Reuters is reporting that former Wall Street investment banker Sean Stewart was found guilty on Monday of insider trading a second time for passing tips about healthcare industry mergers to his father.

“Prosecutors said Stewart, who worked at JPMorgan Chase & Co and Perella Weinberg Partners, passed tips to his father Robert from 2011 to 2015,” reports Reuters’ Brendan Pierson. “They said the tips yielded $1.16 million of profit for Robert Stewart and his friend Richard Cunniffe, to whom he had forwarded some of them.”

Stewart was convicted on the charges in 2017, but an appeals court ordered a new trial. He had served about a year of his three-year sentence.

Read the Reuters article.

Employers may not be aware that the National Labor Relations Board has issued an opinion holding that arbitration agreements that could be “reasonably construed” to prohibit an employee from filing unfair labor practice charges with the board are invalid under the National Labor Relations Act, warns a post from Foley & Lardner.

“What is significant about this unanimous employee-friendly decision is that even if the language in your arbitration agreement does not expressly prohibit the filing of an NLRB charge (or accessing the Board or its processes), you may not be safe from a determination that your agreement is invalid,” explains the author, Cristina Portela Solomon.

She lists three steps employers should take if they use arbitration agreements.

Read the article.

Jen Cafferty Patton has joined Foley & Lardner as its first chief legal talent officer (CLTO). As CLTO, Patton is responsible for overseeing the firm’s legal talent development structure and leading all attorney recruitment, development and retention efforts, as well as all coaching and diversity and inclusion initiatives.

In addition to overseeing recruiting, professional development, diversity and inclusion, and alumni efforts, Patton will be charged with helping the firm differentiate itself in the talent marketplace – including evaluating the firm’s recruiting and retention processes and determining where there are opportunities to innovate.

Patton will be based in Foley’s Houston office. She earned her J.D., with honors, from the University of Texas School of Law and her B.A., cum laude, from Rice University.

Texas trial lawyer Dan Cogdell has joined Squire Patton Boggs’ Houston office as partner in its Litigation and Government Investigations & White-Collar practices.

The firm said Cogdell has served as lead counsel in nearly 300 jury trials in more than 16 states. Some of his best-known cases include winning not guilty verdicts in the Enron scandal, the Branch Davidian trial, and in the trial of controversial cancer physician Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski. In 2015, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton hired Cogdell to lead his defense team in fighting a felony indictment. Mr. Cogdell currently represents a broad array of clients in both state and federal court matters throughout Texas and the U.S.

In 2008, the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association named him White-Collar Criminal Defense Lawyer of the Year. In 2011, he became one of the youngest criminal defense lawyers to be admitted as a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers legal association. In 2014 he was honored as an Alumni of The Year by his law school alma mater, South Texas College of Law in Houston. In 2016, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Texas Lawyer. Cogdell also has regularly made the lists of peer-review legal guides such as Best Lawyers in America and Texas Super Lawyers for the past 20-plus years, the firm said.

The law firm of Thompson & Knight LLP announced that Dallas attorney and State Senator Nathan M. Johnson has joined the firm as counsel in the Trial Practice Group in Dallas. Johnson is a commercial and bankruptcy litigator and currently represents District 16 in the Texas State Senate.

“Nathan is known as someone who tenaciously advocates for his business clients, large and small, and who gets effective results because of his understanding of complex commercial legal issues,” said Greg Curry, Trial Practice Leader at the Firm. “Someone of his caliber and commitment to community service is a great addition to our team.”

The firm said Johnson has represented clients from a variety of industries such as energy, mortgage servicing, finance, commercial real estate, technology, manufacturing, and agriculture. His recent litigation caseload has included officer and director liability claims, fiduciary disputes involving corporate assets and liabilities, and fraudulent transfer complaints. He has also handled a broad range of other contract and business tort claims.

Johnson was elected to the Texas Senate in the 2018 general election and is the first Democrat to represent the district in more than three decades. The district covers all or significant portions of north Dallas, the Park Cities, Irving, Carrollton, Coppell, Farmers Branch, Addison, Garland, Mesquite and Rowlett.

Johnson earned his law degree from The University of Texas School of Law in 1993. He graduated magna cum laude in physics from The University of Arizona in 1990. Before joining Thompson & Knight, he was co-founder of the boutique law firm Spector Johnson PLLC in Dallas.

Dykema announced the addition of Thomas T. Moga to its Intellectual Property & IP Litigation Department and Automotive Industry Group as a senior counsel in the firm’s Bloomfield Hills office. Moga joins Dykema from the Dearborn, Mich., office of LeClairRyan.

In a release, the firm said Moga has more than 30 years of experience in domestic and international intellectual property portfolio development and enforcement. He has experience as a patent prosecutor in various fields, including the mechanical, chemical, biochemical, and pharmaceutical arts. Moga has also been qualified and testified as an expert witness in patent disputes.

As an IP portfolio developer, Moga’s experience includes the development of domestic and foreign patent portfolios, the acquisition of registrations for trademarks and copyrights, licensing, and policy development. Within the discipline of IP rights enforcement, he manages patent enforcement and anti-counterfeiting actions in Asia, including overseeing initial counterfeit product investigation, selecting and working with local investigators, selecting and working with local counsel, preparing administrative and judicial documents, and participating in raids.

The firm said Moga has represented foreign companies in China since the 1980s. He was a Fulbright Scholar in China, where he taught patent law at Jilin University and acted as a foreign advisor to China’s patent office.

In 2018, Moga was appointed by the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to serve on the Industry Trade Advisory Committee on Intellectual Property Rights (ITAC 13). As the only representative on the committee for the U.S. automotive industry, Moga’s contributions include analyzing national trade positions and providing advice on a broad array of trade issues as they relate to IP for both the White House (by way of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative) and the Department of Commerce in pursuit of trade agreements that benefit U.S. businesses, workers and the economy.

Moga received a J.D. from the St. Louis University School of Law. He also earned an M.A. in English Language & Literature as well as a B.A. in both English Language & Literature and Political Studies (with a China concentration) from the University of Michigan. Moga also received a B.S. in Biochemistry, cum laude, from Madonna University.

Miller & Chevalier Chartered announced that government contracts attorney Alejandro “Alex” Sarria joined the firm as a member in the Government Contracts Counseling and Litigation Practice.

Sarria joined the firm from Covington & Burling LLP and previously spent seven years at multinational law firm McKenna, Long & Aldridge LLP (now part of Dentons).

In a release, the firm said Sarria represents contractors in complex contract disputes with federal and state governments and in mass tort lawsuits arising out of military operations, national security programs, and environmental remediation projects. In his counseling practice, he advises clients on an array of federal procurement issues, including matters involving cost allowability, cost or pricing data requirements, battlefield contracting, subcontract pricing and flowdowns, commercial item contracting, the General Services Administration Schedules program, organizational conflicts of interest, cybersecurity laws and regulations, and business ethics and code of conduct requirements.

One of Sarria’s cases, Secretary of the Army v. Kellogg Brown & Root Services (KBR), was a multi-year collaboration with Miller & Chevalier Government Contracts Practice member Jason Workmaster that resulted in a groundbreaking July 2019 decision. In that case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit put an end to the long-running contract dispute regarding the use of private security contractors by the U.S. Army’s principal logistical support contractor, KBR, and its subcontractors during the height of the Iraq War. In doing so, the Federal Circuit affirmed a 2017 decision finding that KBR was entitled to reimbursement of $44 million, plus interest, in costs the government had initially paid but later recouped under a cost-reimbursement contract. The decision resolved (in KBR’s favor) important questions regarding jurisdiction over affirmative defenses and contractors’ entitlement to interest, which promise to have a long-lasting positive impact for contractors engaged in contract disputes with the federal government.

Sarria serves as a vice chair of both the ABA Section of Public Contract Law, Contract Claims and Disputes Resolution Committee, and the Battlespace and Contingency Procurements Committee. He is a member of the National Defense Industrial Association, Procurement Division & Legal Committee, the Hispanic National Bar Association, and the Cuban American Bar Association.

Sarria earned his J.D. from the George Washington University Law School, where he was the Senior Articles Editor for The Public Contract Law Journal, and his B.S. in Journalism, with high honors, from the University of Florida.

Sarah Piepmeier has joined Perkins Coie’s Intellectual Property Practice as a partner in the San Francisco office. Piepmeier worked as an associate early in her legal career.

In a release, the firm said Piepmeier, as a litigator, has obtained victories for technology clients in U.S. district courts and has trial experience litigating patent and other intellectual property disputes in federal district courts and before the International Trade Commission (ITC). Recently, the Daily Journal recognized Piepmeier and her team in the 2019 CLAY Awards: Intellectual Property for successful representation of one tech titan in its long-running IP battle.

An advocate and supporter of the Bay Area LGBTQ+ community, Piepmeier has a civil rights pro bono practice and was a core member of the trial team for plaintiffs in Perry v. Schwarzenegger. Perry successfully overturned California’s Proposition 8, which had banned same-sex couples from marrying, because it violated the United States Constitution.

Piepmeier rejoins Perkins Coie from Kirkland & Ellis LLP, where she was a partner and leader in the Bay Area IP Litigation Practice. She received her J.D. from the New York University School of Law and her B.A. from Wellesley College.

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP announced that LMG Life Sciences Awards 2019 has named Bradley as the “Firm to Watch” in the nationwide Litigation & Enforcement category. In addition, LMG Life Sciences named Tripp Haston, a partner in the firm’s Birmingham office and co-leader of Bradley’s Life Sciences industry team, among the seven national finalists for “Product Liability Attorney of the Year.”

The LMG Life Sciences Awards recognize the year’s top firms and legal professionals in the life sciences sector. The award winners were announced Sept. 18 at an event in New York City.

The firm said in a release that the LMG Life Sciences Awards, which last year named Bradley the “Product Liability Firm of the Year,” are based on research conducted for the annual LMG Life Sciences referral guide to leading North American law firms and lawyers that focus in the life sciences industry. LMG determines honorees through case evidence, peer feedback surveys, interviews with law firm partners who are active in the relevant research categories, and client feedback from corporate and in-house contacts.

Bradley’s Life Sciences Industry team represents clients involved in pharmaceuticals, medical devices, molecular testing services, drug delivery systems, clinical labs (CLIA), genomic labs, bioinformatics, genomic medical clinics, research institutions, contract research organizations, animal sciences, plant sciences, and healthcare. Among the team’s top accolades are a national ranking by Chambers USA, a Tier 1 national rankings in the 2019 edition of U.S. News – Best Lawyers “Best Law Firms” for Mass Tort Litigation/Class Actions, as well as Tier 1 “Best Law Firms” metropolitan rankings for Product Liability Litigation – Defendants for numerous markets with the Bradley offices.

The firm said Haston represents clients on regional, national and international engagements. He represents medical device and pharmaceutical clients in products liability litigation. In addition, he has served as national trial and coordinating counsel and as a national team member in individual actions as well as mass tort and multi-district litigation. His experience has involved matters throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and South America.

Haston is a member and past president of the International Association of Defense Counsel, an invitation-only legal organization of leading defense attorneys from more than 50 countries. He has served as a board member of DRI, the nation’s largest organization of defense counsel, and Lawyers for Civil Justice, an organization comprised of leading corporate counsel and defense bar practitioners dedicated to promoting fairness in the U.S. civil justice system. He also is a past chair of the Alabama State Bar’s Leadership Forum and a past president of the Young Lawyers Section of the Birmingham Bar Association. Haston has been recognized in numerous attorney directories, including The Best Lawyers in America®, Chambers USA, Benchmark Litigation, and Who’s Who Legal.

Compliancy Group will present a webinar on HIPAA compliance and cybersecurity on Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2019, at 2 p.m. Eastern time.

Enacted in 1996, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), established industry standards that every healthcare organization is required to adhere to. Throughout the years, HIPAA regulation has been modified, as such it is essential to keep up-to-date with the latest regulatory changes. Since its inception, HIPAA law has become part of an organization’s culture, affecting how to do business and how a practice is run. Learn the ins and outs of HIPAA compliance and cybersecurity.

Webinar presenters will discuss how HIPAA compliance and cybersecurity go hand-in-hand and will simplify HIPAA compliance. They will walk viewers through the full extent of the regulation, including the revisions and amendments that have been added over the years.

Register for the webinar.

Louisiana public finance attorney Donald Cunningham Jr. has joined Shackelford, Bowen, McKinley & Norton, LLP, as of counsel in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Also, transactions attorney Kara Hargrove joins the Dallas office.

In a release, the firm said the addition of Cunningham in Louisiana represents Shackelford’s second office outside of Texas. The business and entertainment law firm currently has offices in Dallas, Houston, Frisco, Fort Worth, and Austin, Texas, as well as Nashville, Tennessee.

Cunningham represents tax credit developers in the acquisition, construction and renovation of affordable housing projects and assists with bond, construction loan, soft loan and equity documentation. He has experience working with DUS (Delegated Underwriting and Servicing) lenders and syndicators and LIHTC (Low Income Housing Tax Credit) lenders.

He has served as special bond counsel with public authority boards including the Louisiana Housing Corporation, Louisiana Public Service Commission, the Louisiana Community Development Authority, and the Florida School Boards Association.

Cunningham also represents private and public entities in mergers and acquisitions, investigations, and due diligence matters. He joins the firm from Nelson Mullins Broad and Cassell LLP. He previously practiced at Jones Walker LLP.

Hargrove’s transactions practice focuses on the affordable housing tax credit industry, working with developers, non-profits and housing agencies. Her practice includes entity creation, conversion of existing entities, financing and M&A work. She assists clients in debt and equity finance agreements, shareholder agreements, non-compete and non-disclosures and employment agreements. She joins the firm as an associate from Clayton, McKay & Bailey, PC.

Am ugly public fight inside the National Rifle Association has led to an exodus of high-level officials and warring accusations of financial impropriety. At the center of the fray is Brewer, a brash lawyer who has drawn ethics complaints and has a reputation for escalating disputes into pricey legal battles, according to a report in The Washington Post.

William Brewer III emerged as a top counselor to NRA chief executive Wayne LaPierre and a victor — for now, at least — in a civil war that he helped set in motion and that is ripping apart the powerful gun lobby, write the Post‘s Carol D. Leonnig and Tom Hamburger.

They explain:

“Several NRA veterans accuse Brewer of instigating an almost Shakespearean feud to protect his bottom line and growing influence. According to internal board correspondence, his small law firm billed $24 million in fees in 13 months — leading top NRA board members to demand early this year that the organization stop paying until they could review the bills.”

Read the Post article.

A group of 23 states on Friday sued to block the Trump administration from undoing California’s authority to set strict car pollution rules, one of the biggest U.S. battles over climate change, reports Reuters.

“The legal fight pits a Democratic majority state that has become the U.S. environmental champion against a Republican president who wants to boost the economy by cutting regulation,” writes Reuters’ David Shepardson. “The debate already is playing out ahead of the presidential election next year.”

Friday’s lawsuit takes aim at a U.S. Transportation Department conclusion that federal law preempts state and local regulation of vehicle fuel economy, including California’s rules.

Read the Reuters article.

The Baltimore Sun reports that federal prosecutors obtained indictments for prominent Baltimore defense attorney Ken Ravenell on charges of conspiracy to commit racketeering, money laundering and drug distribution, accusing the veteran lawyer of covering up and aiding the crimes of one high-profile client, a Jamaican alleged marijuana kingpin.

Authorities rained his law offices in June and in 2014, and the law office of his attorney also was raided in June. The latest sweep by DEA and IRS agents nabbed more than 50,000 emails, reports the Sun‘s Tim Prudente.

Prosecutors accuse him of conspiring from 2009 to 2014 with a cross-country drug crew led by Richard Byrd in Baltimore.

Read the Baltimore Sun article.

Neal Gerber Eisenberg founding partner Marshall E. Eisenberg is being honored by American Friends of the Hebrew University (AFHU) with the 2019 Jerold S. Solovy Torch of Learning Award. The Torch of Learning Award is presented to an individual who has influenced the course of higher learning in the United States and Israel.

In a release, the firm said Eisenberg has served as a strategic advisor for clients with business and personal interests worldwide. He counsels companies and individuals on a broad range of complex transactions and strategies, including mergers and acquisitions; estate planning; federal, state and international tax controversies and venture capital transactions. For nearly 30 years, Eisenberg has been named to the Best Lawyers in America list, an annual peer survey of lawyers.

Eisenberg frequently serves as a trustee for families and a director of public and privately owned companies. Currently, as a member of the board of Sally Beauty Holdings (NYSE: SBH); he serves as the chair of the board’s Nominating, Governance and Corporate Responsibility committee.

The Torch of Learning Award is not the first time Eisenberg has been honored nationally. In 2006, Eisenberg received the American Jewish Committee’s Judge Learned Hand Award in recognition of his outstanding leadership in the legal profession and the community.

Eisenberg will be honored at the 2019 Jerold S. Solovy Torch of Learning Gala Dinner on Sunday, September 22, 2019, at the Ritz-Carlton Chicago.

Charles Sartain of Gray Reed, writing in the firm’s Energy & the Law blog, discusses an energy lease that featured some dueling provisions that resulted in a lawsuit in a Texas court.

The case of HJSA No. 3 LP v. Sundown Energy LP concerned a mineral estate under 30,450 acres in Ward County, Texas. “HJSA claimed that the lease had terminated as to certain portions of the property because Sundown had on five separate occasions over 14 years allowed more than 120 days to elapse between completion or abandonment of operations on one well and commencement of drilling operations on the next well, thereby failing to maintain the lease as to areas not HBP.”

The article covers the arguments and shows how the court decided in the end that Sundown was required to spud a well to comply with a paragraph of the agreement.

Read the article.

Drinker Biddle & Reath’s The Restricting Covenant series takes a look at two states’ competing views on the enforceability of restrictive covenants and the critical importance of conducting a “choice of law” analysis to settle this feud.

Author Lawrence Del Rossi explains the backstory: “With respect to restrictive covenants, the conflict between Delaware, which is generally considered a ‘pro-enforcement’ jurisdiction, and California, which is generally considered an ‘anti-enforcement’ jurisdiction, definitely stands out in the crowd.”

The article compares freedom to contract versus freedom from restraints on trade and finds some common ground coast-to-coast.

Read the article.

A post in the Burns Levinson In-House Advisor blog takes a look at the use of multi-tiered pre-litigation dispute resolution clauses in contracts.

Author Shepard Davidson writes that the theory behind such mechanisms “is straight-forward and quite laudable: if the parties can resolve a dispute without resorting to litigation or arbitration, they likely will save themselves a lot of pain, anxiety and, most of all, money. In reality, however, forcing people to engage in settlement discussions may actually cause one party or the other to lose substantive rights.”

He concludes that forcing parties to engage in a process that only can work if all of them want to participate seems unlikely to result in anything other than delay and added expense.

Read the article.

Two authors writing for Harvard Business Review present a case for companies adopting so-called relational contracts.

In a recorded discussion, Oliver Hart, Nobel-winning Harvard economist, and Kate Vitasek, faculty at the University of Tennessee, argue that many business contracts are imperfect, no matter how bulletproof you try to make them.

Their research shows that creating a general playbook built around principles like fairness and reciprocity offers greater benefits to both businesses.

Read the article.

A lawsuit alleges that the Sackler family that owns Purdue Pharma has been transferring billions of dollars from the company to personal accounts in an effort to protect funds from litigation, reports The Washington Post.

“Now, as the maker of OxyContin heads to bankruptcy court, those billions represent a central sticking point in the company’s plan to resolve thousands of lawsuits against it. Purdue asked the bankruptcy judge, Robert D. Drain, on Wednesday to take the unusual step of temporarily halting lawsuits against the Sackler family,” write the Post‘s Renae Merle and Lenny Bernstein.

The company said the Sackler family could back out of a settlement agreement with multiple states if it cannot get the protection it seeks.

Read the Post article.