“An initial wave of three class actions stemming from COVID-19 were filed against the Chinese government this past week. Each action claims the Chinese government is liable for injuries and damages in the United States caused by the virus. Other suits no doubt will follow,” discusses Simren K. Gill  in Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner’s Insights.

“The first suit, Logan Alters, et al. v. People’s Republic of China, et al., Case No. 1:20-cv-21108-UU, filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, in Miami, asserts claims for negligence, negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress, strict liability for ultra-hazardous activity, and public nuisance against the People’s Republic of China (“PRC”) and its National Health Commission, Ministry of Emergency Management, and Ministry of Civil Affairs, as well as the People’s Governments of Hubei Province and Wuhan City, where the virus allegedly originated. Plaintiffs seek to certify national and Florida “non-commercial tort” and “commercial” classes consisting of all persons and legal entities who suffered injury, damage and loss related to the COVID-19 outbreak.”

Read the article.

“In the last couple of weeks, nearly all in-person meetings have come to a grinding halt as the world hunkers down during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Litigators, whose practices frequently require in-person contact at depositions, mediations, and court proceedings, have scrambled to find a way to keep their cases on track,” discussed in Pierce Atwood’s Latest Updates.

“As the public health crisis progresses, litigators will have to adapt to an increasing number of social distancing mandates.  Traditional in-person depositions may simply not be feasible in the weeks (or even months) to come.”

“One way for litigators to avoid derailment of discovery is to transition depositions to videoconference.  But unlike the videoconference meetings that many of us are familiar with, taking a deposition by videoconference requires advance planning of logistics and technology.”

Read the article for “tips for videoconference depositions aim to keep your practice running smoothly while we weather COVID-19:”

Read the article.

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP is pleased to announce that Kyle Robisch has joined the firm’s Tampa office as an associate in the Litigation Practice Group.

“We are happy to welcome Kyle to our Tampa office,” said Bradley Tampa Office Managing Partner Craig Mayfield. “Kyle is a great addition to our team of highly skilled litigators, and he brings a wide range of experience that will benefit our clients.”

Robisch represents clients in all manners of business disputes, including high-stakes, bet-the-company cases in federal and state courts across the country. He has significant experience litigating environmental and land use matters, often counseling clients proposing high-profile projects before, during and after litigation. Outside the courtroom, he advises clients on pre-permitting and pre-litigation strategy, provides public relations and governmental affairs advice, and works with regulators to move projects forward.

Before joining Bradley,Robisch served as a law clerk to the Hon. G. Kendall Sharp of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, where he drafted numerous dispositive orders and assisted the judge through all phases of civil and criminal trials and hearings.

Robisch earned his J.D. from Vanderbilt University Law School and his Bachelor of Arts (magna cum laude) from the University of Florida.

The Litigation Practice Group is Bradley’s largest practice and includes nearly half of the firm’s more than 500 attorneys who represent clients in litigation and arbitration in every U.S. state and federal district court across the country, as well as internationally. Attorneys handle matters in nearly every substantive area of business law and in a wide range of industries, including high-stakes and complex cases.

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.

Firm announces new name of Lynn Pinker Hurst & Schwegmann

DALLAS – Mike Lynn, Eric Pinker, and Michael K. Hurst, name partners at the highly respected Dallas trial boutique founded almost 30 years ago, are pleased to announce that the partnership has voted to add longtime partner Chris Schwegmann to the firm’s name.  The firm will now be named Lynn Pinker Hurst & Schwegmann.

“Chris is held in tremendous regard by everyone at the firm. With this decision, we’re thrilled to recognize the valuable leadership he offers to our attorneys and the outstanding counsel he provides to our clients,” said Pinker, the firm’s Managing Partner. Hurst added that, “Chris is skilled in the courtroom and at the negotiating table, and we are pleased that he will continue to serve as General Counsel to the firm.”

“I can’t imagine a better place to practice law than with this firm,” said Schwegmann. “Every day I get to work with some of the most creative, talented, and intelligent lawyers out there. We’re not just litigators, we’re trial lawyers who try big and important cases. It’s a dream job, and I’m honored to have my name on the door.”

According to Lynn, “Chris is a great person and an incredible lawyer. He’s been a key player in creating a culture of excellence at our firm that helped us become one of the best commercial litigation boutiques in Texas.”

Schwegmann tries trademark and copyright infringement, false advertising, antitrust, and other business cases. His clients include software, technology, manufacturing, and health care companies, among others. He has been repeatedly honored by Texas Super Lawyers in the fields of business litigation and intellectual property and as one of D Magazine’s Best Lawyers in Dallas.

Schwegmann joined the firm in 2005 from Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York City. He earned his law degree from New York University School of Law and his undergraduate degree from Southern Methodist University. Following law school, he served as a law clerk to The Honorable Sam A. Lindsay of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

Lynn Pinker Hurst & Schwegmann is a nationally recognized commercial litigation firm whose philosophy is based on trial-tested experience, creativity, and an uncompromising will to win. For the past three years, the firm has been ranked among the top five commercial litigation firms in Texas by the highly respected Chambers USA Guide to the Legal Profession. The firm has also received numerous accolades by The Best Lawyers in America, Texas Super Lawyers, D Magazine, and Texas Lawyer, and was twice awarded “Defense Win of the Year” in the U.S. by the National Law Journal, the only firm to receive that recognition twice.

The lawyers at Lynn Pinker Hurst & Schwegmann try business disputes of all types, including breach of contract, intellectual property and trade secret, class action, financial services, securities, breach of fiduciary duty, employment, and professional malpractice cases. To learn more, visit www.lynnllp.com.

California School District Settles Legal Case With Former  High School Student Body President  

Expert: Nathaniel Yu ‘most successful student speech plaintiff in U.S. history’

DANVILLE, Calif. – The San Ramon Valley Unified School District has settled a case involving First Amendment and Due Process claims brought by former student body president Nathaniel Yu. As part of the agreement, the district will pay $665,000 and apologize for “negative effects, disruption, and emotional distress” suffered by Mr. Yu and his family.

First Amendment scholar and former Student Press Law Center Executive Director, Frank LoMonte, has followed this case closely and describes it as “the largest settlement amount surrounding student free speech cases,” adding, “it makes Nathaniel the most successful student speech plaintiff in U.S. history.”

“The landmark settlement figure sends a strong message to public school officials throughout the country that the First Amendment prohibits them from censoring off-campus student speech that does not substantially disrupt school activities,” Prof. LoMonte said. “This is especially true in instances such as this where the speech was made on a weekend, entirely off-campus, and with no school resources.”

According to the lawsuit, the school district violated Mr. Yu’s First Amendment rights when it disciplined him for his role in creating a James Bond-style parody video. As punishment, Mr. Yu, who was 17 and a junior at San Ramon Valley High School at the time, was stripped of his position as elected junior class president, removed from the school’s leadership class and disqualified from the Associated Student Body presidential election after he had already garnered the majority of votes.

Even after the school district reversed their punishment, district employees retaliated against, and continued to publicly disparage Mr. Yu.

In November 2019, U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney ruled against the school district’s motion to dismiss the case, rejecting an argument that the parody constituted school-sponsored speech. A month later, the school district and its legal team were ordered by the court to release more than 12,000 documents they previously withheld. Soon thereafter, the district proposed to settle.

Lead attorney James Carlos McFall, a Dallas partner at Jackson Walker LLP stated, “It was an honor and a privilege to represent Nathaniel and his family in this important First Amendment lawsuit. The defendants punished him for the parody video because they found it ‘offensive’ and ‘inappropriate.’ The First Amendment, however, prohibits government officials from punishing speakers for speech simply because they subjectively disapprove of its content.”

Nathaniel Yu said the settlement and the district’s apology underscore the importance of our Constitution and the First Amendment in the modern age of digital technology and social media.

“No one should be subjected to what my family and I have been forced to endure. As a child of immigrants, I am constantly reminded that we cannot take our civil rights for granted. We must continue our fight to preserve these rights at all costs.”

Learn more about the case at https://studentspeechrights.org/.

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

As a rising young financial services lawyer, Chava Brandriss has a clear vision for building her practice, and she has found a home for it at Davis Wright Tremaine (DWT).

As the firm helps clients and colleagues during the pandemic, it continues to execute on its strategic plan and build for the future. Today, DWT announced Brandriss has joined its Banking and Financial Services team as a partner in its Washington, D.C., office, the second recent addition to that office and the latest step in the firm’s 2020 campaign to build out scope, scale and depth in the key industries it serves.

Brandriss, who joins the firm from Hogan Lovells, represents banks, mortgage lenders and servicers in class actions, mass claims, appeals and large portfolios of individual lawsuits. She also advises during government investigations, self-reporting and remediation situations, and on loss-mitigation practices. Her practice complements the team’s consumer regulatory stronghold and brings additional depth to its litigation and investigations capabilities. She will also support the team’s work with fintech companies in California, one of the firm’s key geographic areas.

Brandriss also has an active pro bono practice focused on housing segregation and its contribution to entrenched racial inequality. She and her team received the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law’s Robert F. Mullen Pro Bono Award for their successful work on a long-running lawsuit challenging housing policies in the New York suburbs.This is the eighth targeted lateral partner hire DWT has announced in 2020, all in the industry and geographic areas prioritized in the firm’s strategic plan. Since 2014, the firm has seen significant and steady growth in several key performance metrics, outpacing the vast majority of the AmLaw 100.

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP is pleased to announce Amy E. Puckett has rejoined the firm as a senior attorney in the Banking and Financial Services Practice Group and as a part of the firm’s Cybersecurity and Privacy team.

“We are thrilled to welcome Amy back to our Charlotte office and our team of highly experienced and accomplished attorneys,” said Bradley Charlotte Office Managing Partner Christopher C. Lam. “Amy is a skilled attorney who adds significantly to our strength in key practice areas.”

Ms. Puckett has diverse experience in the areas of financial services regulatory compliance, consumer protection, data privacy, and employment law. She advises financial institutions on compliance with the regulations of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), as well as other state and federal regulations. As a member of the firm’s Cybersecurity and Privacy team, she counsels clients on a variety of privacy and information security compliance issues, including data breach response and notification requests. Additionally, Ms. Puckett consults with employers on effective employment policies and best practices for employment handbooks.

Ms. Puckett was an attorney at Bradley from 2012-2018 before joining E4 Relief LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of one of the largest community foundations in the United States, as its vice president of Relationship Management and Compliance. She served as the dedicated relationship manager for clients, helping set up grant programs for companies to assist their employees during times of disaster or financial hardship and providing day-to-day support, stewardship, and philanthropic counsel.

Ms. Puckett earned her J.D. (cum laude) from Wake Forest University School of Law. She also holds a Master of Arts from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and a Bachelor of Arts (cum laude) from Davidson College.

Bradley’s Banking and Financial Services Practice Group counsels clients on complex legal needs, including matters involving litigation, regulations and compliance, and diverse corporate matters. The group’s attorneys represent a broad range of banks, lenders, and financial services institutions across the United States.

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.

Perkins Coie is pleased to announce that Misha Isaak has joined the firm’s Commercial Litigation practice as a partner in the Portland office. A prior associate of the firm, Misha rejoins Perkins Coie from the Office of Oregon Governor Kate Brown, where he served as general counsel. Misha’s addition to the Portland office comes after commercial litigator Renée Rothauge joined the office last month.

During Misha’s tenure as general counsel, he managed all legal affairs in the Governor’s Office, representing Governor Brown in settling the state’s most significant litigation during her tenure, including its dispute with Oracle, the hoteling of foster youth, services for the intellectually disabled, treatment of transgender inmates, and sale of the Elliott State Forest. Misha also managed the appointment of a historic number of state judges, including more than half of the Oregon Supreme Court, Oregon Court of Appeals, and Multnomah County Circuit Court, significantly increasing diversity of the state court bench. An excellent trial attorney, Misha argued a number of significant motions during his prior time with Perkins Coie, including the summary judgment argument in Oregon’s marriage equality case.

Misha earned his J.D., cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and his B.A. from Reed College. In addition to his current practice, he is also currently an adjunct professor at Lewis and Clark Law School and a member of the Oregon Board of Bar Examiners.

The D’Amore Law Group, P.C. is proud to announce that managing partner and owner Tom D’Amore is a finalist for the 2020 Trial Lawyer of the Year Award presented by the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association (SFTLA). Tom was named along with co-counsel Steve Brady of the Brady Law Group. A winner will be recognized at a 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 is nominated along with Steve Brady 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. The case was Allison et al. v. Smoot Enterprises Inc. et al., case number 2:17-cv-01598, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon.

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 with a car, killing 30-year-old Mrs. Allison and severely injuring then 27-year-old Mr. 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 Mr. 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.

Freeborn & Peters LLP is pleased to announce that Sarah A. Gottlieb has joined the Firm as an Associate in the Litigation Practice Group and a member of the Insurance Brokerage team.

“We are very pleased to welcome Sarah to Freeborn as an attorney in the Tampa office,” said Lawrence P. Ingram, the Firm’s Tampa Office Managing Partner. “Sarah’s past experience will be a strong asset for both our Insurance team and growing Tampa office. We’re excited to expand our talent and legal offerings through new additions like Ms. Gottlieb.”

Prior to joining the firm, Sarah was an Associate in the Tampa office of a regional law firm. She additionally served as a Judicial Law Clerk to the Honorable Charlene Edwards Honeywell in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida. At Freeborn, she focuses her practice on complex commercial litigation.

Sarah received her Juris Doctor from Stetson University College of Law (cum laude), and her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Tampa (cum laude). During her time at Stetson University, she participated in the Honors Program, served as a Notes and Comments Editor for Stetson Law Review, and served as a legal research assistant to a professor. Ms. Gottlieb is licensed in the state of Florida.

Sarah is active in the community, serving on the board of the Tampa Bay Chapter of the Federal Bar Association and volunteering with Lawyers for Literacy. In her spare time, Sarah can be found outdoors, visiting family in her home state of New York, and reading literature and history.

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 has 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 2019 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.

Practical tips for legal teams looking to cut costs across your organization.

When your business is looking to reduce expenses, the legal team has an important role to play. Your contract portfolio should be the first place you look for solutions.

By understanding the specific details contained within your agreements, you can reduce the risk of missing key contract deadlines and identify the most significant opportunities to reduce expenses across your organization.

Terminate, Renegotiate, or Renew? A Guide to Controlling Contract Costs
Download this guide to learn more about:

• How to identify opportunities to reduce expenses within your contracts
• What actions to take to eliminate unnecessary expenses
• The benefits of using contract management software to help with these activities

Download your copy.

In response to COVID-19, most employees in non-essential industries are being asked or required to work remotely. In fact, roughly 96% of Americans are under some form of lockdown. This rapid shift to a remote workforce has implications for organizations of all sizes and industries, including with contract management.

That’s because contract management is not unlike many other business processes and activities. It requires an appropriate level of coordination, communication, information, and collaboration in order to be effective, efficient, and successful. Unfortunately, many traditional approaches to contract management can present some challenges with managing contracts remotely.

As you evaluate your organization, your business continuity plans, and your ability to manage contracts in a highly remote setting, it’s important to understand the challenges you may face and discuss with your team how you will address them.

The following are six common challenges with managing contracts remotely that organizations face when using traditional contract management methods when employees are working from home.

1. Lack of Access to Contracts & Contract-Related Information

Depending on where and how your contracts are stored and secured, how will your employees get appropriate access to them in a remote setting? Take inventory of how and where your contracts are stored and secured. Are they on hard drives? Shared folders? Spreadsheets? Maybe a combination of places?

Also, can multiple people view contracts at the same time? Can they securely access contracts via the Internet and without having to install software on computers? You’ll need to give people an appropriate level of access to them based on their roles.

2. Difficulty Collaborating on Contracts & Supporting Documents

Obviously, it’s going to be more difficult collaborating on anything, never mind contracts, when everyone is remote. Regardless, it’s an important consideration because we all know that contracts require collaboration between different departments and companies. Working through how you’ll foster collaboration to prevent organizational and negotiation silos as well as things like version control issues is important.

3. Slower Contract Review and Approval Cycles

This challenge is about making sure you have visibility into all your agreements. The last thing you want to happen are slower review and approval cycles. Give what’s going with the economy, chances are your organization still needs to purchase and sell things in a timely, albeit modified, manner. You’ll also want to ensure visibility into the volume and balance of your sales and supply chain agreements.

4. Miscommunication or Reduced Communication About Contract Stage and Status

Losing track of where agreements sit in your process can be a challenge even without everyone working remotely. How will you and your team ensure you know where all your agreements are in your process and who is working on what task? You’ll want to track down, document, and monitor the stage and status of all your current agreements.

5. Inaccurate Information in Contract Requests

This is another common problem regardless of where employees are physically located in your company. How will you accurately gather all the information required to create, process, execute, and manage contracts? In addition, how will you do it from start to finish in an efficient manner?

6. Increased Potential for Contract Risk and Non-Compliance

This challenge is essentially one of the big consequences of not addressing the others previously listed. If you don’t overcome these other challenges, how will continue to identify, assess, and mitigate risks associated with your contracts? How will you enforce compliance with internal processes and external regulations? How will you ensure you don’t miss key dates and obligations?

Takeaway

There a lot of business challenges associated with the rapid shift to employees working remotely. It’s important to understand the challenges with managing contracts remotely and discuss them with your team so that you can put plans in place to overcome them. Contract management software can help you address these issues.

If you’re interested in learning how, please contact us to discuss your needs

“Baker Donelson is imposing temporary pay cuts, reducing partner draws, and furloughing some employees because of the financial impact of the COVID-19 epidemic,” reports Debra Cassens Weiss in ABA Journal’s Latest News.

“Baker Donelson confirmed the measures in this statement provided to the ABA Journal: ‘We have undertaken a number of measures to ensure the financial stability of the firm moving forward, which includes shareholder reduction in draws and salary that have already been implemented,’ the statement said. ‘This will be followed over the next few weeks by temporary salary reductions across the firm and with a furloughing of some employees. … Our hope is that, once this crisis subsides, we will eventually be able to bring the furloughed team members back to Baker Donelson. Until then, we are providing them with support to help minimize the impact of what we know is an extremely trying situation, particularly in these highly uncertain times.'”

Read the article to find what other law firms are following suit by taking temporary measures in response to work slowdowns.

Read the article.

“Coal companies owned by Gov. Jim Justice and his family have settled with federal agencies to satisfy more than $5 million in unpaid penalties for violations of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act,” reports Brad McElhinny in MetroNews the Voice of West Virginia.

“Although it’s a settlement, the federal officials say the 23 named defendants agreed to pay the full amounts of the assessed civil penalties, plus interest and penalties.”

“Federal officials sued almost two dozen Justice companies almost a year ago over millions of dollars in unpaid safety violation penalties dating back years.”

Read the article.

“LeafedOut, formerly known as LeafedIn, announced a resolution to their intellectual property dispute with the professional networking site “Linkedin” that correlated with their complete rebrand to Leafedout as of the start of this year. This press release signifies the end of all references to the former brand name within the LeafedOut organization,” reports Ellie Alexander in Reported Times.

“LeafedOut emboldened even further by its brand identity upgrade, continues on as one of the most disruptive and popular cannabis tech companies in the industry today. However, unlike the industry standard, it’s management believes that putting this settlement behind them as well as moving forward with a very aggressive and ambitious roadmap for 2020 in terms of their product offering will allow them to continue their exponential revenue and user growth while providing even more value across multiple verticals for its community. LeafedOut set itself apart from other rising businesses in the canna community with its focus on social responsibility, marijuana activism, and focus on veteran and patient rights.”

Read the article.

“ORIC Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a privately held, clinical-stage oncology company focused on developing treatments that address mechanisms of therapeutic resistance, today announced that Christian V. Kuhlen, M.D., has been named General Counsel. Dr. Kuhlen will serve on the executive leadership team and lead ORIC’s legal, compliance, intellectual property, and corporate governance functions,” reported in Yahoo Finance.

“Dr. Kuhlen has extensive depth and breadth of expertise as General Counsel for biotechnology companies, where he has been responsible for legal, SEC, human resources, intellectual property, and corporate governance functions. Most recently, Dr. Kuhlen served as General Counsel and Secretary for Synthorx, where he led the legal aspects of its initial public offering and advised on the company’s subsequent acquisition by Sanofi. Prior to Synthorx, Dr. Kuhlen was General Counsel at Ignyta, where he coordinated two public financings and advised on the company’s acquisition by Roche. Before Ignyta, Dr. Kuhlen served as General Counsel of Genoptix, Inc., where he led the legal function from its initial public offering to its successful acquisition by Novartis. Prior to Genoptix, he was an attorney in private practice with Cooley LLP. Dr. Kuhlen holds a B.S. in biochemistry and cell biology and a B.A. in economics from the University of California, San Diego, and a M.D. and J.D. from the University of Southern California.”

Read the article.

Charles Sartain, in Gray Reed’s Energy & the Law, continues the discussion “of the Texas Supreme Court’s opinion in Piranha Partners et al. v. Joe B. Neuhoff et al. determining that an assignment of an overriding royalty in minerals unambiguously conveyed the override in production under an entire lease.  The Court concluded that circumstances surrounding the transaction didn’t matter.”

“Piranha purchased Neuhoff’s interest through an oil and gas clearinghouse auction involving 1,200 properties located in 14 states. There was no negotiation between parties and the winning bidders typically acquired interests as-is, where-is, and without warranty of title. To enter its interests at the auction Neuhoff agreed to various provisions.”

Read the article.

“Every contractor has heard the term and many have had to figure out exactly what it means.  Substantial completion is a legal term found in construction contracts to define that stage of a contractor’s work which is sufficiently complete in accordance with the applicable construction agreement. And when used in relation to a project as a whole, substantial completion is that point where what was constructed is fit for occupancy and ready to be used for its intended purpose,” explains Patrick Barthet in The Lien Zone’s Contracts.

“It is a critical term in the life of any construction project as any construction lawyer would advise. It signifies the time the owner versus the contractor becomes responsible, when the contractor’s work is done so that the owner can begin to use the contracted work for its planned function,  or in the case of a building, occupy it. That said, it is not necessarily tied to the issuance of a certificate of occupancy.”

Read the article.

“Companies that utilize third-party staffing vendors should take stock of the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Hiser v. NZone Guidance, L.L.C. The March 24, 2020 opinion, applying Texas law, reinforces that both contract language, and keeping such language up-to-date, is critical for navigating the legal landscape of company relationships with vendors, including enforcing arbitration provisions,” write A. John Harper III and Paige A. Cantrellnin Littler’s News & Analysis.

“In this case, the defendant NZone contracted with the plaintiff and other workers as independent contractors via RigUp, Inc., a workforce bidding platform. The plaintiff brought class claims against the defendant for violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) on behalf of himself and other workers similarly situated.  RigUp was not named as a defendant, but was alleged to be a joint employer with NZone.”

“The workers entered into an agreement with RigUp allowing them to use RigUp’s on-line platform, which contained an arbitration provision (the ‘RigUp Agreement’). NZone moved to compel arbitration of the FLSA claims pursuant to that agreement.  The RigUp Agreement stated that arbitration was to be used to ‘resolv[e] disputes between you and RigUp,’ and that ‘[a]ny arbitration between you and RigUp will be settled under the Federal Arbitration Act.’  The RigUp Agreement further stated that either ‘you or RigUp may commence an arbitration proceeding.'”

Read the article.

“While it’s sometimes said that one person’s failure to plan ahead doesn’t constitute an emergency for everyone else, but one couldn’t plan ahead for this current Coronavirus pandemic that now has indeed created an unprecedented, unforeseeable emergency with many scrambling to evaluate the consequences of a failure or inability to perform,” writes Joseph I. (“Joe”) Rosenbaum in Rimon’s Insights & Analysis.

“In many ways, in addition to memorializing the intent and expectation of parties to a transaction, a contract is a method of allocating the risk inherent in the transaction. The parties entering into the contract try to assign rights and obligations, crafting a variety of clauses intended to reflect the expectations of each of the parties under most circumstances and dealing with the consequences and potential remedies should those intentions and expectations go awry. But no matter how lengthy and detailed your efforts at documentation may have gone, no contract could possibly deal with every possible contingency – and by definition, all the potential unforeseeable events.”

“The coronavirus outbreak is a tragic, but poignant example of just such an unforeseeable occurrence. In most cases, by government order or restriction, the pandemic has forced the closure of businesses, the cancellation of concerts, sporting events, and conferences, has delayed, suspended or completely ended many commercial transactions and has interfered with travel, transportation and the supply of goods and services – in some ways with dire health-related consequences. In short, while some may merely be delayed or suspended for a time, the COVID-19 pandemic has made many contracts either impossible or extremely impractical to perform.”

Read the article.