline-prep
A short essay arguing that the time-and-money case for outline-prep collapses in matters likely to be tried. The math works at deal volume; it stops working when the witness’s testimony is going to be read into the record. What we do, why we do it, and a counter-example we still got wrong.
January 20, 2026 · David Marston · Corporate
Founder buyouts: the four clauses that determine whether you litigate
Most founder-buyout disputes we are asked to clean up trace back to the same four clauses in the operating agreement — valuation method, drag-along scope, post-departure non-solicit, and the indemnity carve-outs. The fix usually costs a one-hour redraft three years before the dispute. We’ve stopped being surprised that nobody does it.
Earlier pieces forthcoming as part of the next site iteration. These are summaries; the full essays are emailed monthly to subscribers and clients.