Marshall, Gerstein & Borun LLP announced the addition of Mark J. Levin as Chief Marketing & Business Development Officer.

Most recently, Levin co-founded and served as general manager of The Right Profile, a company that provides talent assessment, management, and development services for law firms, law schools, and sports teams through its AttorneyAssessment and AthleteTypes offerings.

“We are thrilled to bring on someone of Mark’s stature to lead our marketing and business development efforts,” said firm managing partner Jeffrey S. Sharp. “He is well-respected in the legal community and comes with an impressive track record of excellence in the development and implementation of market-leading branding and business development initiatives,” added Sharp.

Levin earned his MBA at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, and his JD at the Chicago-Kent College of Law. He has been in the legal industry in various capacities since 1995, working as an executive at Thomson Reuters and as a business development coach at Akina (now GrowthPlay) before becoming the head of Business Development and Marketing at Levenfeld Pearlstein, and then at Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg.

“I am excited to join Marshall Gerstein, one of the nation’s leading intellectual property firms,” said Levin. “I look forward to working with this immensely talented team to build on its successes and help guide strategic initiatives that serve its needs both now and well into the future,” he added.

Above the Law reports that a former partner at Locke Lord and founder/CEO of MSS International Consultants Ltd., a private equity fund headquartered in the British Virgin Islands, was arrested on a charge of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

According to the indictment, Mark S. Scott was part of a conspiracy to conceal the source of $400 million in process from an alleged pyramid scheme involving a purported cryptocurrency, OneCoin. Prosecutors allege he transferred money in and out of the country in order to hide the origins of the money, reports Above the Law editor Kathryn Rubino.

A judge set Scott’s bail at $1 million, secured by $200,000 cash, and placed Scott on home detention with an electronic monitoring device.

Read the Above the Law article.

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USA Today reports that a class-action lawsuit was filed Monday against IBM on behalf of three former employees alleging age discrimination.

Reporter Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy explains: “The lawsuit alleges that the plaintiffs are among thousands of IBM employees to be laid off recently as the result of a shift in IBM’s focus to recruit millennials ‘in order to make the face of IBM younger, while at the same time pushing out older employees.'”

“IBM has discriminated, and continues to discriminate, against its older workers, both by laying them off disproportionately to younger workers and by not hiring them for open positions,” the lawsuit alleges.

The three name plaintiffs are 55, 59 and 67, and have worked for IBM for periods ranging from 15 to 34 years.

Read the USA Today article.

A former partner at Manatt has filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing, on behalf of herself and those similarly situated alleging gender discrimination and retaliation at the Biglaw firm, reports Above the Law.

Rebecca Torrey’s filing details allegations of a “boys’ club” an environment that weighs “heavily in the favor of male partners.”

Torrey also alleges the compensation structure for partners is dictated by a group hand-selected by outgoing firm managing partner, William Quicksilver, and who rarely challenge his recommendations.

Read the Above the Law article.

Lawrence J. West and Joshua W. Mermis, co-founders of the Houston-based litigation boutique West Mermis PLLC, have both been named to the 2019 listing of The Best Lawyers in America as well as the 2018 listing of Super Lawyers by Thomson Reuters.

West and Mermis have been recognized for two consecutive years by Best Lawyers for their work in construction litigation.

In addition to this year’s Super Lawyers recognition, West has been named to the Texas Super Lawyers list each year since 2014.

Mermis was first recognized in 2017, after earning appearances on the companion Texas Rising Stars list from 2010-2011 and again from 2014-2016.

Read about the awards.

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A federal appeals court has upheld a federal judge’s decision to deny as “grossly excessive” a request for more than $900,000 in attorney fees based on a $100,000 punitive award, reports the ABA Journal.

The Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, found that, when a request under a fee-shifting statute is “outrageously excessive,” a judge may deny the award altogether if the statute gives the judge discretion in awarding fees.

Journal reporter Debra Cassens Weiss explains:

Lawyers seeking the fees had admittedly tasked one lawyer with recreating time records that included vague descriptions and excessive hours, the appeals court said. Sixty-four hours were billed for “transcripts/clips” and 562 hours were billed to prepare for a week-long trial. There were only five witnesses for both sides.

Read the ABA Journal article.

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Reuters is reporting that Citigroup Inc. on Friday was ordered to pay more than $12 million by U.S. regulators after it was found that the bank’s investment banking and financial advisory unit misled users of a “dark pool” operated by one of its affiliates.

The article explains:

The bank will pay a penalty of $6.5 million and disgorgement and prejudgment interest totaling $5.4 million, while its affiliate, Citi Order Routing and Execution (CORE), will pay a penalty of $1 million, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said in a statement.

Read the Reuters article.

Hilarie Bass, co-president of the powerhouse Miami legal firm Greenberg Traurig, will step down from her position to start an organization that will address issues critical to women and minorities, she and the firm jointly announced Wednesday.

She will leave at the end of 2018, reports the Miami Herald.

Bass will found the Bass Institute on Diversity and Inclusion. The nonprofit aims to advance gender parity across industries and develop new policies for employers to make the workplace more hospitable to diverse employees, according to reporter Dylan Jackson.

Read the Miami Herald‘s article.

Attorney Michael Lyons, co-founder of the Texas-based trial firm Deans & Lyons, has been selected among Dallas-Fort Worth’s Top 100 attorneys in the 2018 edition of the Texas Super Lawyers legal guide.

The Top 100 list recognizes the DFW region’s leading attorneys regardless of practice focus. In addition to this distinction, Lyons earned selection among The Best Lawyers in America for 2019. He has also been recognized among the top “high stakes” trial lawyers in the state as a member of both the Million Dollar and Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forums, as well as a member of America’s Top 100 Attorneys for Texas Lifetime Achievement. In 2017, he was named among America’s Top 100 High Stakes Litigators for North Texas.

Also earning 2018 Texas Super Lawyers honors were firm co-founder Greg Deans for his products liability and mass tort work and partner Katie Stepp for her general litigation practice.

Earlier this year, three of the firm’s lawyers were selected to the companion Rising Stars list of the top young attorneys in the state. Partners Chris Simmons and Courtney Bowline were recognized along with associate Lana Beverly for their outstanding work on both personal injury and commercial litigation matters.

Read details about the honors.

Attacks on judicial independence are becoming more frequent and more partisan, according to a Governing report.

Reporter Alan Greenblatt explains, that “while ‘threats of this nature have been going on for years,’ says William Raftery of the National Center for State Courts, articles of impeachment are now being filed more often and for more reasons. Over the past decade or so, judges have become targets of criticism not only from politicians but cable talk-show hosts. In the past, grounds for impeachment have typically been treason, high crimes or malfeasance. That’s changing. These days, lawmakers’ partisan disapproval of rulings appears to be a strong motivator for ousting judges.”

Read the Governing report.

A federal judge in Seattle has ordered the law firms of Baker Donelson and Corr Cronin to pay $500 each for trying to use an apparent misunderstanding as a litigation “weapon,” reports the ABA Journal.

The judge said the law firms had filed a frivolous motion for partial summary judgment that claimed their opponent, software maker Medstreaming, missed a discovery deadline by responding to a request for admissions by email.

Baker Donelson and Corr Cronin had claimed that a request for admissions that the defendant’s software performed improperly was automatically deemed admitted because the response was improperly served via email. Those “admissions,” they claimed, entitled the plaintiffs to a ruling on their breach of contract claims.

The judge said the plaintiffs’ lawyers had tried “to use as a weapon in this litigation whatever misunderstanding occurred regarding how discovery requests and/or responses would be exchanged.”

Read the ABA Journal article.

Bloomberg is reporting that Gerson Zweifach, the lawyer who guided billionaire Rupert Murdoch and his family through the British phone-hacking scandal, will step down as general counsel of 21st Century Fox Inc. once the media company completes its $71 billion asset sale to Walt Disney Co.

Zweifach, who has worked Murdoch since since 2012, will return to Williams & Connolly after the deal closes in the first half of 2019, Fox said in a statement Thursday.

“Zweifach saw the company through several challenges, including a sex-harassment scandal at Fox News, an unsuccessful bid for Time Warner Inc. and now the company’s breakup in a sale to Disney,” writes reporter Anousha Sakoui.

Read the Bloomberg article.

Trial lawyer David Bissinger, a founder of Houston-based Bissinger, Oshman & Williams LLP, has been selected for a 12th consecutive year to the Texas Super Lawyers list.

Bissinger was recognized in the annual legal guide for his work involving complex commercial disputes. The honor is particularly significant, he said, given the number of exceptional litigators practicing in Texas. “The scope, complexity, and magnitude of business in Texas attracts the best lawyers in the world. To continue to be chosen among this elite group of advocates is a true honor.”

In a news release, the firm said Bissinger’s practice focuses on representing clients involved in securities and commercial fiduciary litigation, energy and technology matters, and executive compensation, banking, and real estate. He has first-chair jury trial and complex commercial arbitration experience for both plaintiffs and defendants. He also routinely represents businesses and individuals in internal and government investigations. He has served as an arbitrator in disputes before the American Arbitration Association (AAA), the International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR), and the Financial Industry Regulatory Association (FINRA).

A frequent writer and speaker on legal issues, he has written extensively on commercial trial advocacy in a world of digital evidence and vanishing jury trials. Most recently, he has written on courtroom psychology, trial tactics, and controlling trial costs. For example, he shared his tips for keeping jurors engaged during trial in an Aug. 8, 2018, Texas Lawyer commentary, “Want to Improve Your Trial Skills? Be Cognizant of the Clock.”

“Lawyers today come to court with evidence in dozens of boxes or gigabytes of hard drive space. They often forget that their audience – whether judges, jurors, or even seasoned commercial arbitrators – need to see the big picture before they can absorb the details that the lawyers have spent months or years collecting. A major aspect of what I do for my clients involves eliminating unnecessary details from a case whenever possible and to lay bare the core decisions that the judges, jurors, or arbitrators must make.”

A former chairman of the Houston Bar Association’s Securities Litigation and Arbitration Section, Bissinger is AV-rated “Preeminent” by Martindale-Hubbell, the organization’s highest peer rating for legal skills and ethics. He earned his law degree from Vanderbilt Law School and his undergraduate degree from the University of Iowa.

Texas Super Lawyers is published annually by Thomson Reuters in Texas Monthly and Super Lawyers magazines. Selection is based on a statewide survey of lawyers and extensive editorial review. For more information, visit http://www.superlawyers.com.

Edward S. Sledge IV, a partner in Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP’s Birmingham office, has been appointed to the board of directors of the International Association of Defense Counsel (IADC) Foundation. His term runs until February 2020.

“We are proud of Ed’s ongoing service to the legal industry and community, and we congratulate him on his appointment to the board of the International Association of Defense Counsel Foundation,” said Bradley Birmingham Office Managing Partner Dawn Helms Sharff.

A member of Bradley’s Litigation Practice Group, Sledge represents businesses, including private equity groups, product manufacturers and financial services institutions, in high-exposure civil disputes in a variety of industries, the firm said in a release. His national practice focuses on complex business and commercial litigation in courts across the country. In addition, he routinely represents businesses in consumer finance disputes and in personal injury and wrongful death matters.

Sledge received his J.D. from the University of Alabama School of Law and his Bachelor of Science from the United States Military Academy.

Founded in 1920, the IADC is the preeminent invitation-only global legal organization for attorneys who represent corporate and insurance interests. The mission of the IADC’s Foundation is to support the rule of law and access for all to a fair and just legal system through education and research, strategic partnerships, and relevant projects.

Minimum volume commitment contracts (MVCs), often referred to as throughput agreements, are agreements under which a shipper or producer—a counterparty—undertakes to transport an agreed minimum volume of a commodity such as natural gas, NGL or crude oil through a third-party operator’s assets, such as pipelines or processing plants, over a specified period, explains a post on the website of Opportune.

“In the midstream industry, these contracts are typically utilized to enable the operator to recoup the costs of constructing infrastructure, such as a processing plant or pipeline lateral, for the benefit of the counterparty. Under these agreements a counterparty pays a shortfall or deficiency fee if the MVC is not met for a specified period—monthly, quarterly or annually,” the authors write.

Read the article.

It’s an unfortunate fact that many construction projects end in disputes, driving the parties into some form of dispute resolution, writes Jason T. Strickland, a litigator with Ward and Smith.

Many of these construction disputes are resolved through arbitration, he writes in a web post.

His article explains how arbitration is different, the major differences between arbitration and lawsuits, court involvement in the arbitration process, avoiding unfavorable local law, and third-party administration of arbitration.

Read the article.

Can an unsigned contract still be a contract? The answer is yes, for statute of limitations purposes, says the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, according to Stephen M. Proctor in a post for Masuda, Funai, Eifert & Mitchell.

On this basis, he writes, it permitted a Chicago law firm to pursue a claim of unpaid fees against a foreign company and its U.S. subsidiary.

The court’s ruling quoted prior cases: “A contract is deemed written for these purposes ‘if parties are identified and all the essential terms are in writing and ascertainable from the instrument itself.’”

Read the article.

The battle between the White House and Omarosa Manigault over the scope of her disclosures brings the issue of Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA), and their efficacy and enforceability to the forefront, points out a blog post for Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel.

“Employers frequently seek to use NDAs as a sword once the employment relationship is broken or a termination takes place,” writes Dove A.E. Burns. “However, employers often require such agreements in order to broadly limit disclosure far beyond what is legally enforceable. Reaching in this manner can lead to legal liability, nullification and an ethical quagmire.”

Her article discusses the law regarding NDAs for government employees and for non=government employees.

Read the article.

Exterro has posted an online quiz to quickly find out how mature an e-discovery process is when compared to EDRM Duke Law’s e-discovery maturity scale. The complimentary quiz takes about 10 minutes to complete.

The quiz consists of 20 multiple choice questions based on best practices ranging across the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) from information governance through matter closing.

It will help participants:

• Understand your organization’s e-discovery maturity
• Improve your in-house e-discovery process
• Learn more about what mature e-discovery operations look like

Take the quiz.

Rebecca “Becky” Wood, former chief counsel to the Food and Drug Administration, has rejoined Sidley Austin LLP as a partner.

The firm announced Wood will co-lead both the firm’s Food, Drug, and Medical Device Regulatory practice and its FDA group in Washington with partner Coleen Klasmeier.

Wood previously served as Chief Counsel to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Associate General Counsel in the Office of the General Counsel, Department of Health & Human Services. She will focus her practice on providing counsel on a wide range of contentious and non-contentious FDA regulatory and litigation issues to clients in the life sciences industry and private equity firms investing in the area.

In her role as Chief Counsel to the FDA, Wood served on Commissioner Scott Gottlieb’s leadership team. She was the principal legal advisor on major initiatives, including efforts to streamline the drug and device development and approval process, modernize the agency’s regulatory framework, combat addiction to opioids and nicotine, enhance the product safety and labeling of food and medical products, and address drug pricing. She served as a liaison to the Department of Justice and the White House and advised agency leadership on legislative matters. She also focused on First Amendment and preemption issues.

“We are delighted that Becky is rejoining us,” said Klasmeier. “Regulatory insight is at the core of our life sciences practice. Based on both her long experience in the industry and her role as the lead legal advisor to the FDA during a transformational period, Becky will enhance our ability to offer deep strategic insight into the complex regulatory issues facing our clients and to defend our clients’ conduct when challenged. Becky’s perspective on the rapidly changing regulatory environment is unique.”

Prior to joining the FDA in 2017, Wood served as a partner at Sidley for more than a decade. She focused her practice on district court and appellate litigation arising under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and the United States Constitution, including managing class actions and multi-plaintiff cases. Earlier in her career, she served as a law clerk to Judge Pasco M. Bowman II of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

“Becky is an extraordinarily accomplished litigator,” said Mark Hopson, global co-chair of Sidley’s litigation practice and managing partner of the Washington, D.C. office. “The intersection of her premier regulatory and litigation practices will greatly bolster the firm’s capabilities to help clients across a wide spectrum of legal areas.”