Franchisors received some encouraging news this week from President Trump's Acting Solicitor General, Nicholas Geale. Mr. Geale says that he prefers not to bring enforcement actions based on a theory that franchisors and franchisees are "joint employers." He also said that he hopes the U.S. Department of Labor will focus on helping employers to comply with the law and less on persecution prosecution. Jeff Rosin, head of our Franchise Industry Group, has more here.

Could it be that the Supreme Court has invalidated two years of actions by the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board? Wouldn't that be fun! But don't get too excited -- chances are that the Court's decision this week in NLRB v. Southwest Ambulance was rendered too late to be of much help to employers. David Phippen has an excellent analysis of the legal issue -- appointments to "acting" positions and the Federal Vacancies Reform Act -- the Court's decision, and the expected impact. (Although the decision involved an Obama appointee, President Trump and his successors are likely to feel the most pain.)

And at FOCUS, our women's leadership blog, Kacy Coble has a bang-up debut post about Women's History Month, women in the legal profession, and Constangy's own "women's history" -- the story of Mildred McClelland, law partner to our founder, Frank Constangy, way, way back in the 1940s.