Legal Briefs: News From Around NH

Devine Millimet adds new attorneys

Attorneys Seth Greenblott, James O’Rourke and Mary Lynn Roedel of the Greenblott & O’Rourke law firm in Concord, have joined Manchester-based Devine Millimet.

Greenblott works with businesses in a range of sectors, including banking, manufacturing and sports and entertainment.

O’Rourke’s practice focuses on criminal law and family law, Roedel specializes in estate planning and trust law and probate law.

In addition, Devine Millimet has added Stephen Zaharias and Jeffrey Adams, attorneys with a combined 30 years of legal experience, to its team.

Zaharias has joined the Litigation Department, and Adams has joined as chair of the Financial Services Litigation Practice Group.

New Hampshire in top 10 for LLC startups

New Hampshire is in the top 10 a ranking of states where it’s easiest to start up a LLC.

Research by small business advice company Venture Smarter looked at looked aet several factors in putting together rankings: LLC annual fees, LLC filling fees, average LLC agreement bid costs, advertising and publishing costs, tax climate index scores and the number of small businesses per 100,000 residents.

According to the research, New Hampshire was ranked 10^th. Topping the list was Wyoming, where total LLC startup costs for the first year total $160, the lowest in the nation. Second was Florida and third was South Dakota.

Rounding out the top 10 were Montana, Alaska, Colorado, Utah, Vermont and Georgia.

Ex-insurance commissioner joins health insurance brokerage

Chris Nicolopoulos

Chris Nicolopoulos, who last month stepped down from his post as New Hampshire’s insurance commissioner, has joined Enhance Health as vice president of government affairs

Enhance, based in Florida, is a digital health insurance brokerage and care navigation platform.

Nicolopoulos’s tenure as New Hampshire insurance commissioner began in 2020. Before that, he president and CEO of the NH Association of Insurance Agents and government affairs director at the NH Association of Realtors.

USDOL issues revamps Davis-Bacon Act rule

The U.S. Dept. of Labor has issued a final rule that revamps its Davis-Bacon Act procedures for determining prevailing-wage levels on federal construction projects in favor of workers.

The final rule gives the DOL authority to adopt prevailing wages determined by state and local governments, issue wage determinations for labor classifications where insufficient data was received through the wage survey process, and update outdated wage rates. It also will provide periodic updates for non-collectively bargained wages. It also adds anti-retaliation provisions and strengthens the DOL’s ability to withhold money from a federal contractor in order to pay employees their lost wages.

The Davis-Bacon regulations hadn’t been comprehensively updated in 40 years.

While unions praised the action, two large construction contractor groups are against the latest rule, and one of them the Associated Builders and Contractors said it plans to challenge the regulation in the courts.

The department said in its regulatory notice that the changes will annually affect an estimated $217 billion in federal and federally assisted construction spending for about 1.2 million construction workers.