“Netflix Inc. and Comcast Corp., two of the largest U.S. media companies, collectively gave almost $20 million in total compensation last year to their top lawyers,” reports Brian Baxter in Business & Practice.

“David Hyman, Netflix’s chief legal officer and corporate secretary since 2002, received nearly $10.5 million in total compensation, a 28% increase from 2019.”

“Thomas Reid, hired by Comcast in 2019 to be its chief legal officer and corporate secretary from his role as chairman and managing partner of the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell, had a nearly $9.3 million pay package.”

“The disclosures, made by both media giants in their annual proxy statements filed April 23, follow similar disbursements to law department leaders at other major entertainment companies. Those include billionaire Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActivCorp, which noted earlier this month that its former legal chief Gregg Winiarski received more than $22 million in total compensation during 2020.”

Read the article.

“Though Biglaw has largely thrived throughout the pandemic, there’s still been a wave of layoffs throughout the industry, as firms try to tweak their model to respond to industry changes. Now comes word that yet another Biglaw firm is readying their own round of layoffs,” reports Kathryn Rubino in Above The Law’s Biglaw.

“Magic Circle firm Clifford Chance is reportedly looking at between 44 and 73 layoffs of staff members in its London office. According to Roll on Friday, the departments impacted will be those hardest hit by the move to work from home, spurred by COVID-19. As such, secretaries, those in document production, and mail room staff will be offered severance packages in a ‘hybrid voluntary/compulsory redundancy approach.’ The firm is hopeful this will reduce ‘the number of compulsory redundancies needed.'”

“During the height of the pandemic, Clifford Chance avoided furloughs or layoffs, but now the firm says the time has come.”

Read the article.

KETTLER, a multifamily developer, real estate investment, and property management company, recently turned to Contract Logix’s contract lifecycle management (CLM) platform to digitally transform the way it manages contracts across more than 20,000 properties in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Southeast regions. KETTLER’s vast real estate footprint requires the organization to manage a very high volume of contracts, but the company was able to configure the CLM platform to meet the needs of 170 users, eliminate tedious manual processes, and optimize workflows to drive business efficiency and compliance.

Key Facts:

Since 1977, KETTLER, a multifamily developer, real estate investment, and property management company has developed over 25,000 multifamily units, 5 million square feet of commercial space, and more than 71,000 homes in 25 master-planned communities. The company currently manages approximately 20,000 apartments and includes delivering long-term value to the assets that it develops, manages, and delivers among its core values. KETTLER’s vast real estate footprint requires the organization to manage a very high volume of contracts including American Institute of Architects (AIA) agreements, Statements of Work (SOW), Master Service Agreements (MSA), Maintenance, Repair and Operations (MROs) agreements, Purchase and Sale agreements (P&S), Purchase Orders (PO), and more.

KETTLER needed a more robust CLM platform to help streamline its contracting activities while ensuring business rules were followed in a predictable and repeatable manner. Contract Logix’s data-driven and no-code solution enabled KETTLER to easily create and manage automated contract workflows to ensure compliance with its business processes. Using Contract Logix’s drag-and-drop Visual Workflow Builder, KETTLER is able to set up many different workflow types that automatically route contract requests, reviews, approvals, and signatures to the appropriate person in the organization every time.

Increasing the security and appropriate accessibility of KETTLER’s legal agreements was also a key consideration. The company required that the 170 users of its contract management system at each property only be allowed to view and edit the corresponding contracts associated with that property. Using the Contract Logix platform, KETTLER established roles- and feature-based permissions that ensure individuals and organizations have the appropriate access to contract-related information and capabilities of the software. Support for additional security-first functionality such as SOC 2 Type II compliance, multi-factor authentication (MFA), single single-on (SSO) and data encryption were also important in KETTLER’s decision to select Contract Logix.

KETTLER also leveraged Contract Logix’s Customer Success Team and Data Migration Services to accurately and efficiently migrate its existing data and documents from the company’s previous system. And like every Contract Logix customer, KETTLER is assigned an experienced Customer Success Manager (CSM) for the life of its relationship.

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP is pleased to announce that nine attorneys in the firm’s Washington, D.C., office have been named Washington, D.C., Super Lawyers or Rising Stars for 2021.

Bradley attorneys honored by Washington, D.C., Super Lawyers for 2021 include:

• Gregory G. Marshall, partner (Criminal Defense: White Collar)
• Douglas L. Patin, partner (Construction Litigation)
• Stephen R. Spivack, partner (Criminal Defense: White Collar)
• Robert J. Symon, partner (Construction Litigation)
• Sky Woodward, partner (Class Action)

Bradley attorneys honored by Washington, D.C., Rising Stars for 2021 include:

• Aron C. Beezley, partner (Government Contracts)
• Anna M. Lashley, associate (Criminal Defense: White Collar)
• Marc A. Nardone, partner (Constitutional Law)
• Jessica L. Zurlo, associate (Intellectual Property)

Only the top 5 percent of lawyers in the District of Columbia are named Super Lawyers. No more than 2.5 percent of lawyers in D.C. are selected as Rising Stars, who must be 40 years old or younger or have been in practice for 10 or fewer years. Published by Thomson Reuters, Super Lawyers determines its rankings through independent research, peer nominations and peer evaluations. The Washington, D.C., Super Lawyers and Rising Stars lists are published in the Washington DC Super Lawyers Magazine distributed with Washington Lawyer magazine, as well as in The Washington Post Magazine. The lists also are distributed to attorneys and ABA-accredited law school libraries.

Farrell Fritz is pleased to announce that James M. Wicks was sworn in as a United States Magistrate Judge for the Eastern District of New York at the Alfonse M. D’Amato U.S. Courthouse in Central Islip on Monday, April 26, 2021.

Prior to his appointment, Judge Wicks spent over 25 years at Farrell Fritz, where he was a Senior Partner, Member and served as the firm’s General Counsel. Judge Wicks’ practice concentrated in business and commercial litigation, as well as attorney ethics and professionalism issues.

Judge Wicks has served as an Adjunct Professor at St. John’s University School of Law since 2005. He has served a number of leadership roles in the region, including as Chairs of several not-for-profits, as well as Chair of the EDNY Civil Litigation Advisory Committee; member of the State and Federal Judicial Advisory Council; member of the NYS Judicial Institute of Professionalism; former Chair of the NYS Bar Association’s Commercial & Federal Litigation Section; and Chair of the Federal Bar Council’s Central Islip Courthouse Committee.

Judge Wicks graduated from St. John’s University School of Law and received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Wheeling College. Following law school, he served as Law Clerk to the Honorable Arthur D. Spatt in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, and then as a litigation associate for White & Case.

Judge Wicks is the fifth Farrell Fritz alumni to serve as a judge, joining Ret. Hon. George C. Pratt, United States Second Circuit Judge; Hon. Louis A. Scarcella, United States Bankruptcy Judge; Hon. Kathleen Tomlinson, United States Magistrate Judge; and Ret. Hon. William D. Wall, United States Magistrate Judge.

Organizations that rely on Slack to facilitate collaboration and business communications know that the content within can be responsive to discovery obligations or crucial for internal investigations. Unfortunately, native Slack exports do not make it easy to collect all of the necessary data, get relevant insights, narrow the scope, and easily export the data in a review-ready format.

Slack exports are produced in complex and difficult-to-read JSON file formats. Moreover, targeting a collection is limited and Slack exports will include message content and links to attached files, but not the files themselves—meaning collections can be incomplete.

In this session, learn more about the ediscovery challenges legal teams face when managing Slack data and learn how to overcome them. You’ll also see a quick demo of how Hanzo Hold can help corporate legal teams manage their Slack discovery workflows.

Register.

Speaker

Brad Harris, VP of Product, Hanzo

Brad Harris is the VP of Product at Hanzo, a pioneer in the contextual capture, and preservation of dynamic web and collaboration content for corporate legal and compliance departments. He leads product vision and innovation for the company. Brad has more than 30 years of experience in the high technology and enterprise software sectors, including assisting Fortune 1000 companies to enhance their e-discovery preparedness through technology and process improvement. Brad is a frequent author and speaker on data preservation and e-discovery issues and is a member of The Sedona Conference WG1 and WG6.

Here are some key issues to consider and address when negotiating an application purchase agreement, write Anastasia Dergacheva and Anastasia Kiseleva in Morgan Lewis’ Tech & Sourcing.

“Once the terms of intellectual property and infrastructure transfer have been agreed, the buyer should investigate the human resources required to maintain and support the application. Typically, a number of key personnel would transfer to the buyer to continue performing the same functions. Sometimes sellers insist that the buyer offers employment to all members of the team involved in development and operations of the application, irrespective of the value of their contribution, in order to avoid the need to deal with employment termination issues, such as redundancy obligations.”

“The seller is usually reluctant to assume an obligation to ensure the transfer of an entire team to the buyer. Sometimes this can be addressed through the offer of hiring bonuses that the buyer pays to the team at the expense of the seller.”

Read the article.

“It has been months since you have been paid and the general contractor or the owner continues to demand that you perform extra work, perform in changed conditions or work on a compressed timeline with no promise of payment in sight. At this point you have a decision to make. Do you continue to perform work and submit claims for the extra work and changed conditions? Or do you suspend work or terminate the contract?” ask Tim Fandrey and Trenton Patterson in Texas Construction Law Blog’s Construction Contracts.

“Suspending or terminating performance might have emotional appeal and appear to be an attractive options at first blush. After all, stopping performance stops the spending on costs to perform the work. While the decision to stop work can be easy in a clear cut case where a contractor has not been paid amounts undisputedly due, unfortunately such clear cut cases rarely present themselves. In a more complicated situation, a contractor’s incorrect decision to suspend or terminate performance can be much more costly than continuing performance.”

Read the article.

“Alphabet Inc.’s chief legal officer, J. Kent Walker Jr., received a total compensation package last year valued at $50.9 million, according to a proxy statement filed Friday,” reports Brain Baxter in Bloomberg Law’s US Law Week.

“Walker was paid $655,000 in annual base salary and had stock awards valued at more than $50.2 million, Google’s parent disclosed in the filing. Walker’s stock awards will vest over a four-year period.”

“He currently owns more than $11.4 million in Alphabet stock, according to Bloomberg data. Securities filings show that Walker has sold off more than $9.6 million in company stock since December.”

“Alphabet said in its proxy statement that Walker “oversees teams responsible for content policy, government affairs, legal matters, philanthropy, and responsible innovation.” Since coming aboard in 2006, Walker has also led Google’s “advocacy on competition, content, copyright, and privacy,” the proxy said.”

Read the article.

“Back in March, after completing an incredibly successful financial year against all odds in the face of a pandemic, DLA Piper decided it was high time to increase associates’ salaries outside of its major market offices. Slowly but surely, other firms began to follow in DLA’s footsteps: first came Alston & Bird, and then came King & Spalding,” reports Staci Zaretsky in Above the Law’s Biglaw.

“Midwestern firm Taft Stettinius & Hollister, which is now doing business as Taft Law following its early 2020 merger with Minneapolis-based Briggs and Morgan. Effective July 1, the firm will increase salaries for all associates by $10,000, and increase first-year salaries as well, based on the following matrix:”

Read the article.

“Expect big expansion in the use of clean hydrogen energy—that has been a periodic mantra in the climate change press for years. While commercial scale development continues to face serious technical and cost barriers, there now may be reason for optimism,” write Gerald F. George, Richard M. Glick, and William M. Friedman in Davis Wright Tremaine’s blog.

“The use of hydrogen as an energy source is not new, but is limited. It accounts for about 2 percent of current energy use in the United States. To that end, expanding that use to positively affect climate change would require more than simply increasing the supply.”

“Until recently, hydrogen as a fuel has been primarily developed by steam reforming of a feedstock, with the carbon emissions dependent upon the feedstock. Typically, the feedstock would be natural gas, producing what is commonly referred to as “blue hydrogen” (if coal is the feedstock, “brown” hydrogen). Thus, while the use of hydrogen produces no carbon emissions, the production of the hydrogen itself typically results in significant carbon emissions, although the volume may be reduced through carbon capture.”

Read the article.

“The nation’s 100 highest-grossing law firms had an average 6.6% increase in gross revenue last year, despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Law.com’s reporting on its Am Law 100,” reports Debra Cassens Weiss in ABA Journal’s News.

“The increase topped the 5% revenue growth for the Am Law 100 in 2019, Law.com reports. Across all 100 firms, revenue hit $111 billion. Revenue per lawyer increased nearly 5% to $1.05 million, while profits per equity partner increased 13.4% to $2.23 million.”

“These 10 law firms topped the Am Law 100 list:”

Read the article.

“Should you add or suggest a modification to a contract or lease when it is not to your client’s best interest? No? Never? The answer is Yes and here’s why,” writes Henry Pharr in Offit Kurman’s blog.

“In the process of negotiating a business transaction, many attorneys are left to ponder why their opposing counsel or his or her client did not suggest (or even demand) a contract term that is clearly to that side’s advantage or even failed to discuss an important concept that affects all parties to the agreement. As an advocate for the client, one might stay silent in order to preserve the benefit of the absence of such matters. Certainly, it is a ‘win’ for your client? And it won’t hurt your relationship with them to happily announce that the opposing party and his lawyer ‘left one out that will hurt them and help us!'”

“However, as an adviser to your client, and for their long-term benefit, there are many instances where leaving out a key substantive or procedural term will end up causing more problems than raising the subject and negotiating terms that both sides can agree to.”

Read the article.

“Coca-Cola Co.’s surprising decision to replace its general counsel after nearly eight months on the job is one of several recent changes involving the company’s legal and compliance personnel,” reports Brian Baxter in Bloomberg Law’s Business & Practice.

“The company also parted ways earlier this year with veteran in-house lawyer C. Benjamin Garren Jr., a former Baker Botts and Cravath, Swaine & Moore associate who spent 25 years in a variety of in-house roles at the beverage behemoth.”

“Coca-Cola recently hired Paul Lalli as global head of human rights, company spokesman Scott Leith confirmed. Lalli, an attorney, spent the past 18 years at General Electric Co., where he was general counsel for labor and human rights.”

Read the article.

Michael Lyons, Christopher Simmons selected among top personal injury trial attorneys in North Texas

DALLAS – Trial lawyers Michael Lyons and Chris Simmons, co-founders of Lyons & Simmons, LLP, have been recognized in the 2021 edition of D Magazine’s the Best Lawyers in Dallas legal guide.

The two lawyers were selected based upon their work on behalf of plaintiffs in high-stakes personal injury litigation. It is the eighth time Lyons has earned the peer-nominated recognition. It is the second for Simmons.

The two attorneys, and the firm they built, have a reputation for obtaining outstanding results in cases involving life-altering personal injuries, wrongful death, and “bet-the-company” business disputes. Lyons’ and Simmons’ individual D Magazine honors are just their latest recognition.

In 2020, Lyons & Simmons was selected as the top personal injury law firm in Dallas by readers of Texas Lawyer. Earlier this year, it was named among the Best Law Firms in the country by U.S. News & World Report and The Best Lawyers in America based on the firm’s successes in high-stakes, complex litigation.

Lyons’ nationally acclaimed work has earned multiple individual accolades from The Best Lawyers in America, Texas Super Lawyers, Lawdragon 500, and the National Law Journal, to recognition from D Magazine for both his personal injury and business litigation work. He is a member of the Million Dollar and Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forums.

Simmons’ reputation as a go-to trial lawyer has earned recognition by Best Lawyers in America, Lawdragon 500 and Texas Lawyer magazine. In addition to Best Lawyers in Dallas, Simmons has earned multiple selections to D Magazine’s companion Best Lawyers Under 40 listing and Texas Super Lawyers’ listing of the Top 100 Up-and-Coming young lawyers in the state.

The Best Lawyers in Dallas is based on a comprehensive selection process that starts with peer nominations. A blue-ribbon panel evaluates the tabulated list and works with the editorial staff to select the finalists. The complete list is featured in the May 2021 edition of D Magazine and is available at http://www.dmagazine.com.

Sidley is pleased to announce that Yvette Ostolaza has been elected to chair the Firm’s Management Committee, effective April 2022. Ostolaza will succeed Larry Barden, who has served as chair since 2014 and is slated to step down from the position next year when his term concludes. The Management Committee oversees the firm’s day-to-day operations and serves as one of Sidley’s principal governing bodies, along with the Executive Committee.

As chair of the nine-member Management Committee, Ostolaza will work closely with Michael Schmidtberger, who will continue as chair of the 34-member Executive Committee. Ostolaza and Messrs. Barden and Schmidtberger currently serve on both committees.

Ostolaza litigates matters in state and federal trial and appellate courts on behalf of global clients and has significant experience in multidistrict litigation, bankruptcy, arbitration, and securities litigation. She regularly leads complex internal investigations on behalf of companies, board committees, and individual directors and defends companies and directors in shareholder and securities class actions. She will continue practicing law and serving clients while chairing the Management Committee.

Among her many accolades, Ostolaza has been ranked as a leading General Commercial Litigator by Chambers USA every year since 2009. Most recently, she has been named to the 2020 “Texas Trailblazers” list by Texas Lawyer, received the “Thought Leadership” award from Corporate Counsel as well as Inside Counsel’s 2019 Women, Influence & Power in Law Awards. She appeared in Latino Leaders Magazine 2018 and 2020 as a Top Latino Lawyer and is listed as one of the Most Powerful Latinas in Law. Ostolaza’s bio includes additional recognitions. She earned her J.D. from the University of Miami School of Law and her B.A. from the University of Miami.

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP is pleased to announce that Brian O’Dell, a partner in the firm’s Birmingham office, has been accepted as a Fellow in the American College of Mortgage Attorneys (ACMA).

ACMA is comprised of more than 400 lawyers in North America who are experts in mortgage law. Fellows must have distinguished themselves as practitioners in the field of real estate mortgage law through their skills and practice experience, bar association activities, lecturing, authoring articles and program materials, participation in the legislative process, and writing briefs and/or arguing cases that are significant to mortgage transactions.

O’Dell is a member of Bradley’s Banking and Financial Services and Litigation Practice Groups. He represents financial service providers in regulatory, enforcement and litigation matters related to mortgage servicing, mortgage origination, credit cards, debt collection and title insurance. He assists clients in navigating regulatory issues and potential liability by ensuring that their operations are in compliance with federal and state consumer financial protection laws and that they are able to successfully demonstrate their compliance to federal and state regulators, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). O’Dell’s litigation experience includes handling class actions in Alabama, California, Florida, Illinois and Nevada. He has litigated all facets of the financial services industry, including origination, warehouse lending, loan repurchase disputes, pooling and servicing agreements, servicing disputes and mortgage fraud.

O’Dell is an Accredited Mortgage Professional and has taught for more than a decade for the Mortgage Bankers Association. He routinely teaches the Advanced Servicing Workshop and Schools of Mortgage Banking I and II, specifically focusing on laws affecting the mortgagee’s interest in property, regulatory compliance and ethics.

Greensfelder, Hemker & Gale, P.C., is pleased to announce that Dee Harleston as joined the firm as an associate in the Business Services and Health Care practice groups, based in the firm’s St. Louis office.

Harleston assists organizations, including hospital systems and other health care providers, with corporate and regulatory matters. His practice includes ensuring compliance with federal and state laws, drafting and reviewing agreements, and all aspects of health care transactions.

Previously, Harleston worked in-house at several large health care systems. His experience also includes public relations work for business, government and health care clients, as well as roles in state and congressional politics, including work on Medicaid expansion and telehealth issues.

In 2018, Harleston was the first participant in Greensfelder’s Diversity Fellowship program for first-year law students who have demonstrated a commitment to diversity.

Harleston received his J.D. from Saint Louis University School of Law. He also holds a Master of Public Health from Saint Louis University and a Bachelor of Science from Belmont University.

“A Chicago firm launched by a group of Big Law vets a year and a half ago has brought on a former advisor and legal counsel to Mayor Lori Lightfoot who helped negotiate an end to the city’s 14-day public schools strike in 2019,” reports David Thomas in Thomson Reuters Westlaw Today.

“Michael Frisch will lead Croke Fairchild Morgan & Beres’ government litigation and investigations practice. Like his new colleagues, Frisch has a Big Law background: He worked at Mayer Brown for seven years before joining the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 2015.”

“His tenure at Mayer Brown led to his gig for the city of Chicago – Lightfoot, a partner at the firm, was his friend and mentor. He worked on her mayoral campaign and the transition in 2019.”

Read the article.