“WebBank … announced the appointment of Parris Sanz as the Executive Vice President-General Counsel,” released WebBank in BusinessWire.

“Sanz joined WebBank in January 2021, bringing more than 25 years of legal experience and over 16 years as a General Counsel and executive in the FinTech industry. Before joining WebBank, Mr. Sanz was General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer, and SVP of Operations of Petal Card, Inc. Before Petal, Mr. Sanz was CEO of CAN Capital, Inc., where he was previously EVP, Chief Legal Officer, and Chief Compliance Officer for over 12 years. Previously, Mr. Sanz was an attorney in private practice at the law firms of Latham & Watkins, LLP and Paul Hastings LLP, where he handled a wide variety of corporate, finance, and commercial transactions.”

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“Goldman Sachs Group Inc’s general counsel Karen Seymour is leaving the bank,” reports in Reuters in their Business News.

“As Goldman’s top lawyer, Seymour played a key role in the bank’s negotiations to settle U.S. and international investigations into the role Goldman Sachs bankers played Malaysia’s 1MDB corruption scandal. Goldman agreed to pay $2.9 billion last year in a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice and other U.S. and overseas regulators in part for breaking anti-bribery laws.”

“Seymour joined Goldman Sachs in 2018 from Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, where she was a partner. She previously led the criminal division at U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, where she prosecuted Martha Stewart in 2004.”

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“Roche Cyrulnik Freedman LLP has filed a federal lawsuit against founding name partner Jason Cyrulnik, alleging he was unanimously voted out of the firm for ‘abusive, destructive, erratic, and obstructive behavior,’ but has refused to leave,” posts Thomson Reuters Westlaw Today.

“The 25-page lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court on Saturday asks a judge to rule that Cyrulnik was properly voted out of the partnership. The firm accused Cyrulnik of refusing to leave unless he receives ‘excessive payments.'”

“The firm voted Cyrulnik out on Feb. 12. Although he is no longer on the website, Cyrulnik, through his attorney Marc Kasowitz of Kasowitz Benson Torres, told his colleagues he has no intention of leaving, according to the lawsuit.”

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“Three top U.S. law firms, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, and Latham & Watkins, announced Monday they hired antitrust partners, signaling growing demand as regulators more closely scrutinize potential anticompetitive behavior,” reports Rebekah Mintzer in Bloomberg Law’s The United States Law Week.

“The four new hires have government antitrust enforcement experience that could be useful for clients facing an anticipated growth in scrutiny under the Biden administration and public debate about “breaking up” Big Tech and other industries.”

“According to data from Decipher, which performs due diligence for law firm hires, between November 2020 and January 2021 there have been 80% more antitrust lateral moves announced by Big Law compared to an average of the same period from the previous three years.”

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Grant Thornton LLP has named Beatrix Bernauer as its chief risk and compliance officer, a new role at the firm.

In the role, she will design and execute the firm’s enterprise-risk management program and practices, including frameworks and methodologies to support effective risk identification, assessment, mitigation and monitoring.

Bernauer, a principal in the firm, has served as Grant Thornton’s chief compliance officer for the past three years — establishing standards, policies and procedures to ensure compliance with laws and regulations, as well as the firm’s own requirements. She has also led the firm’s data-privacy program and sustainability-reporting program. In her new role, she will continue to oversee these important areas and also retain her responsibilities as deputy general counsel at the firm.

Bernauer has more than 20 years of experience as an attorney advising, defending and supporting accounting firms, 17 of them at Grant Thornton. As deputy general counsel, she defends against litigation and legal threats and advises on a range of legal and transactional issues, including data privacy, security, incident response, M&A transactions and matters related to the firm’s governance.

Bernauer is a licensed attorney in Illinois and registered as in-house counsel in California. She is also CIPP certified by the International Association of Privacy Professionals. She received a Master of Laws degree from Georgetown University, a Juris Doctor from Loyola University Chicago and a bachelor’s degree from San Francisco State University.

Santa Barbara, CA –Rimôn PC is pleased to announce the opening of its Santa Barbara, California office, with the addition of four partners in the firm’s litigation and corporate practice groups. New partners Joseph Abkin, Jennifer Gillon Duffy, Craig Granet and Michael Hellman are joining the Santa Barbara office. All four were previously partners at Fell, Marking, Abkin, Montgomery, Granet & Raney LLP. Joseph Abkin and Craig Granet were founding partners of the firm.

The new Rimôn Santa Barbara team offers a diverse mix of legal services.

Abkin is a corporate attorney who advises clients on transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, financings, and the full breadth of real estate transactions.

The other three Partners are litigators.

Granet is a civil litigator with a dual focus on real property litigation (including property disputes, land use challenges and environmental contamination issues), and business and commercial litigation, including breach of contract actions, wrongful termination claims, telecommunications disputes, and intellectual property matters.

Hellman focuses his practice exclusively on litigation, with an emphasis on disputes concerning trusts and estates. Hellman has been awarded an AV® Preeminent™ Peer Review rating by Martindale-Hubbell, which recognizes lawyers for their strong legal ability and high ethical standards.

Duffy is a civil litigator with a focus on employment law and family law. She was notably ranked in the Pacific Coast Business Times, “Who’s Who in Professional Service” in 2020. Duffy has a comprehensive family law practice and will contribute to expanding Rimôn’s family law offerings.

A testament to the firm’s continued growth, the Santa Barbara office is the fourth new location Rimôn has opened in the first quarter of 2021, following recent openings in Paris, London and South Carolina. “We are excited to expand our presence in the Santa Barbara area and deepen our litigation and corporate practices with the addition of Joseph, Jennifer, Craig and Michael, said Michael Moradzadeh, Founding Partner and CEO of Rimôn. “The group’s diverse experience and existing connections in the Santa Barbara area are an asset to our firm.”

The opening of the Santa Barbara office reflects Rimôn’s continued growth. In the first two months of 2021 alone, Rimôn has added Partners Olivia Le Horovitz, Keith Munson, Sean Byrne, Sonia Oliveri, Jonathan Rosen, Steven Aaron and Peter Wielgosz.

Chamberlain Hrdlicka recently elevated Julie Offerman to income shareholder during the firm’s virtual annual shareholders meeting. The firm has also promoted additional two shareholders to equity status and two attorneys to shareholder status in its offices in Atlanta, Houston, Philadelphia and San Antonio.

Named among the Up-and-Coming 50: 2020 Texas Women Rising Stars, Julie Offerman is an experienced litigation attorney in Chamberlain’s Houston Labor & Employment practice. She has substantial experience defending employers nationwide in wage and hour class and collective action lawsuits, including matters involving allegations of misclassification of employees and failure to pay overtime.

Offerman has successfully defended employers in all aspects of employment litigation, including disputes over breach of contract, trade secret misappropriation, non-compete and non-solicitation agreements, discrimination, harassment, wrongful termination, and retaliation. In many cases, she has obtained complete dismissal for clients on summary judgment. In addition to handling state and federal cases, Julie represents clients in investigations by administrative agencies, including the EEOC, the Texas Workforce Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Department of Labor.

Offerman graduated from University of Texas at Austin, with a bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, and received her law degree from Texas Tech University School of Law, summa cum laude as well. While there, she was an articles editor for the Texas Tech Law Review. Prior to joining Chamberlain Hrdlicka, she clerked for Justice Phil Johnson of the Texas Supreme Court. She has been named to Texas Super Lawyers in 2020 after being named Texas Rising Star in 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, and 2019. She has also been named among Houstonia Magazine Top Lawyers in 2019 and 2020.

Camille Milner has been named the 2020 Recipient of the Gay G. Cox Award for Excellence in Collaborative Law bestowed by Collaborative Divorce Texas. Milner, who has been practicing in Denton, Texas since 1985, is Board Certified in Family Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and holds the designation of Master Credential by Collaborative Divorce Texas. Gay G. Cox was an early proponent of and trained hundreds of professionals in the Collaborative Divorce Process. Cox passed away in January 2013 after suffering injuries in an accident. Like Cox, Milner has trained hundreds of lawyers, mental health professionals and financial professionals in the Collaborative Divorce process, which enables divorcimg couples a process that is repectful, private and efficient, enabling them to settle their case outside Court. This process of negotiation is also used with couples in preparing Pre-Marital/Pre-Nuptial and Marital Agreements.

The Virginia law firm Gentry Locke is pleased to welcome Ryan Starks to its Richmond office. Starks will work in the firm’s commercial litigation practice group, where he will focus on assisting clients with complex disputes, as well as government contract matters.

Starks represents clients in commercial litigation and contract dispute matters in federal and state courts, as well as before the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the Boards of Contract Appeals, the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. He also defends clients in qui tam whistleblower litigation under the False Claims Act, and construction professionals with respect to claims and disputes arising from delay and inefficiency, defective work, payment disputes, performance and payment bonds, mechanic’s liens, design and construction and other project related matters.

Prior to entering private practice, Starks worked as an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice – Torts Branch, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and as a law clerk with the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.

Starks received his B.A. degree from State University of New York (SUNY) Albany and his J.D. from the Washington and Lee University School of Law.

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP is pleased to announce a major expansion of its national real estate and finance practices with the addition of partners Elizabeth C. Sauer, Mary O’Kelley, Kacie McRee and John P. McGehee, counsel Kyra F. Howell, and associate Taylor P. Scott.

All six attorneys join Bradley from Baker Donelson, bringing extensive transactional experience in the real estate, banking, and healthcare industries to the firm. This highly accomplished team routinely handles all aspects of commercial real estate development and complex real estate and finance transactions, with a focus on long term care facilities and senior housing.

Sauer advises investors, developers, managers, owner-operators, and lenders in large-scale, multi-state portfolio transactions, as well as single-asset deals. She has significant transactional experience with medical office buildings and condominiums; hospitals, outpatient clinics and surgery centers; skilled nursing facilities; assisted living facilities, memory care centers and independent living facilities; warehouse distribution centers and manufactured homes; and multifamily housing and hotels. Sauer routinely drafts and negotiates purchase and sale agreements, development agreements, ground leases, master leases and space leases, and oversees due diligence. She earned her J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law and her B.A. (with distinction) from the University of Virginia.

O’Kelley focuses her practice on long term care transactions, including financing, leasing, acquisitions and dispositions of long-term care and senior housing facilities. In particular, she represents national healthcare lenders in origination and servicing of balance sheet, bridge-to-agency and mezzanine loans. She also represents owners, operators and developers of healthcare facilities, as well as investors in other real estate asset classes. O’Kelley received her LL.M. and J.D. from Cornell University School of Law and her B.S. (cum laude) from Vanderbilt University.

McRee has a broad range of experience in real estate and corporate transactions, including representing both borrowers and lenders in real estate development transactions, commercial leasing and secured lending, as well as representing clients in corporate formations and corporate M&A. She handles long term care transactions, including financing, leasing, acquisitions and dispositions of long term care and seniors housing facilities. McRee also has particular experience related to environmental issues in connection with sales and acquisitions of real estate. She earned her J.D. (cum laude) from the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law and her B.S. (summa cum laude) from Troy University.

McGehee has extensive experience representing lenders and borrowers in HUD-insured loan transactions for multifamily and senior housing facilities and the related asset management and servicing work. He has been counsel to lenders and borrowers in hundreds of HUD-insured loans in 40+ states and to lenders and borrowers in bridge-to-agency loans throughout the country. McGehee received his J.D. (magna cum laude) from the University of Tennessee College of Law and his B.A. (summa cum laude) from Murray State University.

Howell practices in the areas of commercial real estate and finance transactions. Her experience includes HUD transactions, as well as primary and mezzanine lending in bridge-to-HUD and standard commercial lending transactions. She primarily concentrates on business transactions involving the financing of long term care facilities and other commercial properties. Howell handles all facets of such transactions, including drafting and negotiating loan documents, asset purchase agreements, leases and other closing documents, as well as performing related activities such as due diligence and corporate analysis. Howell received her J.D. from Fordham University School of Law and her B.A. from Manhattanville College.

Scott represents clients in real estate and finance transactions, long term care transactions and commercial leasing matters. Her practice includes real estate development transactions, commercial real estate acquisitions and dispositions, and loan modifications, as well as long term care transactions involving financing, leasing, dispositions, and acquisitions of long term care and senior housing facilities. Scott received her J.D. (with honors) from the University of Tennessee College of Law and her B.S. (cum laude) from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

The International Association of Defense Counsel (IADC) has announced that Ethan E. Trull, a partner in the Complex Commercial Disputes practice and vice-chair of the Litigation Department at Nixon Peabody LLP in Chicago, has accepted an invitation to join the IADC, the preeminent invitation-only global legal organization for attorneys who represent corporate and insurance interests.

Formerly head of litigation for a Fortune 20 corporation, Trull represents clients in complex litigation involving commercial disputes and product liability claims, often brought as class, multi-district or aggregated actions. He has extensive experience in securities fraud cases, price-fixing and antitrust actions, and false advertising litigation including allegations of Lanham Act violations and frequently involving complex intellectual property issues.

Trull led a team that successfully secured a dismissal on behalf of drug outsourcing facility Leiters, Inc., related to a dispute spanning multiple states in connection with the sale of the company’s compounded ephedrine sulphate drug product. He also led a team that successfully represented Bourbon Marble, Inc., Chicago’s premier stone and tile installer, in recovering more than $4.3 million in damages and litigation fees and costs in a breach of contract action against Pepper Construction Company.

Trull received his J.D. from Loyola University Chicago School of Law and his Bachelor of Business Administration (cum laude) from Loyola University Chicago.

Greensfelder, Hemker & Gale, P.C., is pleased to announce that the firm’s attorneys Courtney Adair and Caroline Paillou have been chosen to represent the firm as 2021 Leadership Council on Legal Diversity (LCLD) participants.

An Officer in the firm’s Chicago office, Adair was named as a 2021 Fellow. Paillou, an associate in the firm’s St. Louis office, will participate inLCLD’s Pathfinder Program. Both are members of the firm’s litigation practice group.

Since 2010, Greensfelder has been a member of LCLD, a national group that includes managing partners of law firms and general counsel from major corporations. LCLD’s goals are to promote diversity and inclusion in the legal profession and foster leadership skills. The LCLD Fellows Program aims to identify, train and advance the next generation of leaders. Now in its sixth year as a full-scale program, the Pathfinder program assists early-career attorneys with critical career development strategies including leadership and the building of professional networks.

For more information about Greensfelder’s initiatives to foster an inclusive, diverse workplace, visit: https://www.greensfelder.com/about-diversity.html.

“A recent enforcement action from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) drives home the importance of being proactive about vendors and data security,” writes Odia Kagan for Fox Rothschild’s Franchise Law Update.

“Specifically, the FTC recently entered into an enforcement action with an analytics company for breaching the FTC’s Safeguards Rule issued pursuant to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) by failing to properly vet a third-party vendor it engaged. The vendor stored personal information in cleartext in an unprotected cloud-based location that could be accessed by anyone with the relevant URL. The information was exposed for a year and was accessed by 52 unauthorized IP addresses.”

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“Rally, the creators of the fractional alternative investing platform that democratized investments in rare, one-of-a-kind collectibles, today announced the hire of Nili T. Moghaddam, the company’s first General Counsel. On the heels of hiring former Disney and ESPN executive George Leimer as its CEO, Rally’s latest investment in its C-suite team will enable it to further grow its user base and bring additional asset classes and collectibles to market,” released Rally in BusinessWire.

“Moghaddam joins Rally with a unique combination of decades-long experience in corporate law, government, and technology. Most recently, Moghaddam was at Robinhood, where she was one of the first lawyers at the company and later, its first Head of Litigation & Investigations. Prior to Robinhood, Moghaddam served as a federal prosecutor and as a corporate litigator at two prominent global corporate law firms.”

Read the release.

“Despite the coronavirus pandemic and recession that made life so miserable for millions last year, law firms did very well for themselves,” writes David Lat in Lateral Link’s Lat’s Legal Letter.

Of the 29 firms listed in the newsletter, “all posted increases in profit per partner, many of them well into the double digits. The highest figure so far, a 46.6 percent increase, was reported by Crowell & Moring (which led me to declare Crowell my Law Firm of the Week last week). But the firm had plenty of company, with eight other firms posting PPEP increases of 20 percent or more.”

“Now, the increases in profit per partner might be somewhat understandable, given how the pandemic and working remotely led to dramatic drops in many firms’ expenses, such as rent (in some cases), utilities, travel, and entertainment. And yes, some firms did engage in layoffs last year as well.”

Read the newsletter.

“Jeff Siegmeister, who was state attorney representing Columbia and six other North Florida counties for nearly seven years until he resigned suddenly in December 2019, was indicted this week on federal charges including conspiracy, extortion, fraud and several other charges,” report Eric Wallace and Frank Powers in News4Jax Local News.

“The FBI’s investigation of Siegmeister began in 2018 following allegations of a bribery scheme in which Siegmeister was accused of having ‘solicited money or things of value from defendants and lawyers in exchange for favorable prosecution treatment.’ According to a 37-page indictment, a grand jury charged Siegmeister with 11 counts related mostly to soliciting and accepting bribes in various cases between 2013 to 2019. Siegmeister is accused of soliciting and accepting bribes in return for the ‘favorable disposition’ of criminal cases.”

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During the pandemic there was an “increased focus on earn-out provisions as a method to mitigate the risk of a target’s post-closing under-performance and to bridge any valuation gap between the purchaser and seller,” writes Kiri Buchanan in Norton Rose Fulbright’s Deal Law Wire.

In this post they focus on “(i) reverse earn-out provisions and (ii) a review of the use of earn-outs in 2020 M&A deals.”

“…a ‘classic earn-out’ refers to a post-closing increase in the purchase price based on the achieving of certain performance targets, while a ‘reverse earn-out’ refers to a decrease in the purchase price if the performance targets are not achieved. For greater clarity, in a reverse earn-out scenario, the purchaser pays the maximum amount for the target at closing and if the agreed upon performance targets are not met, the vendor must re-pay an agreed portion of the purchase price, reducing the overall price of the target. Reverse earn-outs are used less often because the risk resides with the buyer, rather than the seller.”

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“Personal injury-related COVID-19 cases are on the upswing around the world, and there are other lawsuits centering on entertainment and travel refunds, employment issues, failed business contracts, medical negligence, business interruptions, pandemic avoidance, and much more. If you’re curious as to what types of lawsuits can come from exposure to COVID-19, this is for you. We’ll list the biggest ones happening right now,” posts in Kuzyk Law’s blog.

1. Workplace Safety Lawsuits
2. Discrimination Lawsuits
3. Employee Benefits or Leave Lawsuits
4. Negligent Security Lawsuits
5. Whistleblower and Retaliation Lawsuits
6. Breach of Contract Lawsuits
7. Unpaid Benefits Lawsuits
8. Price Gouging Lawsuits
9. False Advertising Lawsuits
10. Workers’ Compensation Lawsuits
11. Wrongful Death and Personal Injury Lawsuits
12. Insurance Lawsuits
13. Collections for Unpaid Bills Lawsuits
14. State or Federal WARN Act Lawsuits

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“TikTok has agreed to pay $92 million to settle dozens of lawsuits alleging that the popular video-sharing app harvested personal data from users, including information using facial recognition technology, without consent and shared the data with third-parties, some of which were based in China,” reports Bobby Allyn in NPR’s Technology.

“The proposed settlement, which lawyers in the case have called among the largest privacy-related payouts in history, applies to 89 million TikTok users in the U.S. whose personal data was allegedly tracked and sold to advertisers in violation of state and federal law.”

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“In the wake of the deep freeze that recently swept the nation, natural gas has taken the forefront among a slew of price gouging allegations, write Christopher E. Ondeck, John R. Ingrassia and Nicollette R. Moser in Proskauer’s Antitrust.

“Last week’s winter storms caused natural gas spot market prices to spike, with some reporting up to a 100% percent increase. Reports also surfaced of spot prices for wholesale electricity in Texas’ power grid increasing more than 10,000%. In response, Minnesota Senator Tina Smith (D-MN) has not only encouraged federal regulators to investigate the price spikes, but has also requested regulators to “[i]nvoke, as appropriate, any emergency authorities available, including under the Natural Gas Policy Act, to allocate natural gas supplies at fair prices.” Whether natural gas prices exceeded allowable limits under applicable price gouging statutes currently in effect depends, among other things, on whether natural gas is within the scope of these laws in the first place.”

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