Freeborn & Peters LLP is pleased to announce that Christine E. Hollis has joined the Firm as Director of Attorney Recruiting, Development and Diversity.

“We are thrilled to welcome Christine to Freeborn as Director of Attorney Recruiting, Development and Diversity,” said William E. Russell, the Firm’s Co-Managing Partner. “We believe Christine’s background perfectly aligns with Freeborn’s goals for continued advancement in hiring, development, and diversity.”

Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Hollis worked in attorney recruiting at both Barnes & Thornburg LLP and McGuireWoods LLP. With a background in Industrial/Organizational Psychology, she utilizes these skills to create, develop and implement effective and innovative processes for the recruiting life cycle. Her role at Freeborn includes working with leaders of the firm to execute the strategic initiatives of the Recruiting, Management and Executive Committees with respect to the hiring of associates and lateral partners across all offices. She also manages the integration of lateral hires, attorney training programs and initiatives, and oversees the firm’s CLE programs.

Ms. Hollis received her Master of Science (magna cum laude) from DePaul University, and her Bachelor of Arts (cum laude) from Spelman College.

Ms. Hollis also volunteers for several organizations focused on enriching and improving the youth on the south side of Chicago, and is passionate about mentoring young women to achieve both professional and personal success.

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.

Bring Your Future into Focus. Prepare for Your Success.

When top-notch programming is perfectly aligned with the chance to exchange ideas and solutions with your peers, you can’t afford to miss out.

Learn from legal thought leaders, share your expertise, and grow your professional network. This is the premier gathering of in-house lawyers from across the globe.

Early bird rates end March 25.

Join us – register now.

“Higher education is facing a tsunami of litigation. In addition to the standard docket of lawsuits claiming that a university discriminated against applicants who were denied admission or that a faculty member was unfairly turned down for tenure, a wave of high-profile cases have resulted in universities offering large settlements or having multi-millon dollar verdicts returned against them,” reports Michael T. Nietzel in Forbes’ Education.

Thirty small “colleges reported they had hired someone to be General Counsel or to fill that role, but with a different title. In most cases, the position focused exclusively on legal representation, but in some institutions, the job was combined with additional responsibilities like Executive Director for Risk Management and Legal Affairs or Chief Policy Officer/General Counsel.”

“Smaller institutions may worry about the added costs of hiring a general counsel, but Coyle and Neal argue that going in-house ultimately results in substantial savings in contracted legal work. Because college general counsels often are able to resolve issues themselves, many proactively, they can be more conservative in their use of external counsel and the amount an institution spends on them.”

Read the article.

How are you organizing your contract process?

Contract organization not only leads to less frustration and friction, it leads to increased efficiency and speed in the contract lifecycle. Being able to create effective structures and clause taxonomy can lead to less time creating, reviewing, negotiating and executing contracts. Starting with the clause and building up, learn how you can better develop contract architecture to provide efficiencies and get through your contract process with more speed and less hiccups.

Join Paul Branch, COO of IACCM, Lauryn Haake of HBR Consulting, and Bobby Johnson, Product Manager at Conga as they discuss the following:

• Best practices in clause management
• Best Practices on contract architecture
• How to leverage these practices in your CLM
• A brief dive into Conga’s new Clause Library

Watch now.

It was November 2014 when attorney Steve Ryan gave a presentation to his shareholders about a possible merger for Briggs & Morgan law firm, arguing that they “needed to take a hard look at what the strategic path forward for our firm was going to be,” reports Liz Fedor in MinnPost’s Twin Cities Business.

“It took Briggs five years to consider its future, choose a merger option, and find Taft, a Midwestern law firm that, like Briggs, was founded in the 1880s. On Jan. 1, 2020, the firms merged, and Ryan is now partner-in-charge of the Minneapolis office of Taft.”

“As of early 2020, Briggs was among three of the 10 largest law offices in downtown Minneapolis that executed mergers. Gray Plant Mooty, the oldest continuous law firm in Minneapolis, dating back to 1866, combined with a firm whose biggest market is Kansas City. The new firm is called Lathrop GPM.”

Read the article.

“Nasdaq-listed Anika Therapeutics has hired David Colleran to fill the newly created position of executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary at the company,” reports Ben Maiden in Corporate Secretary’s Appointments.

“Before joining Bedford, Massachusetts-based Anika, Colleran worked as senior vice president, general counsel, corporate secretary and chief compliance officer at medical device and drug delivery firm Insulet Corporation.”

“Before that, he was vice president and general counsel at Covidien, a manufacturer of medical devices and supplies that was acquired by Medtronic, and corporate counsel at Ocean Spray Cranberries. Colleran started his career at law firm Choate Hall & Stewart.”

Read the article.

Akerman LLP, a top 100 U.S. law firm serving clients across the Americas, today announced Theodore Wern has joined the firm, bringing 20 years of vast experience advising investor groups and businesses in acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, sell-side mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and investment management. In his new role at Akerman, Wern will lead Corporate Practice Group efforts in Chicago. He joins the firm from Perkins Coie LLP where he served as firmwide vice-chair of the Private Equity Practice. Wern’s skillset builds upon Akerman’s core strengths in corporate, private equity, and middle-market mergers and acquisitions.

Wern focuses his practice on representing public and private companies, private equity funds, family offices, and other investor groups in a variety of complex transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, recapitalizations, growth equity financings, private placements, joint ventures, and fund formation. In addition, he acts as outside counsel to a variety of private company clients with respect to general corporate and strategic matters and has represented family business owners in sell-side M&A transactions with enterprise values from $10 million to $1 billion.

Several lateral partners have joined Akerman in the last year, further strengthening the Corporate Practice Group nationally. Otavio Carneiro, dual-licensed in Brazil and the U.S., expanded Akerman’s cross-border transactional experience with significant experience in Latin America. Bill Ide and Amanda Leech joined Akerman’s Atlanta office with robust transactional and governance experience, having represented numerous large corporations, Fortune 100 companies, and boards of directors in M&A transactions, general corporate governance and compliance, and board risk management reviews. Paul Foley, now serving as chair of the Investment Management Practice, joined Akerman in Winston-Salem, North Carolina with substantial experience in investment fund formation and fund offerings. Extensively experienced in institutional investments and fund formation, Ricardo Hollingsworth joined Akerman in New York.

Littler, the world’s largest employment and labor law practice representing management, has named Cheri Husney as its new Chief Marketing and Business Development Officer (CMBDO), based in the firm’s Atlanta office. Husney, a seasoned marketing executive with nearly two decades of experience across multiple industries, will be responsible for developing and overseeing Littler’s marketing and business development strategy and operations.

Prior to joining Littler, Husney spent a majority of her career with KPMG. Most recently, she served as the Executive Director of Clients and Markets, fulfilling a dual position of regional director while managing all marketing directors and teams. In this position, she drove marketing strategy, developed relationship-nurturing initiatives, enabled account-based marketing programs and established an overall strategic vision. In addition to these senior-level responsibilities, she played a leadership role in women and diversity initiatives.

Husney began her career in the greater Atlanta area and worked with premier textiles, manufacturing and telecommunications companies, including Alsco and Cogent Communications. She earned her MBA from Mercer University and her B.A. from Florida State University.

Jennifer M. Lantz and Philip W. Woo have joined Duane Morris LLP’s Silicon Valley office as partners in the firm’s Intellectual Property Practice Group. Lantz and Woo are Silicon Valley veterans with decades of experience, including at global law firms such as Hogan Lovells and Sidley Austin.

Philip W. Woo has been in practice for 25 years, working in all areas of patent law including litigation, prosecution and contested proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. He has represented a wide spectrum of innovation-driven high-tech companies, ranging from startups to Fortune 500 corporations. With a degree in electrical engineering and substantial real-world experience in industry, Woo works on the deep technical issues in intellectual property matters of commercial significance for the clients he serves. He was counsel in the first inter partes review proceeding resulting in a successful final determination invalidating claims of the patent at issue. Woo has been recognized in the 2013-2020 editions of Best Lawyers in America, and as a leading patent litigator by IAM Patent 1000.

Woo is a graduate of the University of Southern California Gould School of Law (J.D., with honors, 1994) and the Southern Methodist University (B.S.E.E., cum laude, 1990).

Jennifer M. Lantz advises innovators at all stages on managing and protecting their valuable brands and other IP. She focuses on helping companies develop brands through enforcement policies, clearing marks for use, registering marks in the United States and abroad, commercializing marks through licenses and merchandising agreements, assessing infringement risks and defending against allegations of infringement. Lantz has been recognized in the 2020 World Trademark Review 100 as “An excellent hybrid lawyer … Lantz delivers crisp results whether securing trademark protections, enforcing rights or negotiating deals.” She represents clients of all sizes—from new startups to multinationals. In addition to her prosecution and counseling practice, Lantz has an active trademark litigation practice in federal courts around the country. She has obtained preliminary injunctions on behalf of a number of trademark clients and has also successfully defended against preliminary injunctions. Lantz has litigated other significant and complex intellectual property and business disputes for clients, including patents, trade secrets, rights of publicity, copyrights, licensing, contract disputes and numerous section 337 matters in the International Trade Commission. She handles opposition and cancellation proceedings in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, oversees multijurisdictional disputes and regularly counsels clients regarding domain name issues and trademark issues in social media. Lantz has also spearheaded enforcement campaigns in the United States and overseas for clients in industries where counterfeiting and knockoffs are prevalent.

Lantz is a graduate of the University of Georgia School of Law (J.D., cum laude, 1994) and the University of Michigan (B.A., with honors, 1991).

Foley & Lardner LLP announced today that Lynn Gandhi has joined the firm’s Detroit office as a partner in its Business Law Department and Tax, Benefits & Estate Planning Practice Group. Gandhi comes to Foley from Honigman LLP, where she led the State and Local Tax Practice Group.

With more than 30 years of experience counseling on complex multistate taxation issues – including 18 years serving as in-house tax counsel for major corporations – Gandhi is widely recognized as a leading state and local tax attorney. She advises clients on tax planning matters, audits, appeals and litigation, and has led legislative and administrative changes in tax laws that benefit business entities and their owners. In addition, Gandhi provides transactional support on the multistate tax implications of merger and acquisition transactions, and defense of post-closing indemnity and escrow claims related to pre-closing liabilities.

Gandhi’s clients include foreign-based companies with U.S. operations and national Fortune 500 companies, as well as Michigan-based businesses of all sizes. She has successfully represented clients in obtaining tax exemptions and incentive packages, contesting audit findings and resolving tax disputes, navigating unclaimed property issues, and successful submission of multistate voluntary disclosure agreements, among other matters. Gandhi is also a registered lobbyist in Michigan, representing clients on legislative tax initiatives.

In addition to her client work, Gandhi is a prominent member of her professional community, both at the state and national levels. Among other roles, she is a board member of the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, serves on Bloomberg Industry Group’s State Tax Advisory Board, and is an adjunct professor at Wayne State University Law School, her alma mater. A prolific writer and speaker on state tax matters, Gandhi has published more than 60 articles and spoken or presented at over 75 events. She is a certified public accountant in Michigan and Illinois and received an LL.M degree in taxation from New York University School of Law.

Gandhi is the latest high-profile addition to Foley in recent weeks, following the arrival of a team of four IP Electronics attorneys, a securities enforcement attorney who previously served as associate regional director for enforcement for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Denver office, and a prominent sports attorney and former general counsel to the New York Jets.

“NOVA Chemicals Corporation … announced Byron Romain will join the company as Vice President and General Counsel. In this role, he will be responsible for leading all operations of legal including in-house attorneys, external legal affairs, intellectual property rights, corporate and commercial matters, compliance and governance. Byron succeeds Bill Mitchell, who recently retired,” reports Jennifer Nanz in Yahoo Finance.

“Byron joins NOVA Chemicals from White & Case where he was a partner focused on the upstream and midstream sectors. He has extensive global industry experience in both private practice and as in-house counsel with companies including Marathon Oil and Mubadala Development Company.”

Read the article.

“Cascade County has hired a private law firm to assist the Cascade County Attorney’s Office, which is experiencing a significant number of attorney vacancies with two major civil cases pending,” reports Kari Puckett in Great Falls Tribune.

“At a special meeting Friday, commissioners approved a legal service agreement with Ugrin, Alexander and Zadick in which attorneys for the firm will serve as independent contractors to provide legal representation to the county.”

“Costs for the initial six-month term is $7,500 a month for a total of $45,000.”

There are three vacancies in the office.

Read the article.

“The most disciplined lawyer in the history of the state of Tennessee has been arrested again on new charges. Hendersonville lawyer Andy Allman known for a lavish lifestyle and accused of cheating or stealing from 127 clients was arrested” March 9, 2020, reports Dennis Ferrier in Fox17 Nashville.

“Allman was arrested for impersonating a lawyer and theft of more than $10,000. These new charges come just one week before his Sumner county theft trial.”

“A State of Tennessee indictment accuses Allman of ‘unlawfully and falsely hold himself out as a lawyer to Mario Herrera, against the peace and dignity of the State of Tennessee.’ The indictment states that from December 16, 2014 to about March 3, 2020, Allman unlawfully took $54,269.11 from Herrera without Herrera’s effective consent.”

Read the article.

“A partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan in New York has tested positive for the coronavirus, prompting the firm to close the office as a precaution this week,” reports Amanda Robert in ABA Journal’s Daily News.

“The firm did not name the attorney, but according to Law.com, he is the first known BigLaw partner to contract the coronavirus in the United States. An attorney at Lewis and Garbuz, a Manhattan trusts and estates law firm, also tested positive for the illness last week.”

“John Quinn, founding partner of the 800-plus attorney firm, also told Law.com on Sunday that the partner belongs to a religious community in Westchester County, where other infections have been reported. He has been resting at home since March 2.”

Read the article.

Foley & Lardner announced today that Andrew Lee, former general counsel to the New York Jets and the NY/NJ Super Bowl Host Committee, has joined the firm’s New York office as Of Counsel and Special Adviser to its renowned Sports & Entertainment Group. Lee joins a deep roster of other sports attorneys at Foley who have held high-profile, in-house leadership positions in the sports business, including Bob DuPuy (MLB), Jon Israel (NBA), Michael Wall (Boston Bruins) and Bobby Sharma (NBA, IMG).

Lee comes to Foley with more than 20 years of sports, media and entertainment industry experience in-house and as an outside adviser, with emphasis on counseling senior executive management of high-profile companies. He has extensive experience both as a litigator and a corporate transactional attorney, having handled complex litigation and business matters involving mergers and acquisitions, corporate compliance, nonprofit organizations, sponsorships and naming rights, intellectual property, employment issues, SafeSport investigations and compliance, among others. Lee is routinely recognized as a leader in the sports and entertainment field, having previously founded the firm ALL Counsel P.C., which was consistently ranked in the top-tier nationally by top law firm rating services.

Lee began his legal career in private practice with Proskauer Rose in New York City and then went on to serve on the senior executive management team of the New York Jets as general counsel. In this role, Lee oversaw all of the Jets’ legal and human resources initiatives, along with the organization’s corporate relocation to Florham Park, New Jersey. When the Jets and Giants elected to bid to host the Super Bowl in 2014, Lee was named as general counsel of the NY/NJ Super Bowl Host Committee, which overlapped with his founding of ALL Counsel P.C. in 2009, a premier sports and entertainment law firm based in New York City. His clients have included, among others, the NY/NJ Super Bowl Host Committee, MetLife Stadium, the New York Jets, the United States Rowing Association, the Brooklyn Nets, Barclays Center, the Miami Dolphins, RSE Ventures, Relevant Sports, Hiltzik Strategies, DKC News and others in the sports, arts, media, entertainment and general business fields.

Lee has been an integral and influential force in various major developments in the sports and entertainment industry. His experience includes being part of the executive teams that formed the joint venture between the NFL’s New York Jets and New York Giants to build a new joint stadium and the resulting development of MetLife Stadium, the successful bid of the New York City region to host the 2014 Super Bowl at MetLife Stadium, and the development of the New York Jets Atlantic Health Jets Training Center. Andy also has extensive experience successfully representing professional sports agents, players and coaches in arbitrations and a variety of business matters.

In addition, Gregory Marino has joined Foley’s Sports & Entertainment Industry Team as a special counsel. Marino also comes to Foley from ALL Counsel P.C., where he provided legal services to clients in the entertainment and media industries, with a particular focus on counseling emerging entertainment properties on corporate governance matters

Greensfelder, Hemker & Gale, P.C., is pleased to announce that the firm has been recognized by the Associated General Contractors of Missouri (AGCMO) for its outstanding support of the AGCMO and the broader construction industry.

Greensfelder is among this year’s AGCMO AGC 1st Honor winners. The award is presented to AGCMO members that excel in participation in or sponsorship of organization events, as well as thought leadership and serving in leadership roles. Greensfelder will be formally recognized at the AGCMO Annual Convention March 31 in Kansas City, Mo.

AGCMO represents approximately 550 construction and construction-related firms in Missouri that perform building, highway and infrastructure construction. The organization provides a range of local and national services, helping members build their businesses.

For more information about Greensfelder’s Construction industry group, visit https://www.greensfelder.com/industries-Construction.html.

Greensfelder, Hemker & Gale, P.C., founded in 1895, is a full-service law firm with offices in St. Louis, Chicago and Belleville, Ill. Greensfelder offers comprehensive legal solutions for clients locally, nationally and internationally. Areas of practice include business services; communications and media; construction; educational, religious and tax-exempt organizations; employee benefits; employment and labor; energy; franchising and distribution; health care; intellectual property; litigation; real estate; securities and financial services; and trusts and estates. Find out more at www.greensfelder.com.

Buchalter is pleased to welcome Marcus Williams as a Corporate Shareholder in the Firm’s Los Angeles and Seattle offices. Mr. Williams joins from Davis Wright Tremaine LLP.

Williams advises some of the best-known public and private companies in the Western United States in corporate finance, securities compliance, mergers and acquisitions, and general corporate law. His practice focuses primarily on public and mature private companies, including mergers and acquisitions, capital markets transactions, and ongoing corporate governance and securities compliance matters. He also has represented underwriters and investors in the technology, financial services, energy, healthcare, manufacturing, hospitality, and consumer products industries. Further, he has served as special counsel to boards of directors and committees, including the audit committee of one of the world’s best-known consumer products companies, and has extensive experience dealing with shareholder activists.

Williams has been named as one of “America’s Leading Lawyers for Business” in Corporate/Commercial (Washington) by Chambers USA from 2010-2018. He is also one of the Best Lawyers in America in Securities Law by Woodward/White, 2013-present and has an AV Rating® from Martindale-Hubbell®.

He earned his J.D. from Southern Methodist University, Dedman School of Law in 1997, cum laude, and his B.A. in Political Science from Auburn University in 1988.

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP is pleased to announce that L. Justin Burney has joined the firm’s Huntsville office as a partner in the Corporate and Securities Practice Group.

“It is a pleasure to welcome Justin to our Huntsville office,” said Bradley Huntsville Office Managing Partner Frank M. Caprio. “Justin brings more than a decade of experience practicing corporate law in Alabama for major clients across many industries.”

Mr. Burney represents a broad range of clients in corporate and transactional matters, including contract negotiation and preparation, entity formation, corporate restructuring, corporate finance issues, M&A, and real estate sales and acquisitions. He also has significant experience preparing agreements involving licensing of software and technology to and from third parties. In addition, he represents government contracting companies in negotiating and preparing subcontracts, teaming agreements and joint venture documents, qualifying for socio-economic programs, interpreting the Federal Acquisition Regulation and Small Business Association regulations, and prosecuting and defending bid protest actions. His other experience includes guiding healthcare and dental providers on regulatory compliance matters involving health information privacy and compensation.

Prior to joining Bradley, Mr. Burney was an attorney at Maynard, Cooper & Gale, P.C.

Mr. Burney received his J.D. from the University of Alabama School of Law. He also holds a Master of Science and a Bachelor of Science (cum laude), both in chemical engineering from the University of Alabama.

Attorneys in Bradley’s nationally recognized Corporate and Securities Practice Group guide and advise clients in a variety of industries, working with emerging companies, family and closely held business, and publicly traded corporations, as well as venture capital and private equity funds and their operating companies.

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 over 500 lawyers represent regional, national and international clients in various industries, including financial services, healthcare, life sciences, real estate, construction, technology, energy, insurance, and entertainment, among many others.

A Big Win for EmCare

Greenberg Traurig congratulates our client EmCare on its successful appeal.

Learn more about our GT lawyers who prevailed on behalf of EmCare in In re Iftikar Ahmed, P.A. and Farhan Khan, M.D., Relators.

Dale Wainwright
Co-Chair, National Appellate Practice
Chair, Texas Appellate Practice

Nicole Leonard Córdoba
Appellate Associate

View the Court’s opinion
 

As a compliance professional, you will be called upon to conduct internal investigations at some point in your career. Whether you are new to compliance or a seasoned professional, you can gain the skills you need from one of SCCE’s Internal Investigations Workshops offered in 2020.

Receive comprehensive instruction, from initial allegation to the final report, from experienced presenters. Topics include:

• Understanding and assessing the initial allegation of wrongdoing
• Creating an investigation plan
• Gathering evidence
• Conducting interviews, including the subject of the investigation
• Conclusions and root-cause analysis
• Writing your report
• Avoiding pitfalls and legal risks

Don’t wait sign up today to attend one of our workshops!

June 8-10 | Lake Buena Vista, FL
*post conference offered on third day*

June 18-19| London, England

October 8-9| Singapore

Learn more