Expanding its Los Angeles presence and enhancing its real estate service offerings, Stroock recently welcomed industry leaders Lorie Soares Lazarus and Peter David Ballance as partners in its national practice. Stroock lured the partners from Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, where Lorie co-chaired the firm’s West Coast Real Estate practice and Peter co-chaired the LGBT Coalition.

Lazarus represents institutional equity investors, developers and commercial real estate lenders including banks, investment funds, REITs, investment advisors and asset managers. Ballance counsels lenders, borrowers, developers and property owners in a range of national commercial real estate transactions. Together they have extensive experience in all aspects of commercial real estate financing, guiding both lender and borrower clients through multifaceted projects including securitized, mortgage, mezzanine and construction lending for office, industrial, residential, multifamily, retail and hospitality projects across the country.

The two LA-based partners continue the firm’s consistent growth trajectory in key practices. Stroock has welcomed more than 10 senior attorneys to the firm since 2019, with a half-dozen of those in the national real estate practice. The addition of the duo’s extensive experience in commercial real estate finance, acquisition and disposition, combined with their strong reputation for distressed real estate counseling, will strengthen the already robust national real estate platform at Stroock.

With an active presence in the LA real estate market, Stroock represents high-profile clients in sophisticated transactions, such as the recent $1.2 billion refinancing of the landmark Century Plaza Towers in Los Angeles and the $750 million sale of CBS’ iconic Television City.

Texas legal community selects firm’s Houston, Dallas offices for recognition in state’s largest markets

DALLAS – For the eighth year straight, Androvett Legal Media & Marketing has earned “Best PR Firm” honors in Houston and Dallas in the annual “Best of 2020” awards compiled by Texas Lawyer magazine.

The firm earned top honors in Houston and was second in Dallas based on nominations from readers of Texas Lawyer, the state’s longest-running publication for the legal industry. The complete “Best of 2020” awards was published as part of a special edition of Texas Lawyer in September.

“Communicating about complex and sensitive legal issues touches on some of the most challenging areas in public relations, where smart, precise and effective messaging is critically important,” said firm founder Mike Androvett. “We’re proud to serve as trusted advisors to legal, professional services and business clients and to have our commitment and hard work recognized with these honors.”

Established in 1995  and inducted into the Texas Lawyer Hall of Fame in 2016, Androvett is one of the few full-service agencies in the United States offering specific PR, marketing and digital expertise to lawyers and law firms, as well as professional service firms and others in the business community.

For more information about Androvett Legal Media & Marketing, visit http://www.androvett.com/.

“It’s hard to overstate the value of knowledge and experience when you’re talking about strategic communications,” said Mark Annick, Androvett Legal Media vice president of news and public relations. “The collective experience of our team allows us to help businesses find their voice, their message, and importantly, their proper audience.”

In addition to traditional PR, strategic communications and media relations, the firm offers a full pallet of tools for an evolving digital communications landscape. “With smart integrated marketing, we are able to leverage a business’s message and attributes across platforms. We can take a business’s message to a broad audience when necessary and at other times target valuable smaller audiences with pinpoint accuracy,” said Chief Operating Officer Scott Parks.

“And where years ago, we might have delegated certain work, we’re now in a position to keep everything in-house,” said Androvett’s Vice President of Marketing Zack McKamie. “That means our clients can entrust us to tell their story through all executions, rather than having to go to one firm for a website, another for advertising or social media, and another for a news release.”

Androvett Legal Media & Marketing is an award-winning, full-service marketing and public relations agency with unparalleled experience serving the communications needs of businesses and organizations across the U.S. Now in its 25th year, Androvett has offices in Dallas and Houston.

For a complete listing of agency services, visit www.androvett.com.

Media Contact
Mark Annick
800-559-4534
Mark@androvett.com

Lyons & Simmons, LLP has a hard-earned reputation for obtaining big results in important personal injury and wrongful death cases. The trial firm’s custom-tailored, client-focused approach has yielded remarkable results, leading to selection by readers of Texas Lawyer magazine as the top personal injury firm in Dallas in the “Best of 2020” survey of the Texas legal market.

The firm – led by founders Michael Lyons and Christopher Simmons – has garnered an impressive recent string of victories without a loss on its scorecard. That nearly unprecedented success has not gone unnoticed, either by clients or peers. In addition to recognition as the Best PI Firm in Dallas, Lyons and Simmons were recently named individually in The Best Lawyers in America, while trial lawyer Stephen Higdon was honored among Best Lawyer’s Ones to Watch.

The attorneys of Lyons & Simmons are truly warriors for their clients’ cases and causes, and it is a responsibility they take very seriously. Their tenacity, ingenuity and innovation have become hallmarks of the firm, and something that clients have come to expect and opponents respect.

Devoted to representing people who have the deck stacked against them, the firm has developed a national reputation for getting remarkable results in big, high-exposure disputes. Michael Lyons and Christopher Simmons’ recent results look more like career-spanning highlights than a 22-month snapshot.

In 2019, the pair represented the family of Parker Waldridge, one of five victims of the worst oilfield incident in Oklahoma history (and the deadliest in the U.S. since the 2010 Macondo Deepwater Horizon blowout). Waldridge was burned alive trying to escape a well fire sparked by a blowout that occurred while workers were performing drilling operations. The fire was so intense that it could be seen on satellite images. Lyons and Simmons have noted that the human tragedy from this case is one that still haunts them, as the circumstances that led to the blowout should never have happened.

Shortly before the start of that trial, the firm obtained a settlement with the last remaining defendant. The combined settlements in the case resulted in one of the largest recoveries for a wrongful death claimant in Oklahoma history. But for the attorneys of Lyons & Simmons, financial restitution is simply not enough in cases such as this. Through their investigative work, the partners were able to demonstrate the circumstances and practices that led to the tragedy, which will help to change the culture that allowed it to occur.

Such efforts to institute change are a recurring theme in the firm’s work.

“Our clients’ problems are our problems. I literally lose sleep at night thinking about how they have been wronged and how I intend to fix it,” says Lyons. “We are always ready to go into battle for our clients.”

Emblematic of their commitment to change was a particularly unsettling sexual assault case. The client, who suffered from dementia, was sexually assaulted in her own home by a cable installer. The team’s investigation would ultimately uncover a blind spot in the hiring practices of communications companies, which allowed dangerous predators to be employed. Lyons and Simmons were in the middle of depositions with corporate representatives when it became obvious that the “ball had been dropped” during the employment screening process. After shining a light on these negligent practices, the company was finally ready to take responsibility for its shortcomings.

“Most of our cases are David vs. Goliath stories,” says Simmons. “It is usually us against some giant institution represented by a team of big-firm lawyers whose strategy is to outspend and outflank you. We are not going to be intimidated. We just say, ‘Bring it on.’ We will be ready.”

Learn more.

“AT&T and Verizon have now settled a California lawsuit started back in 2012, with either carrier agreeing to pay out amounts totaling to as much as $116 million,” reports Daniel Golightly in Android Headlines’ Smartphone Carriers News.

Verizon’s payout will equate to $68 million, “overshadowing another payout of $8 million the company is set to settle for in a similar Nevada suit. That doesn’t include attorney’s fees either. For those, Verizon will pay out an additional $23.45 million.”

“AT&T, conversely, will pay out $48 million for the settlement as compared to its $3 million pay-out in Nevada. An additional $13 million will be tacked on for attorney’s fees.”

“The figures equate to approximately $99.45 million for Verizon and around $64 million for AT&T.”

Read the article.

“The son of famous stuntman Evel Knievel is suing Disney and Pixar over their Toy Story 4 character Duke Caboom,” reports Will Lavin in NME’s Film News.

“Kelly Knievel, who had publicity rights to Evel Knievel since 1978, has accused the studios of financially gaining from a character they allegedly based on his father without seeking permission.”

“Through his K and K Promotions, Knievel is seeking unspecified damages totalling more than $300,000 (£236,000) in the federal trademark infringement lawsuit, which also alleges false endorsement and unjust enrichment.”

Read the article.

Cox Enterprises has named Jennifer Hightower as senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary. “Hightower will report to Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Dallas Clement,” was posted on Cox Enterprises’ News.

“Hightower has worked in the legal function of Cox Communications for more than 23 years, most recently serving as senior vice president and general counsel for the telecommunications division.”

“In her role as general counsel for Cox Enterprises, Hightower will lead Cox’s legal function, as well as serve as corporate secretary, supporting the company’s Board of Directors. Hightower will serve as the lead legal advisor on policy and strategic initiatives related to Cox’s lines of business.”

Read the article.

“More than eight years after Bonnie Winslett tore up and threw away a summons that notified her she was being sued, the Georgia Supreme Court is being asked to resolve questions of law that will determine whether GEICO Indemnity Co. must pay approximately $2.7 million of a court’s award against her,” reports Jim Sams in Claims Journal.

“The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday sent three certified questions to the state’s high court. Once answered, the federal appellate court can then rule on an appeal of a district court’s order in a bad faith case that requires GEICO to pay 70% of the nearly $2.9 million in damages awarded by the jury, plus interest.”

Read the article.

Overview:
One of the most critical areas of employee relationships and one of the biggest challenges management faces today is conducting effective performance appraisals and determining appropriate merit increases.

Learn to give performance appraisals that help motivate employees to achieve goals and increase their value to the organization.

Since both managers and employees often view performance appraisals with anxiety, attention is given to preparing for and conducting performance discussions that are objective, complete and defensible. You’ll also share experiences and participate in various exercises with other participants to better understand how to obtain the best possible performance from employees.

Watch the webinar.

In this webinar, the speaker will explain best practices for Electronic Recordkeeping of I-9 Forms, as well as the importance of understanding the requirements for completing I-9 Forms.

Overview:
The costs of not complying are high. Compliance is actually easy if you know what to do. Unfortunately, many organizations do not take the time to learn how to properly complete an I-9 form. The forms are also changed every few years.

The presenter has conducted hundreds of I-9 audits.
The number of companies that were totally in compliance in 18 years of conducting I-9 Audits is a big fat ZERO.

Watch the webinar.

Even in the midst of the pandemic, we continue to see significant legal developments in the world of the workplace. To kick off our Fall Webinar Series, we begin with “What Did I Miss? The Year in Review (So Far)” We will explore the latest developments in a variety of areas across many states, such as:

• Federal Agency Update
• U.S. Supreme Court Decisions
• New Litigation in the COVID-19 Era
• Wage and Hour Developments
• Classifying Workers: Independent Contractors vs. Employees
• Upcoming Supreme Court Cases

Akerman LLP, a top 100 U.S. law firm serving clients across the Americas, today announced the growth of the Litigation Practice Group in New York with Massimo D’Angelo. He advances Akerman’s real estate strengths representing landlords, owners, tenants and tenant groups, bringing experience in dispute resolutions surrounding force majeure, contract negotiations, tenant-landlord conflicts, and business interruption insurance and coverage.

D’Angelo focuses his practice on real estate litigation and transactional work. He represents condominium and cooperative boards on matters related to general corporate governance and he serves as lead trial counsel for boards and developers on construction defect cases. D’Angelo regularly represents commercial and residential landlords in connection with complex real estate litigation matters and advises clients in connection with real estate administrative and environmental proceedings. D’Angelo has extensive experience in conducting trials and arguing appeals in both state and federal court.

D’Angelo is fluent in Italian and conversant in French and Spanish.

General Counsel for Anchor Insurance Holdings Allan Rotlewicz returns to RumbergerKirk as a partner in the Tampa office. He will continue to serve as Anchor’s outside general counsel, while also providing counsel to clients in first party property and casualty defense claims. Rotlewicz worked as part of the firm’s casualty litigation, insurance coverage and toxic torts practice groups from 2011 through 2017 before leaving to join Anchor where he continued his relationship with RumbergerKirk as a client of the firm.

Before joining RumbergerKirk, Rotlewicz practiced in New York after graduating from Brooklyn Law School in 2008 and earning his bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Muhlenberg College in 2005.

Barnes & Thornburg has added Mark Stignani as a partner in its Minneapolis office. Stignani joins the firm’s Corporate Department and brings a consultative, data-driven approach to client matters.

Stignani advises clients in various corporate, restructuring and intellectual property matters through the use of data analytics. As part of his analytical approach, Stignani examines executive teams, patent and trademark filings, SEC filings, and other public records to create a behavioral profile of his clients or their competition, to answer their legal questions as well as identify their financial and legal needs, providing recommendations that may result in cost savings.

Stignani counsels clients in high-tech industries including software and hardware, manufacturing, semiconductors,, information technology and telecommunications, and has a wide range of experience using data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) to advise in areas ranging from retail to automotive and from health and beauty to financial services.

Stignani received his B.S. from the University of Minnesota and his J.D. from William Mitchell College of Law.

With more than 700 attorneys and other legal professionals, Barnes & Thornburg is one of the largest law firms in the country. The firm serves clients worldwide from offices in Atlanta, California, Chicago, Delaware, Indiana, Michigan, Minneapolis, New York, Ohio, Raleigh, Salt Lake City, Texas and Washington, D.C. For more information, visit us online at www.btlaw.com or on Twitter @BTLawNews

Littler, the world’s largest employment and labor law practice representing management, has released its European Employer COVID-19 Survey Report, completed by more than 750 human resources executives and in-house counsel across Europe. The survey data provides insight into the pandemic’s impact on the future of the European workplace, particularly in the areas of remote work, employee wellbeing, vacation time and workforce reductions.

Remote Work

The sudden, deadly outbreak of COVID-19 forced many employers to adapt to a nearly universal remote workforce in a matter of days. In the wake of that abrupt shift, respondents expect the top long-term, positive implication on the workplace stemming from the pandemic will be a greater acceptance of the benefits of remote work. Further, 41 percent of employers surveyed say they are making or will make changes to their remote work policies to allow for more flexibility – as long as employees continue to demonstrate productivity while working from home.

In addition, 80 percent of respondents say they are requiring or considering requiring more employees to work remotely either somewhat or to a great extent. The reasons European employers say they are considering this shift include allowing for greater productivity of employees (41 percent), addressing the difficulty and cost of implementing new safety measures (38 percent) and allowing for the closure of offices (25 percent).

European employers’ attitudes toward remote work represent a contrast with their counterparts in the US. Littler’s COVID-19 Return to Work Survey Report, completed by US employers in May, found that only 30 percent planned to change policies to allow employees to continue working remotely in the long-term (compared to 41 percent in Europe). Rather, 52 percent of US employers surveyed said they would remain flexible regarding remote work only until the pandemic subsides, compared to the 34 percent of European respondents who indicated similarly.

Further, only 50 percent of American respondents reported requiring or considering requiring more employees to work remotely, compared to 80 percent of European respondents.

Employee Wellbeing

Across the corporate world, employers increasingly recognise the importance of addressing workplace mental health and wellbeing. Findings from Littler’s 2019 European Employer Survey provided support for this as respondents listed workplace mental health as their top concern, ranking it above sexual harassment and equal pay.

This year, most employers report taking at least some action to address their employees’ mental health and wellbeing during the pandemic. Fifty-seven percent of respondents have offered more flexible work schedules to accommodate employees’ personal needs, while 51 percent have solicited frequent feedback on their organisations’ pandemic response.

Vacation Time

Managing vacation time has also proven challenging for European employers. Thirty-four percent of respondents have begun to see an uptick in requests for time off, and the vacation requests are causing operational headaches for 82 percent of that group. As we move closer to the end of the year and more workers look to use remaining holiday time, those concerns are bound to grow.

Government Support and Workforce Reductions

At the start of the pandemic, several European governments implemented programs that allowed companies to keep employees on their payrolls by providing much of their base pay from a government fund. These wage subsidy programs helped prevent widespread job losses in the initial stage of the crisis, but critics argue that they only delayed inevitable workforce reductions and restructurings within struggling companies.

Of the survey respondents whose organisations did accept government support, 59 percent expect to implement reductions in staff when the program ends. Just 17 percent of respondents expect they can maintain their current workforce without government aid. Further, most employers surveyed expect the reductions to happen quickly – 63 percent say they would begin reductions as soon as the law allowed, before the government programs ended or within two weeks of their expiration. Only 10 percent say they would wait three months or longer.

The survey report covers a range of additional legal and HR matters impacting European companies, including issues specific to employers in the UK, Germany, France and Italy.

History Factory’s new research also shows disagreements among executives, investors and consumers

CHICAGO – September 29, 2020 – Seventy-six percent of C-suite executives say they know about practices in their companies’ pasts that might conflict with today’s ethics and standards. But just 26 percent said they were very prepared if those actions come to light.

History Factory surveyed C-suite executives and their investors and customers in the United States and Canada to understand how they perceive the emergence of past practices or events that would now be considered unseemly (such as instances of racial injustice, financial improprieties, sex or gender discrimination, supporting potentially divisive social or political causes and environmental negligence), and the impact that revelations of such practices have on a company’s brand reputation. Everyone agrees that such revelations have an impact, but there is tension among the three groups that reveals dangerous blind spots for executives. These blind spots can only be addressed by gaining a fully informed understanding of where in their history the greatest risks lie.

Executives and Investors

• C-suite executives are far more concerned about the impact of unknown past racial injustices and somewhat more concerned about sex or gender discrimination than investors, who are significantly more concerned about past support for divisive social or political causes.
• Executives are more concerned about the damage that unseemly revelations may do to their brand equity. But investors are more concerned with the potential for media and customer backlash and lower valuations.
• More than half of investors surveyed would put specific contingencies on a deal after a problematic discovery was made and one in four would require the company to respond in writing to the claims. More significantly, 29 percent of investors said they would dismiss the investment opportunity outright.
• Among investors, 32 percent said they are very or somewhat unlikely to regain confidence in a company following the revelation of a past bad action – even if the company addressed the past action in ways the investors deemed appropriate.

Executives and Customers

• Executives were much more concerned about how their customers would react to racial injustice, financial improprieties and sex or gender discrimination. Even though those subjects are commanding so much current attention, consumers said they would react more negatively if the revelations were about potentially divisive social or political causes or environmental negligence.
• Three-fourths of executives said that they would expect consumers to regain trust in a brand based on corrective action, but only 56 percent of consumers surveyed said they would.
• Executives are also off track when it comes to what consumers would do if bad actions come to light: 60 percent of consumers said they would stop using a company’s product or service and 42 percent said they would inform family, friends and others of the discovery – in both cases, a much greater percentage than the executives expected.

Consensus on Reparations

Most survey respondents – C-suite executives, investors and consumers – are in favor of reparations if instances of racial injustice are discovered in a company’s past. Otherwise, executives, consumers and investors also disagree on the most appropriate response to the emergence of an indecorous past practice.

Executives and investors both highly preferred company leadership personally acknowledging the wrongdoing, but consumers indicated fatigue with that approach. Interestingly, consumers and executives were more aligned around a corporate statement acknowledging wrongdoing, a much less popular option among investors. Consumers, compared with executives and investors, thought more highly of companies donating to a relevant charitable cause or when organizations lead a cause that is counter to the wrongdoing.

Register for NAVEX Next, our annual risk and compliance virtual conference. Formerly the Ethics & Compliance Virtual Conference (ECVC), the new name recognizes that we must be forward-looking as we face an increasingly complex business, regulatory and social environment. Success will require new ideas and approaches to manage risk and foster ethical workplace cultures.

Our theme this year is: Beyond the Moment. It defines our 2020 agenda and supports sessions that help your organization move past a defensive stance on current events and trends. Our goal this year is to help everyone be proactive and more holistic in their approach to risk and compliance management. The future demands we be prepared, no matter what comes next.

Read through the full agenda and list of speakers.

“FirstEnergy is responding to a civil case filed over Ohio’s nuclear bailout by Attorney General Dave Yost, saying the utility company plans to ‘vigorously’ defend itself,” reports Andy Chow in WOSU Public Media.

“FirstEnergy spokesperson Jennifer Young says the company has followed the law when it comes to making political contributions.”

“Yost’s civil suit seeks to stop any defendants in his filing from collecting any revenue created through HB6, the nuclear bailout and energy law passed last year. The law allows for monthly charges starting in January on all electric ratepayers bills to send money to nuclear, coal and solar plants. HB6 also allows for ‘decoupling,’ which guarantees FirstEnergy a certain amount of profits.”

Read the article.

“Principle Business Enterprises Inc. has announced the promotion of Tricia Bell to general counsel and vice president, strategic risk management,” was posted in the Sentinel-Tribune.

“As a member of the company’s senior leadership team, she will lead PBE’s legal and risk management efforts with a focus on risk mitigation and strategic direction relative to business and operational compliance.”

“Bell has been a leader of PBE’s Risk Aversion Team which is accountable for the safety of all onsite and offsite Associates during the coronavirus pandemic. Her contribution to this team has kept the company informed on health policies, associate benefit options and tax strategies that have allowed PBE to continue manufacturing as an essential business, as well as keep associates safe and employed.”

Read the article.

“Google’s parent company has reached a $310 million settlement in a shareholder lawsuit over its treatment of allegations of executives’ sexual misconduct,” reported by Associated Press in Boston Herald’s Business.

“Alphabet Inc. said Friday that it will prohibit severance packages for anyone fired for misconduct or is the subject of a sexual misconduct investigation. A special team will investigate any allegations against executives and report to the board’s audit committee.”

“Thousands of Google employees walked out of work in protest in 2018 after The New York Times revealed Android creator Andy Rubin received $90 million in severance even though several employees had filed misconduct allegations against him. Shareholder lawsuits followed, and in 2019 Google launched a board investigation over how it handles sexual misconduct allegations.”

Read the article.

“Good news continues to trickle in for associates who’ve hitched themselves to the right law firms or practices, as more firms either end pandemic pay cuts or pile special bonuses on top of lawyers’ regular earnings,” reports David Thomas in Thomas Reuters Westlaw Today.

“In the case of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, starting Oct. 1 the firm is completely scrapping pay cuts it enacted earlier for associates, of counsel and staff.”

Read the article.