Tenth Circuit Overturns BLM’s Mancos Shale Oil and Gas APD Approvals
Dine’ Citizens Against Ruining our Environment, an environmental non-governmental organization (NGO) and other environmental groups (collectively, Dine’ CARE), brought suit against the United States Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Secretary of the Interior, challenging the BLM’s compliance with the National…
Annual Environmental Law Update
This paper was originally published by the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation in the Proceedings of the 64th Annual Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Institute (2018) This chapter highlights…
The 2018 Form 1040 – “Simplicity” Could Be a Trap For the Unwary
By April 15, 2019, individuals are required to file a Form 1040 reporting their income and tax liability for 2018. As a result of the 2017 Tax Act,…
Protecting New Mexico Employers From Inadvertent FMLA Violations: What Can Your Employee Do (or Not) While on FMLA Leave?
Maybe you have an employee on FMLA leave who just can’t help herself, she has to answer emails and check in with the office. Is this work under the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA)? Perhaps you need to know where a file is located,…
Are Employee Evaluations Still Relevant in Today’s Business Environment?
Corporate trendsetters are moving in the direction of eliminating a historical function of human resource departments: the annual performance evaluation. In fact, an estimated 10 percent of Fortune 500 companies have jettisoned the practice of annual employee evaluations, including Deloitte, Gap, Medtronic, Accenture…
Tips for Conducting Employee Investigations
Investigating your employee for inappropriate conduct can be a sensitive and difficult task. An employer’s decisions regarding how to conduct the investigation can have significant impact in subsequent litigation related to the investigation. Here are some tips for how New Mexico employers can…
What Employers Need to Know About New Mexico’s Domestic Abuse Leave
While employees and employers are familiar with the terms sick leave, annual leave, and medical leave, New Mexico is also one of several states to require employers to provide an employee with domestic abuse leave. The Promoting Financial Independence for Victims of…
Tips for Employers on How to Provide Risk-free Recommendations for Former Employees
As all employers can attest, it can be difficult to determine what information to include in a verbal or written recommendation for departing employees. Indeed, some managers find themselves dreading a phone call from a prospective employer of a former employee. That…
What’s in a Net Royalty Acre?
We all understand the definition of “net mineral acre.” It is derived by multiplying a fractional interest in minerals by the acreage over which the interest is owned….
Retirement Plans to the Rescue with Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Changes
One of the major changes in the tax law enacted last December in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (“TCJA”) was the creation of a new deduction for…
