Lois Tilton has joined Perkins Coie’s Trust & Estate Planning practice as a partner in the New York office.

With more than three decades of experience as a trust and estate lawyer, Tilton focuses her practice on complex estate and gift planning, including business succession planning, planning for real estate entities and estate and trust administration, the firm said in a release.

The firm said Tilton counsels families on multigenerational business planning matters and has performed personal planning services for several greater New York area-based families with estates of significant value. She also represents clients in state and federal estate tax audits and other trust and estate proceedings, with a focus on the New York Surrogate Court.

Tilton earned her J.D. from Harvard University and her B.A. from Barnard College, summa cum laude. She is recognized by Martindale Hubbell’s peer reviews as an “AV Preeminent” attorney and, since 2012, she has been consistently named one of the Top Women Attorneys in the New York Metro Area by Super Lawyers. She was also recognized in Best Lawyers for 2019. She was previously a partner at Kurzman Eisenberg Corbin & Lever, LLP.

Littler has added Mark A. Romeo as a shareholder in its Irvine office. He was previously a partner with Crowell & Moring LLP.

In a release, the firm said Romeo’s background in employment law includes counseling clients on matters involving workplace investigations, executive employment agreements, reductions in force, whistleblower/retaliation, restrictive covenant agreements and employment-related due diligence in mergers and acquisitions and other corporate transactions, with a particular focus on trade secrets issues and computer forensics. Romeo has also represented clients before such agencies as the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Department of Labor and the California Department of Labor Standards Enforcement, as well as against claims of discrimination and harassment, misclassification and wrongful termination. Early in his career, he practiced as an associate at Littler.

Romeo received his J.D. from the University of San Francisco School of Law in 1994 and his B.S. from the University of Southern California in 1988.

Blank Rome LLP represented Churchill Capital Corp., a publicly traded investment vehicle, in its merger with Clarivate Analytics Plc, a global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics to accelerate the pace of innovation. The closing of the merger was announced on May 13 following the receipt of stockholder approval at Churchill’s special meeting of stockholders.

Following the closing, the combined company was renamed Clarivate Analytics Plc, and anticipates that starting on May 14, 2019, its ordinary shares and warrants will begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange and NYSE American under the symbols CCC and CCC WS, respectively.

The Blank Rome Team was led by partners Robert J. Mittman, Kathleen A. Cunningham and Brad L. Shiffman, together with partners Joseph T. Gulant and Emanuel J. Adler, as well as associates Elena P. Jacque, Thomas M. Callahan and David A. Gilbert.

Scott A. Hughes has joined Dykema in its Government Policy & Practice Group as a senior counsel in the firm’s Lansing office. He joins Dykema after serving as general counsel for the Michigan State Senate.

During his tenure as general counsel with the Michigan State Senate, where he also held the roles of deputy chief of staff and director of strategic affairs, Hughes served as the lead adviser to the Senate, the majority leader and the majority caucus in areas of law, policy and strategy and was also responsible for reviewing, drafting and negotiating contracts on behalf of the Senate. In addition, he developed and coordinated legislative policy with external stakeholder groups, managed deputy and associate counsel and leadership staff, and collaborated with and supervised outside legal counsel.

Prior to his time in the State Capitol, Hughes was in private practice at Mika Meyers PLC in Grand Rapids, where he focused on civil litigation, as well as environmental, energy and natural resources law.

Hughes received a J.D., summa cum laude, from the Western Michigan University Cooley Law School and a B.S., with High Honors, from Michigan State University.

Holland & Hart announced the addition of partner Greg Saylin and of counsel Tyson Horrocks to its Labor and Employment practice in the firm’s Salt Lake City office.

Before joining Holland & Hart, Saylin and Horrocks were shareholders at a large Utah-based firm where Saylin chaired the Employment Practice Group. When Saylin was elected to the firm’s Board of Directors, Horrocks became chair of the Employment Practice Group.

Barnes & Thornburg has added Robert M. Weiss as a partner in the firm’s Corporate Department in Chicago.

In a release, the firm said Weiss advises clients on complex technology and data transactions, web and e-commerce matters, and strategic alliances. With a particular emphasis in the financial services, healthcare, retail, hospitality, logistics and payment processing industries, Weiss represents companies worldwide that are involved in infrastructure and business process sourcings, technology development and licensing projects, enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementations, health tech integrations, SaaS agreements and telecommunications procurements.

Weiss has also worked on multiple M&A transactions involving companies with substantial technology assets, and has served as interim general counsel to a healthcare technology business unit of a multinational industrial corporation.

Previously, Weiss was a partner and chair of the Technology Transactions practice at Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg. He is currently a member of the executive committee and past president of the International Technology Law Association, a global organization for legal professionals focused on technology and law. He earned his J.D. from Stanford Law School, and his A.B., magna cum laude, from Dartmouth College.

Tim Johnson, general counsel of Houston-based Peak Completion Technologies, was devastated when the company’s found died in a plane crash, reports the Houston Chronicle.

But things got worse when “Johnson reviewed documents showing that founder Ray Hofman had been secretly siphoning off millions and millions of company dollars to pay for his ever more extravagant lifestyle, which included buying vintage military airplanes, a $250,000 pirate ship for his backyard and a fleet of Ferraris, Bentleys and Porsches,” according to the report.

Mark Curriden of the Texas Lawbook reports on the GC’s investigation and subsequent $20 million lawsuit alleging fraud, breach of fiduciary duty and gross negligence against Hofman’s estate and the accounting firms that looked the other way.

Read the Houston Chronicle article.

Texas prosecutors have dropped the lone felony charge against a Houston attorney from a prominent law firm who had been accused of abandoning injured colleagues after he crashed his boat into land on an Austin-area lake last year, reports the Austin American-Statesman.

The Statesman‘s Ryan Autullo gives the backstory:

Douglas E. McWilliams, a partner in the Vinson & Elkins’ mergers and acquisitions division, has said he told passengers he was leaving to get help for two women who had suffered serious injuries. But when McWilliams didn’t return and disappeared for almost five hours, authorities feared he might have been in the water and began a search that included 16 law enforcement officers and the use of an Austin police helicopter.

An investigator alleged that McWilliams, 49, had been seen drinking at a dinner party before the wreck and charged him with leaving the scene, but prosecutors never presented the case to a grand jury for a possible indictment and on Tuesday formally dismissed the charge.

Read the American-Statesman article.

A recent Texas ruling illustrates the problems that can arise when parties to a joint operating agreement elect to have a non-owner serve as the operator, points out Austin Brister in the McGinnis Lochridge Oil and Gas Law Digest.

The court was called on to determine whether an elected unit operator is permitted to delegate operatorship duties to a contract operator, and whether that contract operator can be liable to nonoperators for breach of any duties imposed on the operator under that unit operating agreement.

PBJV was designated as unit operator, but then PBJV entered into a contract with Apache to perform a number of duties.

The court concluded that Apache was merely delegated duties, based on its observations that PBJV never actually named or designated Apache as the “Unit Operator,” but instead entered into a “Contract Services Agreement” and power of attorney with Apache under which PBJV contractually delegated certain operator duties to Apache.

Read the article.

Eric D. Mulligan of Hudson Cook, LLP writes about a case that illustrates the importance of drafting a contract that will avoid questions of interpretation by making the terms clear and apparent from the face of the text.

The case involves the default on a mobile home retail installment contract. The purchaser returned the home to the vendor with $40,000 left on the contract. Then the company sold the home for $53,000 and did not return the surplus to the buyer.

The Montana Supreme Court found that the terms of the release did not end the parties’ debtor-creditor relationship, and the purchaser was allowed to retain a surplus.

Read the article.

When considering employment by a hospital or health system, physicians should be mindful of various provisions that are often contained in physician employment agreements and how these provisions may impact the physician’s professional practice and personal life, advises McBrayer PLLC.

Christopher J. Shaughnessy discusses some important issues to consider when evaluating whether to enter into an employment agreement with a hospital or health system.

The article covers issues such as compensation, call coverage requirements, professional liability insurance coverage and “tail coverage,” and non-compete clauses.

Read the article.

Greenberg Traurig offers a wide-ranging discussion of commercial contracts in a post on the Lexology website.

Using a question-and-answer format, the post covers such commercial contract topics as: contract formation, statutory controls and implied terms, limiting liability, payment terms, termination, subcontracting and assignment and third-party rights, disputes, and remedies.

Read the article.

Amanda Garza of Porter Hedges, writing in the firm’s Texas Construction Law blog, explains the use of a “call-back warranty.”

“A call-back warranty establishes a period of time after the substantial completion of a project within which an owner can call upon a contractor to correct nonconforming work. The length of the ‘call-back period’ is typically one year but is ultimately determined by the language in the call-back warranty.”

She explains that the rights and obligations expire at the end of the call-back period, which can lead to some confusion about the effect on other warranties in the contract.

Read the article.

The University of California at Berkeley School of Law will present a Berkeley Boosts webinar, “When Icahn Comes Knocking,” to explore best practices and recent developments in shareholder activism.

The free one-hour webinar will be May 29, 2019, 10 a.m. Pacific time.

Speakers will be Kenton King and Thomas Ivey of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP.

Register for the webinar.

Reuters is reporting that a group of U.S. state attorneys general are investigating Expedia Group and hotel chains like Hyatt Hotels Corp and Marriott International Inc for alleged violations of antitrust law in online travel booking, according to a court filing.

“The filing in a state court in Utah relates to a dispute originally filed in Texas in which Travelpass accused the hotel chains last year of agreeing with each other, and with online travel groups like Expedia, to not advertise to consumers who searched for another company’s hotel,” according to the report.

Court documents name the hotel chains Hyatt, Marriott, Caesars Entertainment Corp and Choice Hotels International Inc.

Read the Reuters article.

Financial Advisor reports that a Nevada man has settled charges with the SEC that he took inside information while a guest at the home of a longtime friend — Cintas Corp.’s general counsel — and used it to generate $250,000 in illegal profits.

The SEC’s complaint in the U.S. Southern District of Florida alleges that Brian Fettner, 51, of Henderson, Nev., “surreptiously viewed documents contemplating an acquisition of G&K Services Inc. by Cintas [Corp.]” while changing his golf shoes in the den of a longtime friend who was also the general counsel of Cintas.

Raymond Fazzi of Financial Advisor writes:

Without telling his friend, whom he attended middle school and high school with as a child, Fettner then started purchasing G&K Services stock that very same day on his mobile phone, as he played golf with his friend, the SEC said. He continued buying G&K stocks in the brokerage accounts of his ex-wife and a former girlfriend, and persuaded his father and another girlfriend to purchase G&K shares, the SEC said

Read the Financial Advisor article.

A scammer targeting timeshare owners desperate to sell their properties stole the identity of a Florida lawyer to further his scheme, reports the ABA Journal.

The scammer would call people who had placed ads to sell their timeshares and tell them their property could be sold if they forwarded closing costs to the lawyer, David Eaton.

Eaton learned of the scam when the Florida Bar contacted him, according to a Tampa Bay Times article. The Bar told him that a woman had complained that  she sent money to someone who claimed to be David Eaton. The bar concluded that Eaton’s identity had been stolen and called Eaton as a courtesy to let him know.

Read the ABA Journal article.

Orano USA announced the appointment of Michael Woods as its new general counsel, effective April 15, 2019.

Prior to joining Orano, Woods served as general counsel for Sol Systems, a solar energy finance and development firm based in Washington, DC; was a partner in the Energy and Corporate practice groups in the Washington, DC office of Kirkland & Ellis; and worked as an attorney in the Office of the General Counsel at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Woods is admitted to the Bars of the District of Columbia and the State of Georgia. He earned his J.D. with honors (Order of the Coif) from Emory University School of Law in Atlanta, Georgia. At the University of Florida, Woods graduated with a B.S. in Business Administration, Finance, and with a B.A. in Spanish.

Woods is based at the Orano USA corporate office in Washington, DC.

Orano USA is a technology and services provider for used nuclear fuel management, decommissioning shutdown nuclear energy facilities, federal site cleanup and closure, and the sale of uranium, conversion, and enrichment services to the U.S. commercial and federal markets. Orano Med is developing targeted alpha therapy to fight cancer.

Phillip Oldham

Thompson & Knight LLP has named two veteran attorneys as leaders of the firm’s offices in Dallas and Austin, the firm said in a release.

Phillip G. Oldham will now lead the Austin office of the firm, while Bruce S. Sostek will serve as office leader of the firm’s Dallas office. The two join six other office leaders for the firm in Algiers, Fort Worth, Houston, Mexico City, Monterrey, and New York City.

Bruce Sostek

The firm said Sostek focuses his practice on intellectual property, technology, and commercial litigation in federal courts throughout the nation, at the International Trade Commission, and at the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. He also counsels clients on the identification, valuation, licensing, and litigation of intellectual property assets to achieve strategic business objectives. He is a member of the American College of Trial Lawyers and was named the Dallas Litigation-Patent “Lawyer of the Year” in 2017 and 2013 by The Best Lawyers in America, among numerous other honors.

Oldham practices federal and state energy regulatory and administrative law, and in transactional matters involving energy projects, energy markets, and related industries such as chemical manufacturing. He has been honored among the nation’s top attorneys by The Best Lawyers in America, Chambers USA, and The Legal 500.

Sonia A. Kaczmarzyk has joined Farrell Fritz its Uniondale office as a commercial litigation associate.

She is a Long Island, NY, resident. Prior to joining Farrell Fritz, she was an assistant district attorney in the Queens County District Attorney’s Office.

Kaczmarzyk earned her J.D. from St. John’s University School of Law and her B.A., cum laude, from Stony Brook University. She is admitted to the New York bar.