Washing the oatmeal pot the other day, I found myself gripping the little button on my kitchen faucet that switches the water flowing in a stream to water spraying, as if it would strengthen the force of the water that was slowly disengaging oat bits clinging to the sides. This got me thinking… where else is the force of holding on tightly just an illusion? Where else could I let go and have the same (or an even better) outcome? Where can I conserve my energy, time, and focus for something that really matters?

As we called out in our recent newsletter, we were fascinated by the recent Hidden Brain podcast interview with anthropologist David Graeber, “BS Jobs: How Meaningless Work Wears Us Down”. Are we really making the world a better place? Is our role really just to play a ‘goon’ as Graeber categorized corporate lawyers, serving as a security measure because all the other big dogs have lawyers? Is the value we strive to provide to our clients all in our heads?

We’re diving in to state #3 in our comparison of state-based data privacy laws and HIPAA. How extensive are the California laws? Pretty extensive.

As a state with almost 40 million residents, adhering to data privacy regulations for California is a big deal. Not only does California specify health data laws that apply to each of the HIPAA, they will be going big soon.

The CCPA is a complex and wide-reaching law with the potential to change the landscape of data privacy regulation in the US. Will California residents choose to exercise the rights granted by CCPA? Will companies be able to effectively demonstrate compliance with the CCPA regulations? Will the regulation be sustainable?

We’re diving in to state #2 in our comparison of state-based data privacy laws and HIPAA. What do Virginia laws say about the use, safeguarding, and loss protocol for protected health information?

At Trifecta General Counsel, we are driven by our mission to change the model of legal services delivery. This is our North star as we make decisions every day. But, clarity of purpose isn’t quite enough to make waves. This is a deeper dive into our people ops approach, going beyond making the match with our company. What do we do to build (and strengthen) our team?

The true colors of legalese are clearer in the example statement of, ‘the typed pages were full of confusing legalese’. Confusing is right – contracts are often full of archaic words that are rarely uttered in English, but for by lawyers. When is the last time you said, “contiguous to”, “forthwith”, or “aforementioned”? At Trifecta General Counsel, we’re driven to find ways to shine lights into the legal black box, and simplifying contracting language is just one of the many ways we do that.

You may be wondering, ‘why should I bother having my own contract template? We’re a small company, and we always seem to use the other party’s paper’. While this may be true today, there are still excellent reasons to know what your template should say to represent your business.

We recently talked with the team at Moxe about HIPAA in a way that’s not as common, to explore the question, ‘how does each state deal with protected health information, and how do those laws interact with the Federal HIPAA law?’.