Insights
Four essays a year, not forty posts
Written by the lawyer who argued it. Distributed monthly to clients and subscribers; nothing here is legal advice, and all of it is what we would say on the phone.
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.
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 is the one that costs cases.
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.
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 have stopped being surprised that nobody does it.
Earlier pieces are forthcoming as part of the next site iteration. These are summaries; the full essays are emailed monthly to subscribers and clients.
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