States will be able to force more people to pay sales tax when they make online purchases under a Supreme Court decision Thursday that will leave shoppers with lighter wallets. Retail trade groups praised the ruling, saying it levels the playing field for local and online businesses. The losers are online-only retailers, especially smaller ones, who will need to implement mechanisms to comply with various state sales tax laws. For more information on this topic, please see this article.
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The constitutional status of the CFPB designed to protect consumers from predatory creditors in the lending and trade credit space has been questioned by a federal district court in New York, despite having been upheld by a federal appellate court in the District of Columbia. As this issue percolates, consumers will find the D.C. courts to be potentially more favorable to their position than those of New York. For additional information, please see a recent article on the topic.
Read MoreBankruptcy Judges are increasingly willing to modify or cancel bankruptcy debtors’ student loans per pre-1976 law and policy, as they see their families and law clerks struggle with mounting student debt that exponentially grows over time due to interest and other forbearance measures. For more information, please free to contact us, and for an excellent summary, please review the attached WSJ article.
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Carolyn teaches her 3rd CLE course at Jenkins Law Library
https://www.jenkinslaw.org/cle/classes/critical-legal-concerns-facing-entrepreneurs
In November of this year, Carolyn was invited back to Jenkins Law Library to teach her third CLE. Jenkins has the distinct honor of being America’s first and oldest law library. Founded in 1802 in a small room in Independence Hall in Philadelphia, the Law Library Company of the City of Philadelphia was formed by a group of lawyers who set out to provide legal information for the growing law community in the City. Carolyn’s lecture covered the 5 key legal concerns facing entrepreneurs, namely 1) choice of state and favorable laws, 2) choice of entity with an eye toward tax, financing and limited liability issues, 3) how to finance the business with seed, angel, vc, crowdfunding, credit card, peer to peer or other options, 4) choice of branding, including entity name, tagline, logo and domain name, and 5) how to obtain and maintain the rights to own and license the company’s intellectual property. To view the slides of this CLE, please click here, and to view a video recording, please click here.
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This Fall season, Carolyn Hochstadter was a featured speaker in a number of venues for Wharton Clubs, a Jenkins Law Library CLE, and a Women Owned Law Webinar. Topics included Key Legal Concerns facing Entrepreneurs, Viable Business Models in the Digital Music Era and the Pros & Cons of the Virtual Office vs. the Traditional “Brick-and-Mortar” Space. Please feel free to reach out to Carolyn with assistance on any of these topics.
Read MoreStudent loan collections lawsuits are taking on the same “Robo” characteristics as the flawed mortgage collection suits that are filed with no valid legal or factual basis against borrowers. This recent NYT article highlights 5 basic defenses that can be mounted based on a flawed evidentiary or procedural basis.
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