Business partner disputes are one of the most common reasons companies end up in litigation. They are also one of the most preventable.
Most business disputes do not start with bad intentions. They start with contracts that were written for a business environment that no longer exists.
If your company uses software to screen resumes, score job applicants, schedule interviews, evaluate performance, or decide who gets promoted, you may already be violating Illinois law.
What happened?
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals held in Clay v. Union Pacific Railroad Co. that the 2024 amendment to Section 20 of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act applies to cases that were already pending when the amendment took effect on August 2, 2024.
What does that mean?
Businesses defending existing BIPA lawsuits
What changed? Illinois strengthened pay transparency mandates, expanded personnel file access rights, tightened pay stub requirements, broadened anti-discrimination protections to cover family responsibilities and reproductive health decisions, added restrictions on AI used in hiring, tightened severance and confidentiality agreement rules, and extended employee rights regarding employer-issued devices under VESSA, all effective in 2025–2026.
Who is
Most business owners assume lawsuits come from major failures.
They don’t.
They come from small, preventable breakdowns that escalate.
Right now in Illinois, there is one issue driving more business disputes than anything else:
Unclear, poorly written, or completely missing contracts.
Not fraud.
Not negligence.
Not dramatic misconduct.
Just ambiguity.
Why This Is Happening More
If your company is using AI without a policy, you are already behind
A year ago, AI policies were optional.
Today, they are quickly becoming expected.
Not because companies want structure.
Because the legal risk now requires it.
If your employees are using tools like ChatGPT, Claude, or Google Gemini without clear rules, your business
Most business owners don’t consider themselves facing an employment issue.
Until they do.
And when they do, it’s usually costly, disruptive, and entirely preventable.
Currently, one of the fastest ways businesses are being audited, penalized, and sued is through simple misclassification of workers.
They label someone as a contractor, but the law may not agree.
If your business is using AI, you are already taking on legal risk
Most companies do not realize this yet.
They think AI is:
•a productivity tool
•a marketing advantage
•a harmless internal resource
What they are not seeing is the legal exposure being created in real time.
If your team is using tools like