CONTENT CENTER
California’s AI-in-the-Workplace Legislative Blitz: California Legislature Passes Four New Bills That May Affect Employers
In this client alert, Jennifer B. Rubin and Brody Zaugg examine four California AI-related employment bills that could impose new obligations on employers using artificial intelligence and workplace monitoring technologies. The proposed legislation would regulate automated decision systems in employment decisions, require additional disclosures for AI-related workforce reductions, restrict the use of emotion-recognition and neural data technologies, and limit workplace surveillance practices. The authors outline the bills’ key requirements and offer practical guidance for employers preparing for increased oversight of AI-powered workplace tools.
New York Enacts Law Significantly Expanding Employee Access to Personnel Files
In this client alert, Michael S. Arnold, Corbin Carter, and Evan M. Piercey discuss New York’s newly enacted personnel records law, which takes effect on November 8, 2026, and expands employee rights regarding access to and correction of personnel files. The law requires employers to provide personnel records upon request, notify employees when certain negative information is added to their files, allow employees to respond to disputed information, and retain personnel records for three years after separation. The authors also outline key compliance considerations and practical steps employers should take before the law becomes effective.
Mintz On Air: Practical Policies — Trust, Tone, and Trade-Offs: Negotiating Contracts in the AI Age
In this episode of Mintz On Air: Practical Policies, Jen Rubin and Tali Tuchin discuss the growing role of AI in commercial contract negotiations, highlighting both its efficiencies and limitations. They explore how AI can streamline contract review, drafting, and issue spotting, while emphasizing that human judgment remains essential for assessing legal and business risk, navigating negotiation dynamics, building trust, and crafting practical solutions. The conversation offers guidance on using AI as a tool to enhance, rather than replace, the experience and judgment that drive successful negotiations.
Mintz Partners with A Good Option to Support Innovative Equity-Based Philanthropy Model
In this announcement, Dan DeWolf highlights Mintz’s partnership with A Good Option (AGO), a nonprofit promoting equity-based charitable giving within the startup ecosystem. Through its pro bono program, Mintz is advising AGO on governance, equity donation structures, and other legal and operational matters, while supporting efforts to encourage founders, investors, startup employees, and fund managers to incorporate philanthropy early in their entrepreneurial journeys through pre-liquidity equity pledges.
Delaware Court Confirms: PBC Directors Need Not Maximize Shareholder Value
In this article, Dan DeWolf and Neelam Karamchandani discuss the Delaware Court of Chancery’s landmark Drakes Landing decision, which held that Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) directors are not required to maximize shareholder value in change-of-control transactions. Instead, PBC boards must balance shareholder interests, stakeholder impacts, and the company’s stated public benefit, while benefiting from statutory safe-harbor protections when acting on an informed and disinterested basis. The decision provides founders and directors with greater flexibility to preserve mission-driven objectives in M&A transactions, while underscoring the importance of documenting the board’s balancing process.
Mintz On Air: Practical Policies — The Risks of AI Prompt Injections in the Workplace
AI prompt injections are an emerging workplace risk that can manipulate AI-driven hiring and decision-making systems using hidden instructions embedded in otherwise ordinary documents. In this Mintz On Air podcast, employment attorneys Jen Rubin and Kevin Kim discuss how candidates can game AI tools through prompt and data injections, the security and confidentiality risks posed by unauthorized AI use, and practical steps employers can take, including human oversight, employee training, vendor diligence, and stronger AI governance.
Mintz On Air: Practical Policies — Taking Your Candidates to the Vet
As candidate screening becomes more complex with the rise of AI-generated applications, deepfakes, and evolving background check regulations, employers must balance effective vetting with legal compliance. This article discusses common screening pitfalls, key requirements under federal, state, and local laws, and practical strategies for designing background check processes that mitigate hiring risks while ensuring fair and individualized candidate assessments.
Two New Non-Compete Laws Take Effect in Virginia and Tennessee
As states continue to expand restrictions on non-compete agreements, employers face an increasingly complex patchwork of compliance requirements. This article highlights new laws in Virginia and Tennessee that limit the enforceability of certain non-competes, introduce new employer obligations, and reflect a broader national trend toward tighter regulation of restrictive covenants. Employers, particularly those with multi-state workforces, should review existing agreements and policies to ensure compliance with evolving state laws.
Mintz On Air: Practical Policies — Real vs. Robot: Bots in the Boardroom
As artificial intelligence becomes more integrated into corporate decision-making, boards must balance the benefits of AI with their fiduciary obligations to shareholders. While AI can enhance efficiency, research, and strategic analysis, it cannot replace the human judgment, accountability, and oversight required of board members. This article explores the legal, governance, and confidentiality risks associated with AI in the boardroom and highlights practical considerations for developing policies that support responsible AI use.
Tools of the Trade (Secrets): Confidential Is Not Enough
Many companies assume that confidentiality agreements, passwords, and standard IT security measures are enough to protect trade secrets, but courts increasingly require more. Under the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA), businesses must take reasonable, documented steps to identify, segregate, restrict access to, and monitor their most valuable information. This article reviews recent court decisions highlighting common trade secret protection failures and outlines practical measures companies can take to strengthen their legal protections.
MintzTech Connect: All Things Technology — July 2026
This edition of MintzTech Connect explores legal and business issues shaping today’s startup ecosystem. From whether investors should seek stronger liquidation protections in SAFEs to the core duties and practical responsibilities of private company board members, this issue provides a concise look at key considerations for founders, investors, and directors, and spotlights LEA Technologies’ work helping registered investment advisers streamline operations through clean, structured data.
Board of Directors Basics
Board of Directors Basics explores the essential role corporate boards play in guiding and overseeing a company. From how directors are appointed and the key decisions that require board approval to committee structures and director compensation, this article provides a practical overview of board governance fundamentals.
How To Be An Effective Board Member For a Private Company
How to Be an Effective Director examines the responsibilities that come with serving on a private company board. The article explores directors’ fiduciary duties of care, loyalty, and oversight; common conflict-of-interest scenarios; and practical tips for effective board service, offering guidance on how directors can help drive long-term company success while fulfilling their legal and governance obligations.
Don’t Tank Your Valuation: IP Mistakes AI Founders Make Before Exit
You built something real. Now you want to get paid: whether through acquisition, fundraise, or IPO. But a few preventable mistakes can crater your valuation or kill a deal entirely. Here’s what to lock down before anyone runs diligence on your company. Address these items at the outset before they become obstacles, to see your efforts pay dividends at the conclusion.
Contract Traps: A Field Guide — Part 2
Our first installment of the Contract Traps: A Field Guide series helped you spot common pitfalls in “standard” customer agreements. Now, Part 2 raises the stakes.
In this installment we walk through six more provisions that can quietly shift risk onto emerging companies, from clauses that let customers rewrite the rules mid‑contract to warranty language that turns routine service hiccups into breach claims. We also highlight how seemingly harmless terms around termination, change of control, and affiliates can surface later, often at the worst possible time, like during a financing or sale. A close read now can help you avoid costly surprises down the line.
VC Law: Episode 44: Warehousing Investments with Daniel DeWolf of Mintz
Host Gary J. Ross talks with Daniel DeWolf, Co-chair of the VC/EC practice at Mintz and adjunct professor at NYU School of Law, about the practice of venture capital funds warehousing investments.
Should Investors Demand Better Liquidation Terms for SAFEs?
SAFEs (the acronym for “Simple Agreement for Future Equity”) are a widely used financing tool for companies seeking to raise capital quickly and with minimal friction—particularly early‑stage companies that are not yet ready for a priced equity round. In recent years, we have seen many early-stage companies attract M&A interest before their outstanding SAFEs have converted. This trend makes it especially timely to revisit how the standard Y Combinator forms of SAFE address investor payouts when a company is sold prior to conversion, and whether investors should demand more for their high-risk investments.
Client Alert: No, You Don’t Owe Delaware $200,000. - DE Franchise Tax 101
Around this time of year, I always get a note from a panicked startup company that has logged in to pay their annual Delaware franchise tax and has seen an eye-watering number.
While it’s true that every year you will have to pay our good friends in DE for the pleasure of existing (death and taxes being the two certainties in life), it is also true that DE is not in the habit of bankrupting its fledgling companies with onerous franchise tax bills.
MintzTech Connect: All Things Technology — February 2026
In this special edition of MintzTech Connect, we introduce the Series SAFE Preferred — a novel early-stage financing instrument designed by the Mintz VC & Emerging Companies team. SAFEs transformed early-stage investing, but lingering questions — particularly around Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS) — remain unresolved. The Series SAFE Preferred combines the speed and simplicity of a SAFE with the QSBS certainty and stockholder rights of preferred stock, without forcing a premature priced round.
California’s SB 53 and Emerging AI Regulation: Strategic Guidance for Founders and Investors
California recently passed the Transparent in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act (SB 53), which is the first comprehensive state-level AI safety framework in the United States. This law applies mostly to the large AI developers training models with extreme compute (10^26 FLOP) or earning $500m+ annually.
If you are a founder of a tech startup, it is not likely that this law applies directly to you. However, SB53 may still materially impact your startup business. SB 53 introduces regulatory, commercial, and reputational dynamics that are likely to extend well beyond the Golden State.
Below is a summary of what founders of early-stage AI companies and their investors should be preparing for
Sort by Topic:
Form a Company
Raise Capital
Build Your Team
Protect Your Idea and Data
Grow Your Company
Exits
View our full collection of blogs from Mintz by topic