Blogging in the Workplace
Why Attend?
The program will provide cutting-edge and practical advice for attorneys, human resource professionals and employees on working and practicing in a wired world. The series Planning Chairs/Moderators also provide a summary of recent employment law developments in the final 30 minutes, including any regulatory developments and groundbreaking opinions. As an interactive seminar, the program affords the opportunity to submit questions for faculty discussion in advance of and during the event.
Among the issues that will be addressed during this 2 hour program:
• Should employers have written policies regarding blogging and if so, what should be permitted or prohibited?
• Can an employer discipline or terminate an employee for blogging during working hours? What impact can the National Labor Relations Act have on that analysis?
• What, if anything, can the employer do if the employee is blogging about wages or working conditions?
• Can an employer discipline or terminate an employee for blogging after working hours? What impact do state laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of off-duty conduct have?
• What, if anything, can an employer do when an employee blogging off the clock, identifies himself/herself as a company employee, and rants about politics, for example in a fashion that the company feels may impair its business reputation in the community?
• Can an employee be terminated for off-duty blogging that is racist, sexist, homophobic?
• When can blogging, if not addressed by the employer, be actionable harassment on the basis, for example, of sex or race?
• Does the employer have potential liability when coworkers post comments, for example, on a female employee's blog, that are blatantly sexist?
• Can an employer sue an anonymous John Doe blogger who is allegedly defaming the company? Will the court order the ISP provider to identify the blogger? Will anonymous free speech trump the employer's defamation claim?
• If the employer accesses an employee's blog, are there any privacy issues or issues under the Wiretap Act or the Stored Communications Act?
• Can an employer without risk routinely access the blogs of job applicants in evaluating candidates for employment?
• What remedies does an employer have when its trade secrets are published on an anonymous blog?
• Your employer client wants to establish a blog. What advice do you need to give your client to protect itself against claims of commercial defamation, copyright and trademark infringements, and other potential claims?
What You Will Learn
Blogging by current and former employees has dramatically increased in the past few years, and raises a host of legal issues. Our unique teleseminar is designed to identify the issues, analyze them in terms of applicable state and federal law, and propose best practice solutions. We have gathered a faculty of experienced practitioners as well as a law professor who have confronted these issues over the past several years.
Planning Chairs
Robert B. Fitzpatrick, Robert B. Fitzpatrick, PLLC, Washington, D.C
Frank C. Morris Jr., Epstein, Becker & Green, P.C., Washington, D.C.
Faculty
Lawrence E. Savell, Chadbourne & Park LLP, New York
Total 60-minute hours of instruction: 2.0. Total 50-minute hours: 2.4
Suggested Prerequisite: Limited experience in legal practice in subject matter
Educational Objective: Development of proficiency in performance of intricate and complex legal tasks within a narrow area, provision of information on recent legal developments; maintenance of professional competence as a practitioner
Level of Instruction: Intermediate
Times
Eastern 12:00 noon - 2:00 pm
Central 11:00 am - 1:00 pm
Mountain 10:00 am - 12:00 noon
Pacific 9:00 am - 11:00 am
Alaska 8:00 am - 10:00 am
Hawaii 7:00 am - 9:00 am
