The Des Moines School Board voted 6-0 on Tuesday, May 19, 2009 to approve a tougher student conduct policy related to illegal activities and behavior. The policy will go into effect in the Fall of 2009, and will apply to students year-round. Opponents of the new changes have focused their attention on a particular part of the [...]
The other day I had the opportunity to hear Gavin Jerome, the Morale Mechanic speak. The invitation stated Gavin's mission is "to change the workplace one laugh at a time, not just by getting laughs, but by teaching people how to create and share humor with others." I like a good joke so I thought I would [...]
According to an article in the Des Moines Register the Iowa State Association of Counties has proposed legislation insulating “counties and cities from liability for injuries or damages resulting from bike accidents on their roads unless it is shown that government officials were notified of a road deficiency before an accident and that road crews [...]
I had the opportunity to attend a presentation for Prepaid Legal Services, Inc. this weekend. I had heard about companies that have started offering either prepaid legal services and/or discounted legal services and I was interested in seeing the product that was offered. The idea behind prepaid legal services is much like car or health insurance. You [...]
I recently ran across a good blog site titled "Updates in Michigan Family Law" authored by Jeane M. Hannah, a Michigan family law practitioner. In her article she refers to a new tool to help children cope with high-conflict divorce called Earthquake in Zipland. This is an interactive video game developed by a social worker. [...]
On November 15, 2007, OSHA published its long awaited regulation identifying the personal protective equipment (PPE) the employer must pay for. The regulation is effective February 13, 2008 but you have until May 15, 2008 to start paying for the PPE. Of note, the items employers are not required to pay for are: Non-specialty safety-toe protective footwear [...]
The U.S. Department of Transportation created the Common Ground Task Force in 1998 which undertook the Common Ground Study of the nations' One Call Systems. Many recommendations came out of the Study and the Common Ground Alliance was formed to further the work of the Task Force. Their work resulted in the Best Practices Guidance [...]
With the launching of this blog a fellow blogger and colleague, Brett Trout, challenged me to contribute to our new endeavor. About a month ago I found myself in a courtroom in eastern Iowa for two weeks trying an environmental case. The experience I had was reinforced shortly after this trial by an email I received from [...]
I can't speak for all businesses, but from my perspective most businesses have a signed agreement before they provide services for either an individual or a business. However, invariably it is those transactions in which the agreement was never actually signed that cause the most problems for the business owner. The typical fact pattern goes something like [...]
In an ideal world, when a business provides a service, the person or entity benefiting from the service promptly pays the provider for that service (assuming of course, that the service was performed as the service recipient expected). As anyone who has been in business for longer than a week can tell you, when it comes to customers paying [...]
