Telemedicine is changing the way workers’ compensation works by making it easier to get medical care. It helps solve common problems with workplace injury claims and benefits both workers and employers.
Better access to care
Telemedicine makes it easier for injured workers to see a doctor, especially if they live far away from medical centers. With video calls, workers can talk to doctors without needing to travel. This means faster diagnoses and quicker treatments, helping them recover sooner and…
Continue Reading How Does Telemedicine Influence Workers’ Compensation Cases?

Copyright law can be a bit convoluted, but occasionally, the legislature does things that actually simplify life. One thing they did was to make all the copyrights expire on December 31 rather than throughout the year. The 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act gave works published or registered before 1978 a 95-year term, expiring on January 1 after the conclusion of the 95th year.

That means that on January 1, 2025, copyrighted works from 1929 will enter the US public…
Continue Reading It’s Almost Here! Public Domain Day!

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a nationwide injunction on the reporting of beneficial ownership information under the Corporate Transparency Act. The injunction issued by a Texas federal court in early December had been overturned last week by a different Fifth Circuit panel.

For now, reporting companies are (again) no longer required to report beneficial ownership information, but reporting of beneficial ownership under the CTA could be required in the future.  The Fifth Circuit will hear arguments…
Continue Reading Corporate Transparency Act Blocked Again

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Exciting News! Starting in 2025, two new podcasts will join Bottom Up in a rotation of podcasts produced by the State Bar of Wisconsin.

Bottom Up, co-hosted by Emil Ovbiagele and Kristen Hardy, will continue to explore topics of interest to lawyers in the early stages of their careers. They’ll be back in March 2025.

Two new podcasts – Listening to Lawyers and Practice Pulse – will expand the State Bar’s family of WisLawNOW podcasts, giving lawyers more…
Continue Reading Bottom Up Episode 24: Listening to Lawyers and Practice Pulse Join the Podcast Mix in 2025

Can You Be Charged with Conspiracy Without Committing a Crime?
 Posted on December 30, 2024 in White Collar Crimes
The crime of conspiracy is unusual given the fact that, even if you do not technically commit another crime, you can be charged with conspiracy to commit a crime if you start planning the crime and meet other elements of the criminal offense. That is because the crime of conspiracy is its own separate crime – for example, you could…
Continue Reading Can You Be Charged with Conspiracy Without Committing a Crime? 

Dec. 30, 2024 – Attorney General Josh Kaul violated two provisions of controversial 2017 Act 369, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, District II decided 2-1 in another case implicating separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches.

The Legislature passed and outgoing Gov. Scott Walker signed Act 369 shortly after the November 2018 election changed the balance of power in Madison, requiring the attorney general to “deposit all settlement funds into the general fund.” Prior to that, the…
Continue Reading Appeals Court: Attorney General Must Comply with Legislative Limits on Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) Settlements

December 27, 2024
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has once again vacated enforcement of the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) and its reporting requirements. This latest decision temporarily halts the mandate for entities to disclose beneficial ownership information to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), reinstating a pause on compliance obligations.

The appellate court’s panel emphasized preserving the “constitutional status quo” while evaluating substantive legal challenges to the CTA. This follows a sequence of rulings that…
Continue Reading Oops! …The Court of Appeals Did It Again – CTA Halted!

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Policyholders nationwide are frustrated with the insurance industry in general. The recent murder of one of the nation’s largest healthcare insurers by a disgruntled policyholder is just one glaring example.[1] Or consider the 26.4% premium increase homeowners across the country experienced over the past three years on average.[2] Here in Wisconsin, homeowners saw their premiums jump 21.4% on average since 2018. While policyholder dissatisfaction is certainly expected in the wake of national headlines and skyrocketing premiums, it…
Continue Reading Climate Change: Are Insurers Really ‘Covering Less’?

On December 23, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit stayed a preliminary injunction of the Corporate Transparency Act. As a result, the U.S. federal government is again able to enforce the CTA, which includes the reporting of beneficial ownership information. Shortly after the Fifth Circuit issued the stay, the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network extended the filing deadlines for certain reporting companies to submit beneficial ownership information. The response to the Fifth Circuit’s decision by…
Continue Reading Corporate Transparency Act Reinstated With New Reporting Deadlines

FinCEN has extended the reporting deadline for companies created or registered before January 1, 2024, to January 13, 2025. In an alert posted Tuesday night, FinCEN recognized that “reporting companies may need additional time to comply given the period when the preliminary injunction had been in effect.” Previously, the reporting deadline for these companies was January 1, 2025.

FinCEN also extended the deadline to January 13, 2025, for companies created on or after September 4, 2024, that had…
Continue Reading FinCEN Announces New January 13, 2025, Deadline for Most CTA Filings

The Corporate Transparency Act (“CTA”) and its reporting requirements are back in effect. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has granted the U.S. Government’s motion for an emergency stay of the nationwide CTA injunction. This means the federal injunction that sought to overrule or pause the CTA is temporarily halted. As a result, reporting companies formed before January 1, 2024 are once again obligated to complete their required CTA beneficial owner information reports by the January 1, 2025 reporting…
Continue Reading The CTA is Back, Back Again

Lavinia Goodell, December 1874

In December 1874, six months after her admission to practice law, Lavinia Goodell kept busy not only running her law office but also speaking to temperance groups. Several days before Christmas, Lavinia wrote to her sister saying that the previous week she had accepted an invitation to lecture at Whitewater, Wisconsin. She said, “I was considerably alarmed at the prospect but concluded to accept. I shall have to learn to speak if I am going…
Continue Reading I felt ‘set up’ by my success

The Internal Revenue Service issued the 2025 optional standard mileage rates today for computing the deductible cost of operating an automobile for business, charitable, medical, or moving purposes. The most notable change is the per mile increase for business use mileage.

Effective January 1, 2025, the optional standard mileage rates for the use of a car (also vans, pickups or panel trucks) will be:

  • 70 cents per mile driven for business use.  This is an increase from the rate

    • …
    Continue Reading IRS Releases New Mileage Rates for 2025

    Brian M. Cooley is an attorney in Meissner Tierney’s transactional practice group. Brian advises clients in the areas of business organization, business and corporate transactions, mergers and acquisitions, and real estate.
    Where are you from?

    I was born in California and raised in North Carolina and Texas before settling in Wisconsin in 1999. I currently live in Menomonee Falls.
    What was your first job?

    I did IT Support and light graphics work for a small television production company.
    Do …
    Continue Reading Attorney Spotlight – Brian M. Cooley

    The current legal landscape might be comparable to an alien world in a sci-fi movie, exceedingly complex and constantly changing. Myriad statutes, regulations, rules, ordinances, case law, and other sources of law create a legal multivariate calculus problem. Due to practical necessity and ethical requirements, attorneys are required to understand applicable law in order to provide guidance to their clients.

    Regardless of the preparation that law school provided, that preparation will be insufficient for legal problems that attorneys eventually…
    Continue Reading Tips for Lawyers: Keeping Pace with the Law

    I’m working on some longer pieces and on my actual job, so for now, a few quick hits:

    • Federal courts: Something troubling, which I would like to address in a longer form when I have some time, is this judicial disciplinary order against Senior Judge Michael A. Ponsor of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Back in May, he wrote an opinion piece (paywalled) in the New York Times that criticized the flying of upside-down American

    …
    Continue Reading Quick Hits from Elsewhere