Our globally renowned Venture Capital & Emerging Growth Companies team empowers clients throughout the development cycle—from ideation to creation, capitalization, implementation, commercialization, and monetization.

Driving entrepreneurship

McCarter's Dave Sorin is participating in a new Princeton University lecture series that aims to inform and educate University researchers about the principles of entrepreneurship. In his initial talk, Dave covered a range of topics, from choosing the right business structure to identifying the legal issues involved with starting a business, including where to incorporate, securing intellectual property, and employment and benefits concerns. The University is dedicated to help faculty members and their research teams succeed in bringing their groundbreaking discoveries to the forefront, and McCarter is proud to help them achieve that goal.

Propelling the venture capital community forward

We are excited about our leadership role in the upcoming Propelify Virtual Festival. Dave Sorin will be giving the keynote address to kick off the event, which runs from October 5 through 9 and focuses on such areas as diversity and inclusion, equity, social justice, better health, sustainability, environmental justice, better connectivity (e.g., smart cities), and better initiatives to support and foster entrepreneurship and innovation.

In a session called "Women Have Always Been Powerful," partner Maria Laccotripe Zacharakis will interview Lindsay Kaplan, Co-Founder of Chief, a networking organization created to drive women forward into positions of power—and keep them there. And partner Natalie Watson will interview Tammy Murphy, First Lady of New Jersey, and Jill Johnson, CEO, Institute for Entrepreneurial Leadership, in the session "Investing in Underrepresented Communities."      

To register for Propelify, please click here.

Helping incentivize executives

The impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on executive compensation is significant. Many companies may be at risk of losing executives to other companies that are faring better financially. This is especially true if executives have experienced salary reductions, have outstanding performance-based incentive awards subject to performance targets that are now difficult to meet, and/or have outstanding stock options that are significantly underwater. To retain and motivate their executives during the pandemic, companies may want to revitalize their executive compensation programs. Ways to do this include awarding discretionary bonuses; modifying financial performance targets to make their attainment more realistic; granting time-vesting stock awards rather than performance-based awards; and providing special retention awards and/or employment agreements for executives who have valuable skills and might move to other companies. For more information on this topic, please read McCarter special counsel Joe Bachelder'sNew York Law Journal article "Another Look at the Impact of the Pandemic on Executive Pay."

Events

9.30.20
Venture Capital Panel: Successful Pivots During the Pandemic

10.5.20-10.9.20
Propelify Innovation Festival

10.23.20
Legal Issues for Startups

10.23.20
Financing Your Early Stage Tech, Tech-Enabled or Life Sciences Business

11.11.20
Legal Workshop for Early-Stage Startups

11.18.20
Critical Legal Issues Every Startup Must Know

Media

8.28.20 Herbert P. Moore, Jr., David J. Sorin, and Bernard C. Devieux authored "SEC Updates Definition of 'Accredited Investor'"—McCarter & English Corporate Alert

8.19.20  Ron Leibman quoted in "Post-COVID-19 Supply Chains Must Be Nimble"—The Daily Gazette

8.11.20 Ron Leibman quoted in "Covid-19 Pandemic Forces Industries to Re-Think Global Supply Chains"—Global Trade Magazine

8.7.20 Howard M. Berkower and Franklin Barbosa, Jr., authored "Senate Bill Proposes to Expand Paycheck Protection Program to Businesses in Bankruptcy—But with a Significant Catch"—McCarter & English Bankruptcy & Commercial Litigation and Corporate Alert

8.6.20 Morgan Jones and Scott M. Smedresman authored "Privacy Shield Is Dead! Long Live Standard Contractual Clauses! (For Now...)"—Corporate Compliance Insights Please visit our Coronavirus Resource Center, which contains regularly updated information to assist you and your business during these turbulent times.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.