This post is the fifth part in a series on Minnesota Paid Leave. Feel free to check out Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4. The previous post focused on deadlines and taxes. This post will focus on when the leave can be taken, for how long, and in what forms.
Let’s start with the when. The general rule is intuitive: the option of leave is available to the employee as long as the underlying condition or event exists. For
Continue Reading Minnesota Paid Leave: How Much Time and How to Take it?
BASE jumping references aside, if you produce or sell intoxicating THC beverages, now is the time to plan your off ramp.
Congress enacted changes that narrow what qualifies as federally lawful hemp starting November 12, 2026, including a 0.4 mg per container cap for final hemp-derived cannabinoid products.
Let’s tear the band-aid off now: 0.4 mg is not a meaningful replacement for the 20 mg to 50 mg cans the market sells today. So for most producers, the real
Continue Reading The THC Beverage Cliff is Coming: You Are Jumping – Plan Now to Avoid a Cliff Strike
It’s that last one that comes hardest to many. Some people are born with confetti in their hands. Others celebrate by moving to the next thing on their To Do list. But this is the season for celebration, so let’s take a
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More and more, I hear some version of the same question from business owners: “We made something valuable with the help of AI. Can we protect it?”
Sometimes the “something” is obvious, like marketing copy, a logo, a photo, a product description, a training guide, or software code. Sometimes it is less obvious but more important, like a pricing model, a customer segmentation strategy, an internal workflow, or a set of prompts that reliably produces good results for the
Continue Reading Protecting AI-Influenced Work: Why Copyright and Patents Can Fall Short, and Why Trade Secrets Often Matter More
This post is the fourth part in a series on Minnesota Paid Leave. Feel free to check out Parts 1, 2, and 3. The previous post focuses on the calculation of Paid Leave benefits for employees. This next post focuses on two inevitabilities: death deadlines and taxes.
Let’s start with the focus on deadlines. In particular, there are three deadlines to keep in mind:
Continue Reading Minnesota Paid Leave: What about Deadlines and Taxes?
Studies have shown those who win bronze at the Olympics are happier than the silver medal winners. It is because they know their hard work paid off, but they very easily could not have been on the medal stand.
Tal Ben-Shahar is a teacher and writer in the areas of happiness, positive psychology, and leadership. In his book, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment (2007), he informs us that people who are pursuing self-concordant goals
Continue Reading HAPPY, HAPPY, JOY, JOY!
Yeah, detail-oriented readers of our blog may have figured out that…whoops, I was supposed to draft this post last week and forgot. So here we go this week, and because I cannot help myself when it comes to celebrating every major holiday with Garfield, you are getting a Frankenstein post that covers two topics: one concerning and one thankful (Garfield).
First, the concerning bit.
The government is open again. I am thankful to our elected representatives that the brownout
Continue Reading Concerned, But Still Thankful
Happy early Thanksgiving week from all of us at OG+S.
As we head into the season of gathering and gratitude, we want to take a moment to thank the clients, colleagues, and community partners who make our work meaningful. Your trust, collaboration, and commitment to doing great work together is something we never take for granted.
This year, we’re especially grateful for the relationships that allow us to solve complex challenges, support growth, and show up as true partners.
Continue Reading A Thanksgiving Note of Gratitude
I visited the SkyFarm in Houston, Texas. August, the lead farmer on this 5.5-acre green space located on a rooftop downtown, took time on an autumn morning to talk about how they can build a space that gets 10-12 hours of sun and reach temperatures up to 170°F into a green space in a sustainable, regenerative way – all with just 6-12 inches of soil – and in a way that the building owner wants to keep that green
Continue Reading Grow With Intentionality
For years, I kept too much in my head: deadlines, facts, half-finished ideas. It slowed my thinking. Recently I started treating project management as a drive and AI as a processor. The split is simple and it is starting to work.
The drive is where the work lives when I am not doing it. For me that is Asana, our firm’s project management tool. A task carries a short description of the goal, real dates, links to source files,
Continue Reading Memory and Compute in Everyday Practice
Earlier this month, I had the privilege of making my annual trip to Wisconsin Dells to attend the 2025 Wisconsin Solo & Small Firm Conference. As with each year of the conference, it was a reminder that, even as attorneys characterize themselves with independence (solo and small firm attorneys especially so), community is essential. Solo and small firm attorneys face unique challenges of managing law firm operations themselves, including client intake, billing, legal research, and even drafting blog
Continue Reading Small Firms, Big Ideas; Reflections from the 2025 Wisconsin Solo & Small Firm Conference
Joanna comes to OG+S with over a decade of experience in intellectual property. Working in both boutique and Legal 500 law firms, she brings a strong background in managing complex matters, coordinating with attorneys, foreign associates, and clients, and ensuring precision and efficiency throughout every stage of the legal process.
Born and raised in the Washington, D.C. area, Joanna’s path to the legal field was shaped by an appreciation for both structure and creativity. Before transitioning to her legal career,
Continue Reading Introducing Joanna Sanchez!
Please join us in welcoming Nick Hierlmeier to the team!
He will be working on administrative support to the attorneys and staff part time while also pursuing his degree.
“I’m a student a UW-Madison studying Political Science and I love it. When I’m not studying, working at OG+S, or spending time helping with the various organizations I’m a part of, I enjoy lifting weights, watching football (Go Pack Go!), and reading fiction novels.
If you’re ever wondering where I
Continue Reading Introducing Nick Heirlmeier…
The federal government is “shut down.” But that shut down does not apply equally across all aspects of the federal government. For those of us who work with intellectual property, that is on full display.
For example, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), remains “open and fully operational” because it has operating reserves from the prior year’s fee collections. It will keep rolling until those reserves are depleted. Last time, in 2019, it stayed open
Continue Reading The Shut Down Shuffle
I once asked my Dad what the 70’s were like, and he replied, “Oh, it was a beautiful time, Collin! A beautiful time!” I’m sure it was.
That’s also how I’ve been describing THC edibles and the current state of Delta-9 regulation in Wisconsin to anyone who will listen: a beautiful time, but one that won’t last long. Regulation is coming.
Right now, we’re tracking only one proposal, but it’s a big one. Wisconsin legislators have floated expanding the
Continue Reading Don’t Choke on Your Brownie: Delta Derivative Changes Proposed
Courses rarely live in one place. A video on your platform, slides in a folder, worksheets in a download, templates you keep improving. If you create a course, you own the rights to the words, images, and structure you made. Registering those rights creates a public record and unlocks stronger remedies if someone reuses your work without permission. It also makes licensing cleaner when you sell a bundle or individual modules. The useful question is not only how to
Continue Reading A Plain-English Guide to Protecting Your Educational Content