Mark L.

Transactional & IP Attorney

Member Since: June 7, 2024

Boston, MA

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Summary info

Hourly Rate

$110

State License

Years Practicing

Insurance

I worked in the Intellectual Property Group at Fidelity Investments for almost 25 years, including managing the group from 2017-2021. I managed and developed the same high-performing group of three legal professionals from 2007-2021. Early in my career at Fidelity, I focused primarily on trademark matters, including trademark searching and clearance, as well as enforcement of trademark rights. In fact, I created Fidelity's trademark and brand protection programs and advanced them over more than two decades, eventually bringing the domestic trademark portfolio in-house and realizing savings of well over $2 million in outside counsel expenses for searching, prosecution and maintenance of US registrations from 2008-2021. Fidelity put me through law school, and I continued working full time while attending law school at night over four years. Upon graduation and passing the bar in 2006, I was promoted to an attorney position effective 1/1/2007. My practice broadened, and I began working on more transactional matters. I became a key transactional attorney for major technology groups and businesses within Fidelity, and negotiated numerous mission critical tech deals, transforming Fidelity's business. I provided transactional and IP support for Fidelity's software development and services affiliate in Ireland, and worked extensively with many of Fidelity's other foreign affiliates. Fidelity's General Counsel handpicked me to provide transactional and IP support to a new business initiative in 2017. That initiative became fintech startup Akoya, LLC, a paradigm-shifting business that enables secure, customer-controlled sharing of personal financial information between financial institutions and service providers. I developed template agreements between Akoya and data providers (financial institutions) and also between Akoya and data recipients (e.g. tax preparation services and financial advisors). Akoya had matured enough to be spun out by Fidelity in early 2020 to a consortium of financial services companies. In 2021, Fidelity offered a voluntary buyout to long-tenured associates, and following the pandemic, coupled with the financial and health benefits included in the package, it was an offer I could not refuse. Days later, my elderly father-in-law broke his hip, and my wife and I became his primary caregivers. It's been a blessing that I was able to contribute to his care and alleviate some of the burden on my wife. He is now in a long-term care facility, and I am eager to return to work as in-house counsel, whether on a contract basis, part time or full time. I did work briefly as a sole practitioner in 2021 and 2022, primarily helping friends, family and pro bono clients with NDAs, business formation issues, consulting agreements and license agreements. From August 2022 - July 2023, I was on the staff of Flex by Fenwick, an in-house counsel on demand business that is a subsidiary of the IP firm Fenwick & West, but did not get any engagements. My wife and I have volunteered for over a year with a dog rescue, Last Hope K9 Rescue, and have fostered several dogs, and adopted two of them!

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1 Question Answered / 1 Recent Answer

Q: Can a general contractor include a clause in the contract that allows them to terminate the agreement without cause?

June 19, 2024

A: Other than the terms that Massachusetts requires to appear in a home improvement contract between a homeowner and a registered home improvement contractor, the parties can agree to pretty much any other terms (provided they are not illegal, or void on public policy grounds). The GC is probably including this "termination without cause" right in his standard agreement in case a more lucrative job comes along and he'd lose out on it if he continued on your project. I would strongly recommend that you insist the contract be amended to remove that clause. Here is a link to the Mass. Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulations' guidance on this topic: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/required-contract-terms-in-a-home-improvement-contract. And assuming he is a registered home improvement contractor, while amending the contract to strike the termination language, you should also add any of the Massachusetts-required terms that are missing, or update them as appropriate. Hopefully, you have a good relationship with your contractor and he will agree, at least to the removal of the termination language. If the contractor has integrity, he should agree to remove the language and add/update any missing required terms.

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Mark L.

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