The law firm of Thompson & Knight LLP announced that Jessica B. Magee has joined the firm as a partner in the Trial Practice Group in Dallas. Magee was previously an associate at the firm from 2002 to 2010 before joining the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in Fort Worth.

Prior to joining Thompson & Knight, Magee served as general counsel at Dallas-based financial services firm The Beneficient Company Group, a Thompson & Knight client, where she led an in-house legal and compliance department, advised the board and senior leadership on a wide array of legal, regulatory, and corporate governance issues, and oversaw the firm’s legal efforts through numerous strategic transactions.

Magee also served in a variety of leadership roles at the SEC, including as both the associate director in charge of the SEC’s enforcement efforts in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Kansas and chief trial counsel for that region, which includes more than 400 NYSE- and Nasdaq-listed companies and numerous Fortune 500 companies. While at the SEC, she successfully prosecuted and supervised several high-profile matters across multiple industries and subject areas, including the agency’s first cryptocurrency enforcement action, the agency’s first appointment of a receiver in a fraudulent cryptocurrency offering, and a $46.8 million judgment against a publicly traded life settlements company and certain of its executives.

During her years in government, Magee was selected as a Senior Fellow in the Partnership for Public Service’s Excellence in Government Fellowship Program and earned the SEC’s prestigious Arthur F. Mathews Award and the Ferdinand Pecora Award for creativity and dedication in protecting investors and the public.

The firm said Magee focuses her practice on commercial and shareholder disputes, government and internal investigations, and matters of corporate governance. In addition, she has experience on issues involving regulatory compliance, disclosure, risk mitigation, corporate and shareholder rights, partnership disputes, director and officer disputes, and federal receiverships.

Prior to entering public service, Magee was recognized in Texas Rising Stars by Thomson Reuters (2010) for her work in Business Litigation. She received her J.D., cum laude, from SMU Dedman School of Law and her B.A., summa cum laude, from Texas State University.

Saxe Doernberger & Vita, P.C. announced that associate Brian J. Clifford has joined the firm’s SDV Northeast office.

The firm said Clifford has almost a decade of experience in litigation, including insurance coverage, from depositions and discovery through mediations, trials, and appeals. He has represented clients on a range of matters, from advising on general liability and excess policies, to defending health care providers in medical malpractice actions, to trying cases involving complex constitutional and statutory issues.

Nine law firms face civil claims they aided and abetted a multimillion-dollar securities scam run by convicted fraudster Robert Shapiro through the now-defunct real estate investment firm Woodbridge Group of Cos., according to a Courthouse News Service report.

The suit, seeking $500 million inn general damages, describes a web of collusion with Woodbridge, through which Shapiro engineered a classic $1.3 billion Ponzi scheme that targeted the elderly and their retirement accounts, reports Courthouse News’ Maria Dinzeo.

Woodbridge, now in bankruptcy, is suing through its trustee.

The firms named as defendants are Halloran & Sage LLP, Robinson & Cole LLP, Finn Dixon & Herling LLP and Rome McGuigan P.C. of Connecticut; Balcomb & Green P.C. and Davis Graham & Stubbs LLP of Colorado; Bailey Cavalieri LLC of Ohio; and Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLC and Sidley Austin LLP of Illinois.

Read the Courthouse News article.

The former chief executive of Bumble Bee Foods LLC, Chris Lischewski, was found guilty of price-fixing on Tuesday, reports Bloomberg.

Prosecutors in a San Francisco court alleged that he conspired with colleagues and executives at rival companies on a “peace proposal” in order to boost prices and meet earnings targets set by Bumble Bee’s 2010 sale to Lion Capital, according to the report.

Bumble Bee pleaded guilty in 2017 to a felony charge of conspiring with competitors Starkist Co. and Chicken of the Sea Inc. to fix and raise prices of canned tuna in the U.S. from 2011 through at least late 2013.

Read the Reuters article.

Bloomberg Law reports that Armstrong Teasdale LLP’s mandatory partner retirement policy doesn’t violate the Age Discrimination in Employment Act because partners aren’t covered employees, the Eighth Circuit ruled, deciding a matter of first impression.

The court said equity partner Joseph S. von Kaenel wasn’t a firm “employee” when he was forced to retire at age 70.

The court relied on a precedential six-factor test for determining who is an employee, including whether the organization can fire the individual and set rules for the individual’s work, how much the employer supervises the work, and whether the individual shares in profits, explains Bloomberg’s Julie Steinberg.

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

Lowenstein Sandler has announced that Max Karpel has joined the firm as partner in the Investment Management group. His practice will focus on the structuring and restructuring of investment management businesses and on advising family offices and private foundations.

The firm said Karpel represents managers of both established and startup hedge funds in launching new funds and in private equity investments, lending, mergers and acquisitions, investor activism, and joint ventures; he also represents issuers and underwriters in debt and equity offerings. He negotiates seed deals, agreements with anchor investors, side letters with institutional investors, and employment and consulting agreements, in addition to providing advice on securities law and trading. In addition, Karpel represents hedge fund managers in establishing Insurance Dedicated Funds.

Before joining the firm, Karpel served as chief operating officer and in-house counsel to a family office and foundation.

Karpel was formerly a partner at a boutique law firm focused on the representation of investment managers, as well as real estate developers, family offices, and high-net worth individuals. Fluent in Hebrew, he has represented international clients making investments in Israel and has worked with Israeli investment managers on structuring and launching funds that are open to U.S. and international investors. He is the co-founder of Israel’s first industry association for hedge funds.

Karpel holds a J.D. from the New York University School of Law and a B.A. from Yale University.

Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP announced its 2019 FCPA & Anti-Bribery Alert, a comprehensive review of the cases, trends and enforcement actions that impacted anti-corruption law throughout 2018 and 2019. The Anti-Corruption & Internal Investigations Group has analyzed noteworthy developments in anti-corruption enforcement over the past year and highlight the actionable trends and lessons pertinent to general counsel and compliance professionals.

In a release, the firm said the Alert’s primary focus is on U.S. enforcement of the FCPA. The Alert details each FCPA resolution and ongoing criminal matter from 2018 through publication. The Alert details the underlying conduct related to each resolution, the actions of the companies throughout their investigations, and the resulting penalty. Walmart’s landmark settlement with U.S. authorities and the SEC’s $16 million enforcement action against Deutsche Bank for improper hiring practices in China and Russia are just a few of the cases studied in this year’s Alert.

As the fight against foreign bribery has taken root outside the United States, the Alert has been expanded to cover key developments from other jurisdictions as well. This year’s Alert includes Chapters on the anti-corruption enforcement developments in France and the U.K. and updates on the enforcement efforts in Brazil, China, and Mexico.

From a trend perspective, the lawyers at Hughes Hubbard note it is critical to look at the past as prologue. International coordination, U.S. law enforcement coordination, tailored monitorships, third party risk factors, technological developments, and the increasing importance of timely remediation are just a few of the trends discussed in the Alert. The insights provided for each of these trends can serve as useful tools for multinational companies considering how to manage their operations and identify and mitigate their most significant areas of anti-corruption risk, the firm said.

Attorney Monica Niewiarowski has joined Bailey Brauer PLLC, a Dallas-based boutique, in the firm’s complex commercial litigation, trial, and appellate practices.

“Business litigation is the foundation this firm was built upon and our clients know they can rely on us for the best possible representation,” said firm co-founder Alex Brauer.

Niewiarowski joins Bailey Brauer as an associate from the Dallas office of Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani, LLP, where she focused primarily on product liability and toxic torts litigation.

“I am impressed with the quality of cases and the expertise of Bailey Brauer’s lawyers. I look forward to learning from these talented attorneys and growing my litigation practice in a new direction, including employment-related work,” said Ms. Niewiarowski, a member of the Dallas Association of Young Lawyers’ 2019 Leadership Class.

Her employment litigation focus will include trade secrets, discrimination, retaliation, wage and hour claims, ADA, and regulatory agency investigations.

A 2016 graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, she served as a judicial intern for Justice Douglas Lang of the Texas 5th Court of Appeals. She also worked with the Legal Aid Justice Center in Charlottesville, Virginia, where she assisted low-income residents with landlord-tenant disputes. She graduated from the University of Texas at Dallas in 2013 and is an alumna of the school’s prestigious Eugene McDermott Scholars Program.

The Lowenstein Center for the Public Interest has created a Summary Survey of State Charity Registration Requirements in All 50 States and the District of Columbia to help nonprofits comply with state law across the country. This resource gives nonprofits the information they need to understand their legal obligations when they solicit funds from donors throughout the United States, the firm said in a release.

Prepared for Pro Bono Partnership, a center client, the survey provides guidance for nonprofits whose online fundraising brings in money from parts of the country where they do not otherwise have a presence and where they may not be aware of state-specific registration obligations.

Nancy Eberhardt, executive director of pro bono partnership, noted that compliance with charitable registration requirements in the 40-plus states that require registration and reporting “is a daunting task for nonprofits. Lowenstein Sandler’s survey provides the nonprofit community a concise guide to compliance.”

The survey is available on the Pro Bono Partnership website.

Barnes & Thornburg has announced the addition of a life sciences patent group comprised of 17 lawyers, patent agents, IP technical analysts, and paralegals. With the move, Barnes & Thornburg establishes three new offices in Raleigh, North Carolina, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Salt Lake City, Utah.

Nine partners, one associate, two patent agents, an IP technical analyst, and four paralegals joined Barnes & Thornburg from the boutique IP firm Brinks, Gilson & Lione. In addition to Raleigh, Ann Arbor, and Salt Lake City, a new member of the Barnes & Thornburg team will be based in Chicago. The group is led by Allen Baum, an intellectual property attorney who has been based in Raleigh-Durham for more than 20 years, and William R. Boudreaux, a leading IP attorney in Ann Arbor.

In a release, the firm said the group has experience and advanced degrees in such fields as organic chemistry, molecular biology, chemistry and biotechnology. Group members also have in-house experience with life sciences and pharmaceutical

The Raleigh office will be located at 4819 Emperor Boulevard, Suite 400, Durham, North Carolina 27703. The Ann Arbor office will be located at 2723 South State Street, Suite 150, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104. The Salt Lake City office will be located at 222 S. Main Street, 5th Floor, Salt Lake City, Utah 84101.

Allen Baum joins as partner-in-charge of the Raleigh office. He is a former president of the Licensing Executives Society (USA and Canada) and former president and chairman of the board of governors for Certified Licensing Professional (CLP).

Bashir M. Ali joins as a partner in Raleigh. He holds a Ph.D. in chemistry and has worked with companies to obtain hundreds of U.S. patents.

Eric D. Babych and Ryan Marshal join as partners in Salt Lake City.

William R. Boudreaux joins as partner in Ann Arbor and serves as attorney-in-charge of the Ann Arbor office.

Heidi A. Dare  joins as a partner in Chicago.

Amy H. Fix and Mark Jenkins join as partners in Raleigh.

Aisha R. Hasan  joins as an associate in Raleigh.

Joshua E. Ney joins as a partner in Ann Arbor.

Michael O’Brien has joined Perkins Coie in Anchorage as a senior counsel in the Labor & Employment practice.

O’Brien is the sixth lateral to join the practice group since July, the firm said in a release.

O’Brien’s practice focuses on counseling clients on the range of employment issues affecting the workplace and on conducting workplace investigations. He also has experience with Title IX and other education laws that impact both the K-12 and post-secondary school environments. Prior to joining Perkins Coie, he was an associate general counsel for the University of Alaska system.

O’Brien received his J.D. and M.A. from Vermont Law School and his B.A. from the University of Montana. He also holds an M.A. from St. John’s College.

Legal cases concerning President Trump, his finances and his separation-of-powers disputes with Congress are arriving at the Supreme Court, and together provide both potential and challenge for the Roberts court in its aspiration to be seen as nonpartisan, reports The Washington Post.

On Dec. 13, the court will consider whether to schedule a full briefing and argument on the president’s request that it overturn a lower-court ruling giving New York prosecutors access to Trump’s tax returns and other financial records.

Authors Robert Barnes and Ann E. Marimow quote Walter Dellinger, who argued for President Bill Clinton before the Supreme Court:

“This will be a special moment for the independence of the judiciary and whether the hyperpartisanship that has infected so much of our culture has also infiltrated the Supreme Court.”

Read the  Post article.

Goodwin Proctor has announced an expanded paid parental leave policy for employees in its U.S. offices, reports Above the Law.

The new policy gives lawyers up to 18 weeks paid parental leave, while staff will be eligible to take at least 12 weeks. And birth mothers will be eligible to take at least six additional weeks of disability leave, according to the announcement sent to employees.

The firm also announced that lawyers will move to a flexible vacation policy, with no specified limit to the total number of vacation days in a calendar year.

Read the Above the Law article.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup of San Francisco has berated lawyers for big tech companies before, and now an attorney for DoorDash found himself the target, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

The issue was the way the meal-delivery startup pushed its couriers into arbitration, writes the Chronicle‘s Mallory Moench.

Courthouse News Service describes an exchange Alsup had with DoorDash lawyer James Fogelman, of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher:

“Your law firm and all your firms have tried for 20 years to keep plaintiffs out of court, and you’ve gotten a lot of success in the courts,” U.S. District Judge William Alsup said. “Then someone says, ‘OK. We’ll take you to arbitration,’ and suddenly it’s not in your interest anymore. Now you’re wiggling away, trying to find a way to squirm out of your agreement.”

DoorDash had been ordered to pay more than $11 million in arbitration fees.

Read the SF Chronicle article.

Bloomberg Law reports that an Ohio attorney who was found guilty of a felony for helping clients try to evade federal taxes was suspended for two years by the state’s highest court.

The Ohio Supreme Court found that actions of Gregory Thomas Plesich violated professional ethics rules prohibiting lawyers from helping clients break the law and that he violated rules that forbid lawyers from committing acts that reflect adversely on the legal profession and from acting dishonestly.

Bloomberg Law’s Melissa Heelan Stanzione explains:

“Plesich deposited two checks from them totaling almost $200,000 into his client trust account in 2013. The money was not payment for legal services. He then wrote 29 checks from that account over the course of a year ranging in amounts from $3,000 to $7,500 to the wife.”

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

The American Arbitration Association and the International Centre for Dispute Resolution have published the results of of survey of more than 400 arbitrators who issued awards for large, complex commercial cases about the various elements of those cases, from motion practice and discovery to cooperation among participants.

A report on the survey is available for downloading at no charge.

The survey revealed exactly how attorneys and their clients negatively affect the efficiency and cost effectiveness of their cases—and the best practices they can adopt to improve.

Download the report.

John B. McFarland, writing in the Graves Dougherty Hearon & Moody Oil and Gas Lawyer Blog, updates a legal fight over whether a producer can continue to flare gas from its wells.

The dispute, between Williams MLP Operating and Exco Operating Co., has moved to district court in Travis County in Austin.

McFarland describes the background of the case, which involves the purchase of wells, a gathering system and gathering contract, bankruptcy, and a potential net loss of $146 million if the permit to flare gas is not granted.

Read the article.

Disclosure schedules supplement the purchase and sale agreement in the sale of a business by incorporating disclosures about the business being sold, according to a post on the website of Thompson Coburn.

The authors explains:

“Generally, each disclosure schedule falls into one of two categories: a ‘list’ or an ‘exception.’ A ‘list’ schedule makes a representation that the schedule contains a complete record of certain aspects of the business (i.e., a list of leased or owned real property, registered intellectual property, insurance policies, employee benefit plans, etc.). An ‘exception’ schedule allows the seller to qualify a representation made in the purchase and sale agreement and, therefore, limit the seller’s potential liability.”

Read the article.

Construction disputes often involve voluminous amounts of discovery, including documents in the hand of third parties, points out Matthew DeVries in Burr & Forman’s Best Practices Construction Law blog.

If the case is subject to arbitration, it is likely there will be a dispute about whether the arbitrator has the authority to compel production of third-party documents or witnesses for deposition, he writes.

DeVries discusses a case in which the 11th Circuit  concluded that Section 7 of the Federal Arbitration Act precludes all pre-hearing discovery from non-parties.

Read the article.

In a post on the American Medical Association website, AMA senior attorney Wes Cleveland discusses physicians’ letters of intent and when an attorney should be retained during the contracting process.

He explains that the letter of intent represents an effort for the physician and employer to be sure they’re on the same page on such issues as compensation, length of employment, benefits, responsibilities and more.

He also discusses binding versus non-binding agreements.

Read the article.