Small Business

While being first to market may be the key ingredient to success for some of today's biggest tech names, if a startup rushes to launch, they could be facing legal trouble down the road. Although it might be helpful to gauge demand and test a product to do a soft launch, or try to launch early, if your startup isn't ready, there's no end to the types of problems that can pop up.

In this day and age where business is fiercely competitive, and almost everything can be found on the internet, it's more important than ever to protect your proprietary information. Whether it's information on a patent you are developing, or "just" a hamburger recipe, you have a strong need to keep your private information private. Here's some information on why and how you should do that, not just when interfacing with third parties, but also when hiring and handling your own employees.

So you've weighed the pros and cons of incorporation and you've decided to take the next step and form your small business as an LLC. As you move down your LLC to-do list, you see: "File your LLC's Articles of Organization with the Secretary of State office in your state." Wait, what are articles of organization? And how are they important to your business? Here's a quick background and a few tips on writing and filing your LLC's articles of organization.

New York is scheduled to become the latest city in the U.S. to ban foie gras from its restaurants later this year. Two Hudson Valley duck farmers who claim to produce "virtually all of the foie gras" in the U.S., however, have other ideas. If you need a refresher, foie gras is a pricey mousse delicacy that comes from the fattened livers of ducks and geese. Its buttery and rich flavor is beloved by gourmands, but it is also controversial because the process used to create it involves force-feeding the birds using a funnel known as a gavage. Animal-rights groups, among others, argue that this process is inhumane.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) created new guidelines for website accessibility in March. These are in line with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) that help provide effective communication, public accommodations, technical standards, and detailed standards for assistive technology. In short, your website needs to be accessible to people with disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

It's a great time to be a job seeker. Employers are having a hard time finding enough workers to fill jobs. As a result, they are raising wages to attract candidates. They're also finding another good way to entice prospective hires: excluding marijuana from pre-employment drug tests or eliminating drug tests altogether. But employers face a maze of state and federal statutes and court decisions when they consider adopting or revising marijuana screening policies.