Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP is pleased to announce that Alé Dalton has been selected for the Hispanic National Bar Association’s (HNBA) 2020 Latina Leadership Academy.

The HNBA’s Latina Leadership Academy is geared towards Latina lawyers from all areas of the profession who have been practicing less than 10 years. The program offers curriculum specifically developed for Latina attorneys and draws from a significant body of research. It addresses areas identified as key to shattering glass ceilings and securing the advancement and long-term success of Latina lawyers — one of the most underrepresented groups in the legal profession. In addition, attendees gain insights into the importance of mindfulness and resilience in their daily lives and how mindful practice will increase opportunities for advancement in the workplace.

As a member of Bradley’s Healthcare Practice Group, Ms. Dalton assists clients in the healthcare industry with a wide range of transactional, operational and regulatory matters. Her practice focuses on counseling clients during mergers and acquisitions, as well as guiding clients through issues that arise from the complex nature of operating in the highly regulated healthcare industry. Her experience includes handling acquisitions, divestitures, and joint ventures involving hospitals, physician practices, ambulatory surgery centers, and other providers. She also advises clients in matters involving clinical research and telemedicine.

About Bradley
Bradley combines skilled legal counsel with exceptional client service and unwavering integrity to assist a diverse range of corporate and individual clients in achieving their business goals. With offices in Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and the District of Columbia, the firm’s nearly 550 lawyers represent regional, national and international clients in various industries, including banking and financial services, construction, energy, healthcare, life sciences, manufacturing, real estate, and technology, among many others.

The annual Compliance & Ethics Institute (CEI) is our largest event of the year, focusing on providing insights and practical solutions to strengthen your organization’s compliance and ethics program.

This year’s virtual conference provides 100+ educational sessions across all compliance and ethics industries and will provide you with the opportunity to earn a maximum od 23.4 live Compliance Certification Board (CCB)® continuing education units (CEUs) from the convenience of your home or office.

Throughout the 3 days of sessions, you will have the ability to choose from a variety of sessions to attend, some of those included are discussion groups. These are sessions lead by the speaker as well as participants and you will have the opportunity to be on camera and interact in small group discussions. (note preregistration is required and session attendance is limited to 40 people per session.)

Get more information or register.

The D’Amore Law Group, P.C. is proud to announce that the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association (SFTLA) awarded Portland attorney Tom D’Amore with its 2020 Trial Lawyer of the Year Award for his work and $26.4 million dollar verdict in Allison, et al. v. Horizon Transport, Inc. Mr. D’Amore was honored along with co-counsel Steve Brady of the Brady Law Group, at a virtual gala on August 27, 2020.

The SFTLA board of directors annually honors an attorney or team of attorneys for an exceptional trial victory of the last year based on the size of the verdict, stakes in controversy, diligence and determination shown by counsel, and the rights and interests of society that were vindicated through the verdict.

D’Amore and Brady were nominated for their co-representation of a husband, Matthew Allison, and the estate of his wife, Sara Allison, against transportation companies Horizon Transport and Smoot Enterprises and their drivers. In May 2019, an Oregon federal jury returned a record personal injury $26.4 million verdict against the two transportation companies and their drivers for their prolonged bout of “road rage” with one another that caused a head-on accident, killing 30-year-old Allison and severely injuring then 27-year-old Allison.

The jury deliberated for nearly six hours following a nine-day trial and found that the concerted negligence of the defendants caused the fatal June 2016 crash. The jury found that Allison suffered $600,000 in economic damages and $7 million in noneconomic damages, and his wife’s estate suffered $2.38 million in economic damages and $10 million in noneconomic damages. The jury also found for the Allisons against the transportation companies in the amount of $6.5 million in punitive damages against Smoot and Horizon.

An attorney for more than 29 years, D’Amore is licensed to practice law in Oregon, Washington and California, and is a board-certified civil trial attorney with the National Board of Trial Advocacy (NBTA). He is also one of a few attorneys in the United States board-certified in trucking injury law by the NBTA.

About D’Amore Law Group

Since 1992, the D’Amore Law Group has represented thousands of injury victims and their loved ones in Oregon, Washington and California in various complex and catastrophic personal injury matters. Founder Tom D’Amore is dedicated to asserting the rights of clients who have been seriously injured by the negligence and intentional conduct of individual and corporate wrongdoers. The firm handles a wide variety of personal injury and wrongful death cases, in areas including automobile, trucking, motorcycle and bicycle accidents, nursing home and medical negligence, sexual abuse, construction and job site injuries, class action suits and bad faith insurance lawsuits. The firm has locations for meeting clients in Portland, Lake Oswego, and Bend, Oregon, as well as in Vancouver, Washington. For more information, please visit www.damorelaw.com.

Still time to register

The annual Compliance & Ethics Institute (CEI) is our largest event of the year, focusing on providing insights and practical solutions to strengthen your organization’s compliance and ethics program.

This year’s virtual conference provides 100+ educational sessions across all compliance and ethics industries and will provide you with the opportunity to earn a maximum od 23.4 live Compliance Certification Board (CCB)® continuing education units (CEUs) from the convenience of your home or office.

Throughout the 3 days of sessions, you will have the ability to choose from a variety of sessions to attend, some of those included are discussion groups. These are sessions lead by the speaker as well as participants and you will have the opportunity to be on camera and interact in small group discussions. (note preregistration is required and session attendance is limited to 40 people per session.)

Discussion Group sessions are scheduled as follows:

Monday, September 14th
10:15 – 11:15 am CDT
DG106 Cultivation of Culture and Compliance Partnerships

11:30 am – 12:30 pm CDT
DG206 Cultures of Integrity – We Know What They Are and What They Should Look Like, But How Do We Get There?

2:30 – 3:30 pm CDT
DG306 Identifying Personnel Needs and Leveraging Varied Skill Sets to Staff an Effective Compliance Department

3:45 – 4:45 pm CDT
DG406 “This is Not the Hill I’m Going to Die On” and Other Rationalizations Used by Even the Very Best Compliance Professionals (This session should make you uncomfortable)

5:00 – 6:00 pm CDT
DG506 The Trouble with Moral Relativism

Tuesday, September 15th
10:15 – 11:15 am CDT
DG606 Public Agency Ethics and Compliance Programs – Challenges and Solutions for Government Professionals

11:30 am – 12:30 pm CDT
DG706 June 2020 DOJ Guidance and Cross-Functional Cooperation

2:30 – 3:30 pm CDT
DG806 Doing a Lot with a Little: How to Get the Most Out of a Small Ethics Program

3:45 – 4:45 pm CDT
DG906 Engaging your Board Relevance in 2021

Register today to secure your spot!

Group discounts also available!

View brochure.

The law firm of Norris McLaughlin, P.A., is pleased to welcome Alan Tenenbaum as a Member of the firm in its Intellectual Property Practice Group in the New York office.

Tenenbaum concentrates his practice on commercial and intellectual property litigation and counseling. He represents corporate clients throughout the United States and before the International Trade Commission in litigation involving patent, trademark, unfair competition, and other commercial claims. His litigation and trial work includes matters involving electronic hardware, software, consumer products, medical devices, chemicals, and both branded and generic pharmaceuticals.

Tenenbaum is a trusted general counsel to a variety of companies. Applying business solutions from a legal perspective, he works with clients to identify, acquire, protect, manage, and monetize products, technology, and intellectual property rights. He also negotiates IP and IT agreements and other complex agreements involving technology.

Tenenbaum frequently speaks and writes on the topics of patent litigation, software patents, and intellectual property involving emerging technology. He has been named in New York Super Lawyers® for several years, most recently in 2020. He is also rated AV by Martindale-Hubbell. Tenenbaum earned his J.D. with honors in 1988 from George Washington University and his B.S. in 1985 from Union College.

Norris McLaughlin, P.A., is a multi-practice, mid-sized regional law firm of 120+ attorneys with main offices located in Bridgewater, NJ; New York, NY; and Allentown, PA, uniquely positioned to represent established and emerging middle-market, privately-owned companies, Fortune 500 corporations, and individuals. For more information, including a full practice area listing and attorney biographies, please visit www.norrismclaughlin.com.

If you’re conducting a deposition or cross-examination there are certain questions you need to ask, writes Dr. Ken Brodo-Bahm in Persuasive Litigator, like:

• Where is the witness?
• Are they right there in the room with you, or are they many miles away in a room with their computer?

“With the pandemic still raging across the U.S., many are social distancing their testimony via Zoom or other web-conferencing platforms. Instead of being in a crowded conference room or courtroom, they are alone in a separate space in front of their laptop.”

There is a shared concern among lawyers that there is “not only the potential for off-camera coaching, but also the possibility for a witness to be surreptitiously looking at documents or notes without the questioner knowing it.”

Read the article.

“Attorney General Alan Wilson announced Monday that the State of South Carolina and the United States have reached a settlement to end litigation related to weapons-grade plutonium that was relocated to the Savannah River Site in the early 2000s,” reports WSPA Staff in WSPA News.

“According to the settlement, the U.S. will pay South Carolina $600 million immediately and the Department of Energy says they will remove the plutonium by 2037.”

“The settlement ends six years of litigation related to the remaining 9.5 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium.”

Read the article.

“Covetrus (NASDAQ: CVET), a global leader in animal-health technology and services, announces the appointment of Jamey Seely as general counsel and corporate secretary, reporting to Dustin Finer, chief administrative officer at Covetrus,” was posted to Covetrus’ press releases.

“Jamey brings more than 20 years of legal and business experience within the energy, manufacturing and technology industries, including general counsel within two public companies. She has extensive experience in the management of international legal matters and building legal teams throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. Her legal specialties include securities, board governance & compensation, mergers and acquisitions, financing, and project development, along with human resource matters and high-risk litigation management.”

Read the article.

“Vero Beach lawyer Louis ‘Buck’ Vocelle, Jr., was arrested Saturday night and charged with DUI, property damage and personal injury,” reports Catie Wegman in TCPalm.’s News.

Vocelle, 64, was arrested near Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital. He posted a $1,000 bond and was released Sunday, with a court date set for September 22.

Read the article.

Freeborn & Peters LLP is pleased to announce that Ian J. Dankelman has joined the Firm as an Associate in the Litigation Practice Group and a member of the Insurance/Reinsurance Industry team. Dankelman focuses his practice on complex commercial litigation.

Prior to joining the firm, Dankelman counseled notable commercial clients at a nationwide law firm that specialized in first-party property cases. For almost two years, Dankelman served as a judicial law clerk for the Honorable Elizabeth Kovachevich in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida. He began his legal career as an Assistant State Attorney in Florida’s Fourth Judicial Circuit where he tried over a dozen jury trials to verdict.

Dankelman received his Juris Doctor from the University of Florida Levin College of Law (cum laude), and his Bachelor of Science from Florida State University (magna cum laude). During his time at the University of Florida, he was the Internal Vice President of the Florida Moot Court Team. He is licensed in the state of Florida.

Known as a Litigation Powerhouse® with a Big Law-caliber reputation in litigation in federal and state courts throughout the United States and internationally, Freeborn has a team of litigators that includes former federal and state prosecutors with decades of trial experience handling all areas of complex disputes and litigation. Freeborn’s Insurance/Reinsurance group serves all areas of the global insurance and reinsurance marketplace, and its members have immersed themselves in the intricacies of reinsurance custom and practice and the commercial relationships upon which participants in the industry depend. The Freeborn Insurance/Reinsurance practice has been recommended by the 2020 Legal 500 United States Guide for Insurance.

ABOUT FREEBORN & PETERS
Freeborn & Peters LLP is a full-service law firm with international capabilities and offices in Chicago, Ill.; New York, N.Y.; Richmond, Va.; Springfield, Ill.; and Tampa, Fla. Freeborn is always looking ahead and seeking to find better ways to serve its clients. It takes a proactive approach to ensure its clients are more informed, prepared and able to achieve greater success – not just now, but also in the future. While the firm serves clients across a very broad range of sectors, it has also pioneered an interdisciplinary approach that serves the specific needs of targeted industries.

Freeborn’s major achievements in litigation are reflective of the firm’s significant growth over the last several years and its established reputation as a Litigation Powerhouse®. Freeborn has one of the largest litigation departments among full-service firms of its size – currently with more than 90 litigators, which represents about two-thirds of the firm’s lawyers.

Freeborn is a firm that genuinely lives up to its core values of integrity, effectiveness, teamwork, caring and commitment, and embodies them through high standards of client service and responsive action. Its lawyers build close and lasting relationships with clients and are driven to help them achieve their legal and business objectives. For more information, please visit www.freeborn.com.

Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein LLP is pleased to announce that the Charlotte Business Journal has named Chara O’Neale among the 40 top business leaders under the age of 40 in the Charlotte region. A panel of judges selected O’Neale based on her professional accomplishments, her community involvement, and her overall impact on the region.

O’Neale is Parker Poe’s director of talent management and diversity & inclusion. She has worked tirelessly to improve diversity and inclusion at Parker Poe and in the broader legal community, including through her leadership on the Mecklenburg Bar Foundation’s board of directors. She has influenced dozens of minority students in the Carolinas by revamping THRIVE, Parker Poe’s daylong program to help minority students navigate law school and thrive as they pursue the different paths a legal career may take.

In addition, O’Neale is a driving force behind Parker Poe’s efforts to work for change in light of police killings of African Americans. Those efforts include centering the firm’s annual Community Service Day around organizations that are committed to furthering racial equality, pursuing pro bono cases representing individuals who have been arrested during peaceful protests, and counseling Black-owned businesses impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.

O’Neale has also made a concrete difference in the lives of children in the Charlotte region as a board member on the Council for Children’s Rights, one of the most comprehensive child advocacy and child legal services agencies in North Carolina. Additionally, she has been a leader of the firm’s partnership with Susan G. Komen Charlotte, a nonprofit working to meet the most critical needs related to breast cancer in the region.

The Charlotte Business Journal will recognize O’Neale and the other winners at its 27th annual 40 Under 40 Awards program held virtually on Thursday, October 8. She will also be profiled in the CBJ’s 40 Under 40 Special Report in October.

Contracts are the backbone of a business which is why managing them effectively is critical to success. However, many organizations encounter easy-to-avoid contract management pitfalls such as missed obligations, poor collaboration, unintentional auto-renewals, and version control problems which creates unnecessary risk.

Join Contract Logix on Friday, September 11th at 12:00pm ET as we discuss 10 Best Practices for Contract Management. We will review each of these proven best practices and provide real-world examples of how organizations are implementing them to improve their contract lifecycle management.

Some Topics to Include…

• Benefits of a digital contract repository capturing your organization’s specific needs.
• Prevention of missed dates, deadlines, and obligations.
• Automated approval routing to remove business bottlenecks.

Register now.

September 1, 2020 (Akron, Ohio): Brouse McDowell is pleased to welcome Jennifer M. Himmelein as a Family Law attorney in our Cleveland Office.

Himmelein joins Brouse from Cavitch Familo & Durkin where she had a broad family law practice covering domestic relations, juvenile, probate and mediation. She has experience handling a variety of cases in Domestic Relations Court, including but not limited to, divorce, dissolution, legal separation, child custody and visitation, parental alienation, domestic violence, spousal and child support, post-decree modifications and disputes, registration of foreign orders, property division disputes, contempt proceedings, and a myriad of other enforcement actions. She also frequently helps draft prenuptial agreements for couples, including same-sex couples.

In Juvenile Court she has handled paternity, child support proceedings, custody and visitation disputes, and other private custody and support disputes between unmarried parents, as well as, guardianships of minors and minor name change application proceedings in Probate Court.

Himmelein regularly serves as a Court-appointed Guardian ad Litem in Cuyahoga, Lorain, Lake and Geauga Counties. Himmelein has participated in extensive divorce-related mediation training and is certified as a Parent Coordinator. Himmelein also conducts private mediations related to divorces and parenting issues.

Himmelein received her JD from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, cum laude, and her BA from Kent State University, summa cum laude.

About Brouse McDowell
Brouse McDowell is a 100-year old business law firm based in Northern Ohio. With offices in Akron, Cleveland, Toledo, and Youngstown, Ohio and Naples, Florida, the firm’s attorneys serve clients ranging from the nation’s largest corporations to mid-market entities, sole proprietorships, municipalities, and nonprofits. The collective experience of more than 80 attorneys working in an interactive and collaborative environment yields creative, practical solutions for our clients. Our attorneys cover several areas of law, including business restructuring, business bankruptcy and commercial law; business transactions and corporate counseling; cybersecurity & data privacy; environmental; health care law; labor and employment; litigation; litigation and information management; real estate and construction; tax; trademark, copyright and trade secret law; and trusts and estates. We have multidisciplinary experience in several industries, including health care, oil and gas, manufacturing, and technology, among others.

“Retired United Auto Workers President Dennis Williams was charged Thursday with conspiracy to embezzle union funds following a years-long investigation into racketeering, bribery and other crimes that has pushed one of the nation’s most powerful unions to the brink of a federal takeover,” report Robert Snell, Jordyn Grzelewski and Breana Noble in The Detroit News’ Autos.

“Williams, 67, of Corona, Calif., is the second UAW president charged during an investigation by agents from the FBI, Labor Department and Internal Revenue Service during a probe that has led to 14 convictions. It has revealed labor leaders and auto executives broke federal labor laws, stole union funds and received bribes and illegal benefits from union contractors and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV executives.”

Read the article.

Rhonda Ferguson will join the The Allstate Corporation as Executive Vice President and General Counsel, effective Sept. 28. Ferguson will take the position over from Susie Lees, who announced her intention to retire in 2021. “Lees remains Chief Legal Officer and Secretary of the corporation,” announced Allstate in their Newsroom.

Ferguson joins Allstate from Union Pacific Railroad, where she has served as Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary and was responsible for all legal, regulatory and corporate governance initiatives.

Read the article.

“When owners file bankruptcy or projects otherwise go south, lien priority often comes to the forefront. The idea is relatively simple. Priority is how courts determine which creditors get paid first. This often pits lenders against M&M lien claimants. For lenders, their liens typically arise when they record their deeds of trust. However, for M&M lien claimants, the Texas Property Code has very specific rules that must be followed,” warns Joe Virene in Texas Construction Law Blog’s Liens.

“The Code provides that a ‘mechanic’s lien does not affect any lien, encumbrance, or mortgage on the land or improvement at the time of the inception of the mechanic’s lien ….’ Inception is the key word. The code goes on to state ‘the time of inception of a mechanic’s lien is the commencement of construction of improvements or delivery of materials.'”

Read the article.

“Former Crestline police chief Joe Butler has been awarded a $380,000 settlement in a lawsuit he filed against the village,” reports Lou Whitmire in Mansfield News Journal.

“In the suit, Butler sought $1.6 million in compensatory and punitive damages, alleging the actions of the defendants were a direct effort to retaliate against him for his effort to expose then-mayor Allen Moore’s racially discriminatory remarks. The suit claimed they did so by attacking Butler’s public reputation, interfering with his public duties and ultimately depriving him of his position and his career in law enforcement.”

Read the article.

“Recent press reports have highlighted the difficulties faced by companies that discover evidence of misconduct only after an executive has exited and received severance,” writes Martin Luff in Vinson & Elkins’ Insights.

“When it comes time to exit a CEO or other senior executive due to that individual’s bad behavior, there is often a strong (and understandable) desire of the board of directors to handle it as quickly as possible and with the least amount of drama and publicity. But this can sometimes mean that not all the facts have come to light at the time of termination — and if the decision has been made to terminate without cause, the executive may have already received generous severance benefits on the way out the door.”

W”hat happens if subsequently more evidence comes out that, had the board known this earlier, it would have terminated for ’cause,’ with no severance payment? The options available to the board may depend on what’s in the relevant agreements.”

Read the article.

“Updated: A federal judge in Seattle has tossed a lawyer’s $1.5 million defamation lawsuit against Avvo for allegedly posting false information that made him look ‘terrible,'” reports Debra Cassens Weiss in ABA Journal’s Daily News.

“U.S. District Judge James L. Robart of the Western District of Washington dismissed lawyer Andrew U.D. Straw’s claims for defamation, tortious interference with contractual relations, intentional infliction of emotional distress and disability discrimination.”

“Straw took issue with two Avvo statements. The first was his then-Avvo rating of 3.1 out of 10. The second was an allegedly false description of Straw’s Virginia bar status as ‘not active but disabled.'”

Read the article.

Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein LLP is pleased to announce that Elizabeth Applegate Dieck has joined the firm’s Charleston office. She is a former chief regulator in South Carolina who helps clients navigate the complex web of environmental permitting and compliance.

Utilities, industrial companies, real estate developers, and land owners turn to Dieck for counsel on the full range of environmental issues, including obtaining permits and avoiding or resolving disputes with government agencies.

Dieck is the former director of environmental affairs for the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC). In that role, she was responsible for all permitting, compliance, and enforcement for the state’s environmental programs. She has also served as chief counsel for DHEC’s Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management, where she advised staff on permitting and enforcement issues along South Carolina’s coast.

Dieck is also passionate about community service. She serves on the board of trustees for the Historic Charleston Foundation. Additionally, she is a member of the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce’s Environmental Technical Committee and a graduate of Leadership Charleston.

Dieck joins Parker Poe from Moore & Van Allen.