One Hour Of Substance Abuse and Mental Health CLE Credit: 2019 Health Law Section Annual Meeting and CLE

By Iain Stauffer

The Health Law Section Annual Meeting and CLE program, “Navigating Healthcare Challenges for 2019:  Alternative Payment Models and Behavioral Health Issues” takes place at the NC Bar Center in Cary pn Friday, March 8.  The first afternoon session of this CLE program will cover “Treating Behavioral Health Issues and Substance Use Disorders: The Intersection of Federal and State Laws, Law Enforcement and the Involuntary Commitment Process.”  This session will center around the current status of 45 CFR Part 2, the intersection of mental health and substance use disorders, and the challenges faced by hospital counsel related to both, including involuntary commitment.  One hour of substance abuse/mental health CLE credit is available for this session.

Registration is now open and can be accessed here. For more information about the CLE and agenda, please refer to the online brochure.

Stay tuned for information on the exciting final afternoon session.  See you there in March.

The Immigration Benefits Of Military Parole In Place

Guest Post

By Lisa Kobayashi

When a military member is threatened with potential negative immigration consequences to their family, it may have a significant impact on the military member’s morale and readiness to perform the duties of their service. Recognizing this, the U.S. government has created certain discretionary benefits to ease the immigration process for military members’ families. One such benefit is military “parole in place.”  Significantly, if granted, the parolee would be authorized to stay in the U.S., and if they meet the criteria, it would further allow the family member to receive their permanent residency in the United States, rather than having to travel abroad to their home country for an interview to finish processing their case to receive their green card.

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Members In Focus: Cheslie Kryst Knows the Beauty of Persistence

Photos by Blue Method Films

By Amber Nimocks

Cheslie Kryst failed to win the Miss North Carolina crown on her first attempt in 2014. It wasn’t bad for a first try, though. She cracked the top 10 and won a swimsuit award.

Before she went for the prize again in 2015, she prepared relentlessly: thousands of ab reps, countless hours at the piano playing Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing,” and endless hours watching and reading the news to be ready for the interview.

Find this and more in the February edition of North Carolina Lawyer magazine online and in your mailbox. 

She lost again. Runner-up. Plus a swimsuit award.

That was her last shot at the crown with the Miss America organization. She had aged out. But she still had a chance with the Miss USA organization.

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International GC Panel In Durham April 10

By Clara Cottrell

It is a time for exciting new beginnings, but it is also when new laws and regulations go into effect.  What if you had to take into account laws and regulations around the globe?  Whether it is privacy, employment, or something else entirely, the global regulatory landscape is as varied as the cultures of the lands they govern.  On April 10 at Mez Contemporary Mexican restaurant the Corporate Counsel Section with our friends at Smith Anderson will be hosting a panel of international GCs to discuss legal matters across borders.  How do you source and supervise outside legal counsel three time zones and an ocean away from you?  How do you advise the business on risk when the risk is based on a completely different legal environment?  These GCs will talk through how they handle these types of issues, and a legal staff, every day.  This thought leadership panel will be at lunch, 12-1:30, with plenty of time for participants to ask questions and dig into practicalities during the panel or afterwards.  In order to facilitate that small group environment, participants will be limited to the first 45 that sign up.  There is no cost to Section members, and only $15 for non-members.  Lunch will be provided, but not CLE credit.  So, save the date, and keep an eye out for your email invitation.  We look forward to seeing you and hearing from you on this interesting topic.

Panelists:  Stefan John, Senior Vice President and General Counsel at BASF Corporation; Christine Mazzone, General Counsel and Company Secretary at Plant Health Care, Inc.; Norma Formanek, Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Trilliant Networks Inc.; Owen Lewis, General Counsel at Chiltern, a Covance Company

 

Top 5 Federal L&E Developments From the Past Year

By Robin E. Shea

With many of President Trump’s agency nominations being held up in the Senate, followed by the longest government shutdown in history, it’s been a relatively quiet year for labor and employment law at the federal level. Nonetheless, here are my picks for the most significant developments of the past year.

No. 1: #MeToo. Although a little of the furor seems to be dying down, the #MeToo movement had a big impact on employment law in 2018. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reported an almost 13 percent increase in charges alleging sexual harassment in Fiscal Year 2018, which ended September 30, 2018. Now that the agency is back up and running, it will be interesting to see what happens in FY 2019. Although North Carolina has not yet followed the nationwide trend of banning non-disclosure provisions in sexual harassment settlements or mandating employee harassment training, many employers here are already voluntarily adjusting their policies, procedures, and training.

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No Protection Under Law: The Unchecked Prevalence Of Violence Against Women In North Korea

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By Miranda Tarlton

The government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, commonly referred to as North Korea, has found itself under international scrutiny and condemnation once again as the subject of a recent Human Rights Watch report. The report, entitled “You Cry at Night but Don’t Know Why,”documents the sad reality faced by many women in North Korea. Women are routinely raped, abused, and mistreated by men—many of whom are government officials—with impunity. The crimes all too frequently go unpunished and unreported, as rape is typically not investigated or prosecuted unless significant injury or death have also occurred. In North Korea, there are no services, safe houses, clinics, resources, or other forms of aid for victims. As a result, sexual violence and abuse is a widely tolerated and unaddressed part of daily life.

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Turning On Two-Factor Authentication for Office 365

By Pegeen Turner

In the age of technology, stolen identities, compromised credit cards and all things online, technology companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and others are trying to help us. These companies have come to recognize that they cannot force their users to use strong passwords and change them frequently.

Welcome to two-factor authentication.

You may have heard the term two-factor authentication and you may know it has something to do with security. It is also referred to as two-step or multi-step verification or authentication. You may even be using it if you bank online, use an Apple ID and any number of other places you access online. Two-factor authentication comes in many forms including a text message, a secondary question about when you were married or your pets name or a prompt to say YES on your phone.

What is two-factor authentication?

Some of you have probably heard about the concept but aren’t quite sure what it is and if you need it. Two-factor authentication is an extra layer of security to make sure that you are the only person who can access your online account, even if someone knows your password. It is a security feature that is available on most cloud-based programs that law firm use today including Office 365, G-Suite for Business (or Gmail), Dropbox for Business, Box.com, almost every cloud-based practice management, and document management system geared for law firms today.

Two-factor authentication will (as Google describes it) “Help keep the bad guys out of your account by using both your password and your phone.”  The process forces you to identify yourself by not only a username and password but also something that is in your physical possession, like a cell phone (that is the two-factor part).

Should I use two-factor authentication?

In short, you need it – wherever you can get it. No matter what type of account that you are using, if it has two-factor authentication, turn it on.

How do I use two-factor authentication?

The name says it all. You need two different ways (two factors) to confirm access to your account – your password and another device that you use, typically, your cell phone. The process is similar no matter which program you are setting up. Here are the basic steps:

Set up two-factor authentication. The program will walk you through the setup process and send a test message via text or phone to your cell phone.

Turn on two-factor authentication. Once the test process is complete, the program will help you turn on two-factor authentication.

Use two-factor authentication. By accessing your online account, you will be prompted for your username (email address) and password as normal. After entering the password, a secondary prompt will ask you for a response with a code, or a prompt or whatever authentication method you choose in Step #1.

Setting up two-factor authentication for Office 365

With the popularity of Office 365 and online email access, security should be a top concern for all law firms. The steps below outline the steps necessary to set up two-factor authentication (called multi-factor authentication by Microsoft) for Office 365.

If you are the Office 365 administrator, you can use the instructions here to turn on multi-factor authentication, then follow the steps below:

a. If you have Outlook open on your local computer, close Outlook.

b. Check whether your Office 365 admin has turned on multi-factor authentication for your account. If they haven’t, when you try to do these steps you won’t see the options in Office 365.

c. Log into your Office 365 email account by going to outlook.office365.com.

d. With the two-step authentication turned on, you will be prompted to “Set it up now”. Choose Set it up now.

e. How should we contact you?

a. Choose authentication phone.

b. If your prepopulated cell phone number is not correct, please put in the correct phone number.

c. Choose to “Send me a code by text message” or “Call me.” Choose whichever is more convenient for you.

d. Choose Next and Microsoft with call you or text you for verification.

Setting up an app password

Some older versions of Outlook and Apple Mail on iOS devices will require a secondary password called an app password. The steps below will help you generate your app password.

a. After verifying your contact method, a screen will appear to generate the app password.

b. Choose the copy icon to copy this password to your Clipboard.

c. If you already have Outlook on your computer, open Outlook.

d. Paste the app password in the password field.

e. Choose OK and Outlook will open as normal.
f. You are done!

NOTE: After adding two-step authentication to your Office 365 account, depending on the make and model of your cell phone, it will either prompt you to log into your Office 365 account (and prompted for a code) or use the app password above for your new phone password.

Next steps

The next time you log in to Office 365 online, you will see the two-step authentication kick in. You will be prompted to enter the code that was sent to you via text message, phone call, etc.  Enter the code you receive in the text message in the field below and choose Sign In.

With that, you will be well on your way to securing your email from “the Bad Guys.” Your email and all your client confidential email messages will now be more secure with two-factor authentication set up. Enjoy the peace of mind knowing your data is safe and sound.

Here’s the Alternative: 2019 Health Law Section Annual Meeting and CLE

The Health Law Section Annual Meeting and CLE program, “Navigating Healthcare Challenges for 2019:  Alternative Payment Models and Behavioral Health Issues” takes place at the NC Bar Center in Cary on Friday, March 8, 2019.  The entire morning session of this CLE program will cover Alternative Payment Models.  This session will include a discussion of alternative payment models and related tax, insurance, and antitrust issues, as well as the legal issues created by, among other things, paying providers not to take care of patients.

Registration is now open and can be accessed here. For more information about the CLE and agenda, please refer to the online brochure.

Stay tuned for information on more exciting sessions.  See you there in March.

Protect a Portion of a Word Document

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Do you need to share a word processing document with someone but want to limit what text the recipient can edit? For instance, would you like to create a pre-approved contract that allows some clauses to be editable? Or do you have standard internal documents that you would like to make available to everyone but limit editing of certain portions? Did you know that, unlike PDF creation tools that only allow a user to apply copy, print and edit restrictions to the whole document, Microsoft Word gives the document creator a number of granular editing restrictions?  Just go to the Review tab and click on “Restrict Editing”  in the “Protect” group.

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Thursday and Friday: Business Law Institute and Business Law and International Law & Practice Annual Meetings

Need CLE? The Business Law Institute and the Business Law & International Law & Practice Annual Meetings will be held on Thursday, Feb. 14 and Friday, Feb. 15.

Find details and registration for the Business Law Institute here and and the Business Law & International Law & Practice CLE here.

Thursday, Feb. 14: Business Law Institute

Focus on emerging business technologies, ESOPs, insurance provisions and issues, and indemnification issues  

Don Reynolds, Andrew Steffensen and Jim Verdonik bring their expertise to the topics of securities, blockchain and cryptocurrencies.  Don will review the basic tenets and structure of U.S. securities law, and provide an update on recent developments in the field, including public companies’ use of block trades to efficiently access the capital markets, and the applications of blockchain technologies to securities law and vice versa (e.g. initial coin offerings or ICOs).  Andrew and Jim will follow with an introduction to blockchain technologies and cryptocurrencies, discussing how these emerging technologies may impact a variety of business transactions in an increasingly digital world.

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