As the number of vendors that businesses engage with rises, so does the need for a greater contractual understanding of vendor agreements among businesses, CIOs, IT departments, and general counsels alike, according to a post on the Biztech Law Blog of Foster Swift Collins & Smith.

Katila Howard warns that, while many of the underlying contractual principals remain the same, overlooking the differences can be costly.

In her article, she discusses the considerations of security and privacy, limitation of liability, access to data, privacy, service levels, and subcontractors.

Read the article.

Yale Law School
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Above the Law has posted a leaked preview of U.S. News & World Report‘s U.S. law school rankings, from Yale University at number one to a six-way tie for spot number 74.

“The biggest winners here were Pepperdine, Denver, Miami, and Villanova, each gaining 12 places in the rankings,” writes Staci Zaretsky. “The biggest losers in this segment of the rankings were Utah and Rutgers, with 10- and 12-spot drops, respectively.”

Rounding out the top five, behind Yale, are Stanford, Harvard, University of Chicago, and Columbia.

The University of California-Berkeley cracked the top 10 by moving up three spots from last year’s list.

Read the Above the Law article.

Walmart Inc. was sued on Thursday by a former executive who accused the world’s largest retailer of issuing misleading e-commerce results, amid growing pressure from Amazon.com Inc,, and firing him for complaining about it, reports Reuters.

In his complaint, former director of business development Tri Huynh alleges various wrongdoing, including the mislabeling of products, enabling Walmart to charge excessive sales commissions, and failure to properly process customer returns, enabling it to boost results, according to the report by Jonathan Stempel and Nandita Bose.

“Wal-Mart cut corners and cheated in a race to expand and gain market-share,” having been “desperate to gain the ground it had long lost to Amazon,” Huynh said in his complaint filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

Walmart called Huynh a disgruntled former employee who was let go during a restructuring.

Read the Reuters article.

The Oregon Supreme Court on Thursday took the unusual step of suspending a sitting state court judge — Vance Day of Salem — for three years, reports The Oregonian.

The court found that the Marion County Circuit Court committed “willful misconduct” and made “willful misstatements” to investigators to cover up the truth, according to reporter Aimee Green.

The court also found that Day acted with prejudice against same-sex couples by deciding he wouldn’t marry them and he instructed his staff to employ a scheme to avoid “public detection” of his plan, the Supreme Court said.

Read The Oregonian article.

A Dallas judge has rejected an attempt by Toyota to seal documents describing the automaker’s history of withholding information about its defective and dangerous products in connection with consumer lawsuits, often involving injured victims, according to a post on the website of  Androvett Legal Media and Marketing.

In his March 5 ruling, state District Court Judge Dale Tillery said that it is in the public interest to keep such documents open for review because they detail issues involving public health and safety. In a separate ruling, Judge Tillery ordered Toyota to make a representative available to describe how the company manages and stores databases of hundreds of thousands of documents that may contain information about safety and design issues of Toyota products.

Attorneys from The Law Offices of Frank L. Branson obtained the records as part of a lawsuit on behalf of a Dallas family whose two children were seriously injured in 2016 when seatbacks in their Lexus ES300 failed during a rear-end collision.

“The implications of this ruling go far beyond our case,” said Branson. “Toyota has a track record of not producing information in American courts.”

The judge’s order also applies to internal correspondence from a former Toyota corporate lawyer who complained that the automaker routinely refused to comply with information requests from lawyers in product defect cases. The Androvett post says in-house lawyer Dimitrios Biller left Toyota in 2007, citing his objections to Toyota’s lack of transparency and its efforts to avoid releasing proprietary internal documents to plaintiffs in injury lawsuits. Biller’s correspondence specifically describes Toyota’s efforts to settle injury lawsuits rather than turn over a safety database known within Toyota as the “Books of Knowledge.”

The case is Reavis et al. v. Toyota Motor Sales USA et al., Cause No. DC-16-15296.

Branson, who represents the Reavis family along with Branson firm attorneys Chip Brooker and Eric Stahl, said the public deserves access to court files, particularly when the records document safety and design issues.

Akerman LLP announced it has expanded its corporate, finance and private equity practice with the addition of corporate finance partner Robert J. Stein in New York.

Previously a partner in the debt finance group of an international law firm, Stein joins Akerman as the co-chair of its Corporate Finance and Lending Practice.

“Robby is a well-respected and exceptionally talented finance lawyer, whose extensive experience will deepen our strength in effectively and rapidly closing private equity and other corporate transactions while effectively mitigating risk,” said Carl Roston, co-chair of Akerman’s Corporate Practice Group. “Robby’s practice is a perfect complement to our growing corporate group and his addition further advances our capabilities in serving sophisticated private equity and other corporate clients nationwide.”

In a release, the firm said Stein focuses primarily on acquisition and other leveraged financing transactions for private equity sponsors, their portfolio companies, and other public and private companies. His recent work has included representing sponsor-backed clients in a wide array of sectors, including business services, consumer, healthcare, industrials, manufacturing, restaurants, software-as-a-service (SaaS) and other technology sectors and travel.

“Robby is an adept practitioner with the energy, vision and skills to co-chair our Corporate Finance and Lending Practice,” said Jonathan Awner, co-chair of Akerman’s Corporate Practice Group. “We are confident he will contribute to the growth and diversification of our practice and will help us continue to distinguish ourselves in corporate, M&A, finance and private equity work.”

Stein holds a J.D. from Columbia Law School, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and executive editor of the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law, and a B.A. from the University of Michigan.

Actuate Law LLC co-founding partners Martin Tully, left, Phil Tortorich, Dara Tarkowski, Doug Albritton and Charles Chejfec.

Five lawyers have  formed Chicago-based  boutique Actuate Law LLC, the new firm announced in a release.

“Actuate Law offers Big Law-caliber talent while proactively identifying innovative legal solutions for our clients, free from the restrictions of the traditional law firm model,” said Martin Tully, one of Actuate Law’s five founding partners. “Like the clients we serve, we constantly work toward achieving the triad of better, faster, and less costly. In that sense, we relish showing our clients why we are definitely not your grandfather’s law firm.”

In a release, the firm said members of the firm have experience in litigation, transactional and compliance services for businesses and individuals. Actuate Law’s primary practice areas include commercial litigation, class action defense, data security & privacy, electronic discovery, financial services, information governance, private client services/trusts & estates, white-collar investigations and litigation, and trade secret and non-compete litigation, the firm said.

“We chose the name Actuate Law to indicate our philosophy of moving our clients’ business goals to action and also to motivate needed change in the legal industry,” said Dara Tarkowski, co-founding partner of the firm. “As a ‘future-forward’ firm, we are primed to embrace the new technologies and innovative artificial intelligence approaches that are rapidly changing the marketplace. Our customized approach to legal services is decidedly different and evolved compared to the majority of Big Law firms.”

Actuate Law’s leadership includes co-founding partners:

Doug Albritton represents plaintiffs and defendants in commercial disputes throughout the country. A portion of his practice involves the prosecution and defense of trade secret and restrictive covenant cases, helping employers and employees navigate the myriad jurisdictional, legal and strategic issues in industries including accounting, software, healthcare, shipping logistics, natural resources, food, manufacturing, biotechnology and service contracts, among others. Albritton also has recovered more than $50 million through settlements and trial verdicts for plaintiffs. Previously with Akerman LLP, he received his J.D. (magna cum laude) from the University of Illinois College of Law and his Bachelor of Science (cum laude) from Illinois State University.

Charles Chejfec concentrates his practice in the area of healthcare fraud, representing private and government insurers that have been victims of large-scale fraud schemes. He has successfully tried to verdict and arbitrated claims involving medically unnecessary services, kickbacks, self-referrals and licensure violations. He has handled cases involving intellectual property, contract, fiduciary duty, tax, class action, non-compete and bankruptcy-related matters, among others. Previously with Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, Mr. Chejfec received his J.D. from The John Marshall Law School and his Bachelor of Science from the University of Wisconsin—Madison.

Dara Tarkowski focuses her practice on complex litigation and consumer finance law, representing creditors in a range of litigation and regulatory matters. She serves as outside general counsel for a national debt buyer and collection agency. Tarkowski represents clients in matters pertaining to the FDCPA, FCRA and TCPA, as well as securities laws, state unfair and deceptive trade practices laws, state consumer protection laws, state licensing requirements, and state regulatory advocacy. Previously with Akerman LLP, she received her J.D. (cum laude) from Loyola University and her Bachelor of Science from Northwestern University.

Phil Tortorich concentrates his practice in the areas of taxes and estate planning, primarily representing ultra-high net worth individuals and their closely-held corporate groups and family offices (single and multi-family). In addition, he handlesplanning for captive insurance companies from concept and design to implementation, administration and ultimately winding down of the structure. Previously with Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, Tortorich received his J.D. (cum laude) from Loyola University Chicago School of Law and his Bachelor of Science from Loyola University.

Martin Tully has more than 25 years of national experience representing companies and individuals in complex commercial litigation concerning a broad array of fields and industries. Previously with Akerman LLP, he has experience in the fields of electronic discovery, information governance, and data security/data privacy. Tully is a Steering Committee member for The Sedona Conference Working Group 1 (Electronic Discovery Retention and Production). He also currently serves as the mayor of the Village of Downers Grove, Ill, a suburb of Chicago. He received his J.D. (cum laude) from DePaul University College of Law and his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Actuate Law currently is located at 901 West Jackson Blvd., Suite 204, in Chicago’s West Loop area. The firm soon will move to its permanent home in the Fulton Market area of Chicago.

The firm recently added three lawyers: Jeffrey Hansen, previously with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois; Andrea Halverson, previously with Vedder Price P.C.; and Lauren Cooper, previously with Akerman LLP, have each joined the firm.

Trial lawyer Courtney Ervin has joined commercial litigation boutique Hicks Thomas LLP, the firm announced.

“Courtney is a highly skilled and effective trial lawyer” said Hicks Thomas co-founder John B. Thomas. “She is an exceptional advocate and has great instincts. Her addition enhances our diversity and positions us to serve our client needs well into the future.”

Ervin was profiled as one of the leading energy litigation lawyers in the U.S. in 2016 by The Legal 500 and has repeatedly earned a place on the Texas Rising Stars list recognizing up-and-coming lawyers, the firm said in a release.

She earned her law degree from the University of Houston Law Center, magna cum laude, and her bachelor’s degree from Colorado State University.

Read details of the announcement.

Monica B. Wilkinson, a member in Dykema’s Detroit office, has been appointed leader of the firm’s Health Care Practice Group. She takes over for Maria Abrahamsen, who held the role for the previous six years.

Wilkinson has more than 30 years of professional experience in health care working with hospitals, physicians, managed care organizations, and nonprofit foundations. She has led cross-functional teams of legal, regulatory, compliance, operations and development professionals. Prior to joining Dykema in 2013, Wilkinson served as Senior Vice President, Assistant General Counsel and Assistant Secretary at the Detroit Medical Center, a multi-hospital academic medical center in Southeast Michigan.

Wilkinson focuses her practice on regulatory and compliance matters, complex contracting issues, medical staff matters, research, and patient care issues. She works with hospital systems, physicians, and a variety of post-acute providers.

Wilkinson is a member of the American Health Lawyers Association and the State Bar of Michigan Health Care Law Section, where she served as Chair in 2010-11. She also sat on the Legal and Operational Policy Committee of the Federation of American Hospitals.

Wilkinson received a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and a B.A. from Michigan State University.

Nicholas (Nick) T. Terzulli, former Director of Business Development at the Nassau County Industrial Development Agency (NCIDA), has joined Farrell Fritz as a real estate associate focused on economic development. Hek will advise companies and nonprofit organizations on a range of tax incentive programs and tax-exempt financings.

“We are pleased to announce that Nick has joined the firm,” said Robert C. Creighton, managing partner. “Nick is a leading young economic development professional in New York State and is highly respected in the private sector, government and media. Our clients will benefit from his creativity and experience in finding and securing tax incentives and benefits.”

In a release, the firm said Terzulli joined the NCIDA in July 2011 as the Director of Business Development. In that role, he counseled businesses and nonprofit organizations on how to apply for and secure financial assistance. During his tenure, the NCIDA closed transactions with 243 organizations generating approximately $65 billion in economic impact for Nassau County.

As part of Nassau County’s business recovery efforts after Super Storm Sandy, Terzulli created a team of economic development first responders. The firm said this team of bankers, accountants, and business school students helped provide immediate financial relief to more than 100 storm-affected businesses, saving them more than $4 million, and technical assistance to many other businesses and organizations. Additionally, Terzulli created programs that provided economic development pathways for small and medium-sized businesses, national developers, inventors, entrepreneurs, and nonprofit organizations.

In addition to his work at the NCIDA, Terzulliis an adjunct professor at Hofstra University’s Frank G. Zarb School of Business, where he designed and teaches a course in economic development.

Terzulli serves as treasurer of the Nassau Community College Foundation Board, lector at St. Raphael’s Roman Catholic Church in East Meadow and is an active member of the Chaminade High School Alumni Association. He earned a J.D. from New York Law School and a B.A. in Political Science and Public Communication from American University in Washington, D. C.

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Before the top corporate lawyer at Uber Technologies departed last year, she sought a $100 million exit package, reports Business Insider.

Salle Yoo joined Uber as its first general counsel in 2012 and was later promoted to be its chief legal officer, leading the company’s 290-person legal department during a tumultuous time. She resigned in September 2017.

Reporter Julie Bort explains: “Yoo thought [the exit package request] only fair because she had seen male executives ask for and get huge exit packages, and she had spent her career at Uber encouraging women to lean in. So she took her own advice, opened her negotiations with [former CEO Travis] Kalanick by shooting high, and held her breath.”

She and Kalanick negotiated a compromise: less than two-thirds her original demand, but with a kicker: If Uber gave a better severance deal to another employee, it had to match the difference for Yoo.

Read the Business Insider article.

MarketWatch is reporting that General Electric Co. Chief Executive John Flannery and other top company executives received no bonuses in 2017, but the $9 million Flannery was awarded in his first year as CEO still managed to be 157 times higher than the salary of the company’s median employee.

Claudia Assis reports that GE said in a filing that Flannery’s salary was set at $2 million, plus stock options, pension and deferred compensation and other monies that took his total pay package to $9 million for the year.

“For 2017, the Compensation Committee determined that, for the first time in GE’s history, the senior leaders at GE’s headquarters — our past and present CEOs, CFOs, Vice Chairs, General Counsel and HR directors — would not receive bonuses,” the company said in its annual proxy filing. “We also zeroed out the performance share units awarded to senior leaders in 2015 even though the recipients were technically eligible for a partial payout.”

Read the MarketWatch article.

A U.S. district judge in California concluded that Morgan Lewis “plainly violated” California attorney professional conduct rules by representing “both sides of the case” in a hotel workers’ class action suit, Bloomberg Law reports.

Sheraton workers in San Francisco won class action status for their claim that their employer created a culture that encouraged staff to work through breaks without pay.

Reporter Jon Steingart writes that Judge William Alsup criticized the way lawyers from Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP obtained statements from three former employees that were used to argue against certification of the class. The same lawyers also represented the former workers in depositions conducted later.

A Morgan Lewis lawyer responded to a show cause order with an apology and a pledge that the firm wouldn’t repeat the conduct in any court.

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

Zapproved has published “Audit Trail Checklist: Set Yourself Up for Success,” a guide that presents five steps to a defensible legal hold audit process.

The guide can be downloaded from Zapproved’s website at no charge.

“Litigation is inevitable — and all too often, so are accusations of lost, destroyed or withheld evidence,” the company says on its website. “Yet many companies aren’t prepared. They may not have a clear record of when a legal hold was issued or who received it — meaning they have to scramble to put notices together when litigation arises. Out-of-date legacy systems of complicated spreadsheets or confusing email read receipts are expensive, time-consuming and risky.”

Zapproved’s audit trail checklist provides five simple steps to create a customized litigation response plan. It includes an outline of where to start, which is where discovery obligations begin, with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. It goes on to discuss tips on assessing your current approach and selecting automated, cloud-based tools based on today’s best technologies. The guide also includes suggestions on how to get a team on board.

Download the guide.

Lawyers who met in a federal courtroom in Cleveland to discuss a settlement of opioid litigation faced the difficult task of crafting a deal that will not only pay their clients — mostly towns and cities — but include states and even the federal government while spreading the cash evenly across the country, according to Forbes.

Contributor Daniel Fisher writes that most of the attendees were private lawyers who have signed contingency-fee contracts with municipal clients.

He adds that “the sheer complexity of the litigation raises questions about how the parties will craft an agreement that ends the threat of further lawsuits against the industry while distributing cash to all the varied entities who have sued.”

But the situation for the self-funded private lawyers is complicated by the involvement of state and federal claims on some of the expected settlement funds.

Read the Forbes article.

Affirming a jury verdict, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit found that ten weeks of telecommuting was a reasonable accommodation for a pregnant lawyer put on bed rest, reports Manatt Phelps & Phillips LLP.

The Manatt article explains:

Due to complications from pregnancy, in-house counsel Andrea Mosby-Meachem was put on bed rest. Pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), she requested to work from home during that period. Memphis Light, Gas & Water denied the request, taking the position that in-person attendance was an essential function of her job. Mosby-Meachem sued, and a jury awarded her $92,000 in compensatory damages on her claim of disability discrimination. The employer appealed, but the federal appellate panel upheld the verdict. The plaintiff presented sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to conclude that in-person attendance was not an essential function of her job for the ten-week period she requested to work from home, the court said.

Read the article.

A U.S. District Court has rejected motions filed by the cities of Oakland and San Francisco to remand two global warming public nuisance lawsuits filed by the cities in state court against several large energy companies, reports Anthony B. Cavender in Pillsbury’s Gavel2Gavel blog.

The companies are BP P.L.C., Chevron Corporation, ConocoPhillips Company, Exxon Mobil Corporation and Royal Dutch Shell plc). The case is The People of the State of California v. BP P.L.C., et al.

“The complaints filed by the City of Oakland and the City of San Francisco are based on the premise that, despite knowing of the risks associated with climate change and global warming, these companies continued to produce and sell their products to the public that uses fossil fuels in their day to day operations,” Cavender writes. “The complaints seek an abatement fund to pay for seawalls and other infrastructure to address rising sea levels.”

Read the article.

Troutman Sanders will host a complimentary webinar that will cover the legal landscape surrounding data based products. The event will be Thursday, March 22, 2018, 3-4 p.m. Eastern time.

“In the last few years, the right to privacy has been hotly debated in the United States. What critics do not understand or appreciate is that the next technological paradigm is completely dependent on improvements both to the quality and quantity of data,” the firm says on its website.

Webinar speakers will cover the ongoing evolution of the legal landscape for data-based products, so that organizations can continue to succeed in their development of data-based products.

Register for the webinar.

The U.S. Supreme Court has granted certiorari in New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira, which should provide guidance as to the circumstances in which the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) applies to interstate transportation workers who are purported independent contractors, according to the Transportation Blog of Holland & Knight.

“The case will be important for in-house and private transactional attorneys who draft contracts with transportation sector independent contractors, as well as litigators handling employee misclassification cases,” the article’s authors write.

They explain: “Over the past several years, a spate of class action litigation has targeted the long-standing use of owner-operator truck drivers as independent contractors, with drivers claiming that they should be classified as employees. The contract between the motor carrier and the driver often contains an arbitration clause, but drivers typically file these cases in court, leading to a fight over the proper forum.”

Read the article.

Maria Isabel (Marie) Manley has joined Sidley Austin LLP in London as a partner in its global Life Sciences practice. She will lead the Life Sciences team in London. Manley joins Sidley from Bristows LLP, where she was the leader of its Life Sciences regulatory department.

Manley works in EU life sciences law. In a release, the firm said Manley represents development-stage, specialty and established global life sciences companies, and concentrates her practices on both European and UK life sciences regulatory law. She has experience on issues arising during the life cycle of medicinal products, including advertising, product liability and competition. Manley also advises clients in the chemical, medical devices, cosmetics and food sectors, and has represented clients in proceedings before both national and European courts and the regulatory agencies in the UK and across Europe, the firm said.

“Marie’s arrival signals our ongoing commitment to global life sciences and the London market,” said Matthew Dening, managing partner of Sidley’s London office. “Marie’s deep understanding of the EU and UK regulatory climates and her extensive experience in contentious proceedings will enhance our offering to life sciences clients. We are pleased to announce that she’s chosen to join Sidley.”

“I am delighted to join Sidley, a global firm with a well-established reputation in the life sciences sector,” said Manley. “It provides a new and exciting platform to grow and develop my practice and assist my clients in a globalized world where bio/pharma companies are facing multiple cross-border challenges in which consistency of approach in all key jurisdictions is paramount.”