DLA Piper announced that Adam Ghander has joined the firm’s Corporate practice as a partner in Boston.

Ghander focuses his practice on mergers and acquisitions, private equity and early stage investment, securities, and corporate governance matters. He works extensively with middle market and emerging companies in industries that include manufacturing, technology and e-commerce, banking and financial services, and food and beverage. Ghander also represents various strategic, venture capital, growth equity and private equity investors in connection with equity or debt investments as well as in connection with sponsor-led M&A transactions.

“Adam will be a tremendous resource for our clients, as his experience and capabilities will greatly serve their transactional needs,” said John Gilluly, US chair of DLA Piper’s Corporate practice. “Adam brings deep private equity and emerging growth relationships who will now be able to realize the benefits of DLA Piper’s platform.”

In a release, the firm said Ghander frequently counsels entrepreneurs and investors in various stages of private capital investment, ranging from initial rounds of investment to late-stage venture and private equity financings.

“We are very pleased to welcome Adam, who will be an important addition to our growing transactional practice,” said John Rattigan, managing partner of the firm’s Boston office. “His skills and experience complement our existing corporate and finance work and will be beneficial to our clients across a broad range of sectors.”

Ghander joins DLA Piper from Nutter McClennen & Fish LLP, where he was a partner in the firm’s Business Department and served as co-chair of the Private Equity group. Ghander previously served as co-chair of the Emerging Companies group. He earned his J.D. from Boston College Law School and his B.A., summa cum laude, from St. Anselm College.

Michael J. Schmidtberger has been elected chair of Sidley Austin LLP‘s Executive Committee, the governing body responsible for exercising general authority over the firm’s policies and affairs, effective Jan. 1, 2018.

Schmidtberger will succeed Carter Phillips in this role. Phillips will remain a partner with Sidley and continue his Supreme Court and Appellate practice.

“I am incredibly honored to have been chosen to help guide this world-class firm,” said Schmidtberger. “It is a privilege to carry forward the leadership legacy Carter and his predecessors have instilled throughout their tenures as executive committee chair. I look forward to shaping the firm’s strategy to provide the best possible service as we work together with our clients to confront their opportunities and challenges in the ever-changing global business and regulatory environment.”

In a release, the firm said:

In leading Sidley forward, Schmidtberger will work alongside Larry Barden, chair of the firm’s Management Committee. The Executive and Management Committees work in concert and are the two main governing bodies of the firm.

“Mike is an incredible talent and highly respected by both clients and colleagues,” said Barden. “In our work together on the Management and Executive Committees, I know him to be a strategic thinker who takes a thoughtful and measured approach to addressing complex issues. Collaboration comes naturally to Mike. I look forward to working together in delivering exceptional results for our clients.”

Schmidtberger has been involved in shaping the direction of the firm for the past 15 years in his various leadership roles. He is co-leader of Sidley’s internationally recognized Investment Funds, Advisers and Derivatives practice, which has won numerous awards as a provider of legal services to the private funds industry. Schmidtberger has served on Sidley’s Executive Committee since 2002 and Management Committee since 2008. Additionally, he has been managing partner of Sidley’s New York office for the past five years, a role he will vacate upon assuming his new duties as Executive Committee chair.

“Mike is a trusted colleague with strong leadership skills and insight,” said Phillips. “I’ve had the pleasure of working with Mike for many years and I am confident he is the right person for this role. He embodies our collaborative culture and commitment to exceptional client service.”

Schmidtberger has been with Sidley for 28 years. His ability to assist clients has earned him broad recognition as a trusted adviser. Schmidtberger advises and represents clients in domestic and international offerings of hedge funds, fund of funds, public and private commodity pools, and related regulatory matters. As is the time-honored tradition at Sidley, he will maintain his active practice while in this new leadership position. Schmidtberger is a graduate of Columbia College in the City of New York and Columbia Law School.

Image by Mike Kalasnik

With the holiday shopping season approaching and bankruptcy proceedings underway in federal court, Toys R Us went to its creditors in November with an unorthodox request, The Washington Post reports. To boost sales, the insolvent company asked: Let us pay out millions of dollars in bonuses to our top executives.

Under the plan, which has been approved by a bankruptcy judge, the company will pay 17 executives about $14 million in incentive bonuses, as long as the company hits its target of $550 million in earnings. It must hit a minimum of $484 million in adjusted earnings before any bonuses are awarded.

“Attorneys for the company argued in court papers that the bonuses would help encourage executives to focus on driving up sales as the holidays approach,” the Post‘s Derek Hawkins reports.

Read the Post article.

Politico is reporting that morale among many of the Agriculture Department’s legal staff has plummeted since Stephen Vaden, the Trump administration’s nominee to be USDA General Counsel, assumed leadership in March, say several agency attorneys from across the country.

“Vaden, who arrived at USDA in January as part of President Donald Trump’s beachhead team and was appointed principal deputy general counsel two months later, is enforcing workplace changes that have provoked unusually bitter labor negotiations, say the attorneys,” reports Catherine Boudreau. “He also has come under scrutiny for his past work defending state voter ID laws that critics say are discriminatory.

“There is a fair amount of fear right now,” said Jeffrey Streiffer, senior counsel at the USDA OGC’s regional office in San Francisco.

Read the Politico article.

Reporting on the filing of a RICO suit against the “Weinstein Sexual Enterprise” has brought up names of some Biglaw firms, but they’re not named in the complaint.

The suit alleges that Harvey Weinstein, the Weinstein Co., the company’s board members, Miramax Film Corp., and others violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and helped “facilitate and conceal” a pattern of sexual assault and harassment.

“Boies Schiller & Flexner has already a lost client over the debacle, and they now appear to be implicated by this RICO lawsuit,” reports Kathryn Rubino for Above the Law, adding that other firms mentioned in reports include K&L Gates, U.K.-based BCL Burton Copeland, and Israel-based Gross, Kleinhendler, Hodak, Halevy, Greenberg & Co.

K&L Gates denied the implications: “The claims relating to K&L Gates are false. K&L Gates has never represented Mr. Weinstein or any other person or entity concerning investigations or inquiries relating to Mr. Weinstein,” the firm said in a statement.

Read the Above the Law article.

Trial lawyer Mark Werbner of Dallas litigation firm Sayles Werbner will address Texas lawyers about his decade-long quest to hold the Arab Bank responsible for providing financial support to U.S.-designated terror organizations.

Werbner will discuss Linde, et al. v. Arab Bank PLC in a presentation titled, “Fighting Terror-Financing in the Courtroom,” during the State Bar of Texas Litigation Update Institute’s 34th annual course in January 2018.

In 2014, a jury in New York sided with Werbner, finding Jordan-based Arab Bank responsible for providing financial services to Hamas for 24 terror attacks during the “Second Intifada” in Israel and the Palestinian territories. The verdict was the culmination of a lawsuit filed in 2004 to obtain justice for nearly 300 American victims and their families. The case marked the first liability verdict against a foreign bank for violating the Anti-Terrorism Act.

Currently under review by the U.S. Supreme Court is Jesner, et al., v. Arab Bank, a related case that would clarify if the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) applies to corporations under the 1789 U.S. law.

The Linde verdict earned Werbner the 2016 Trial Lawyer of the Year Award from Public Justice, which honors attorneys who made the greatest contribution to the public interest through their work in precedent-setting, socially significant cases. His work has also been consistently recognized in top legal publications, such as The Best Lawyers in America.

Louisiana law firm Kean Miller LLP is expanding beyond its home state for the first time, opening an office Dec. 1 in Houston.

In a release, the firm said the office is intended to represent Texas-based businesses, especially those with significant Louisiana operations and national clients with legal needs in both states.

Joining Kean Miller as partners in Houston are trial lawyers Bill Ogden, Linda Broocks, Jim Hall and Judith Meyer. Gary Alfred joins as special counsel. All were with the law firm Ogden Broocks & Hall LLP.

The release continues:

Kean Miller has been serving upstream, downstream and midstream clients in Louisiana for 35 years, with significantly more than half the firm’s revenues coming from clients based in the Lone Star state. The new office is located at 711 Louisiana Street in Pennzoil Tower South.

“Our new office will help serve our energy and petrochemical clients in a cost-effective manner, whether they are Houston-based or doing business in Texas from Louisiana or elsewhere,” said Blane Clark, managing partner of the 150-attorney firm. “We are fortunate to be partnering with people who share our values, our culture, and our client service philosophy.”

Ogden, who has been managing partner of Ogden Broocks & Hall, said, “Teaming up our two firms makes a lot of sense when there is such demand for smart legal counsel at reasonable rates.”

Ogden is well-known in Houston for his business litigation, appellate and constitutional law expertise and is Board Certified in Civil Appellate Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. Ms. Broocks has an active trial and appellate practice and is Board Certified in Civil Trial Law and Appellate Law.

Hall’s practice focuses on a variety of business disputes and products and premises liability litigation. Ms. Meyer is experienced in oil and gas and securities litigation as well as personal injury defense. Mr. Alfred represents clients in a wide array of commercial litigation, including oil and gas disputes and catastrophic personal injury defense. All of the new lawyers previously practiced in some of Houston’s largest firms, including Liddell Sapp (now Locke Lord), Baker Botts, Fulbright & Jaworski (now Norton Rose Fulbright), and Beirne Maynard & Parsons (now Akerman).

High Performance Counsel, a legal industry publication delivering thought-leadership and commentary, announced its new content partnership with Foxwordy, the digital collaboration platform for lawyers and law professionals.

“We are delighted to announce this partnership and provide High Performance Counsel’s leadership perspectives to the entire Foxwordy network and our enterprise customers,” said Monica Zent, founder and CEO of Foxwordy. “This partnership represents Foxwordy’s ongoing commitment to providing the highest quality content and resources for our customers as they navigate an ever-changing legal industry.“

David Kinnear, founder and CEO of High Performance Counsel Media Group, said, “We’re enthusiastic about having our content shared with top legal industry professionals through our partnership with Foxwordy. With the legal sector evolving so rapidly, legal professionals have much to gain through collaborating and sharing ideas, experience and opportunities, which Foxwordy’s platform helps facilitate.”

UnitedLex, a global provider of technology-powered business, legal and cybersecurity solutions, announced that it has been selected by DXC Technology to lead a global law function transformation, UnitedLex said in a news release.

The announcement follows the April 2017 formation of DXC, which brought together Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC) and the Enterprise Services business of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPES). Under the five-year agreement, the industry’s largest-ever managed-services legal transaction, UnitedLex will help create one unified, strategic team to support DXC, the world’s leading independent, end-to-end IT services and solutions provider, and its nearly 6,000 clients.

The release continues:

Working closely with DXC’s General Counsel Bill Deckelman and other key executives, UnitedLex has established a unique platform of proven technologies, highly skilled attorneys, contract and commercial professionals, and subject matter experts to support DXC’s business strategy and provide greater measurability and accountability across the entire legal ecosystem. Primary focus areas for the engagement include client transactions of all sizes, litigation, immigration, and legal operations. The UnitedLex team supporting DXC is comprised of more than 250 senior professional resources.

“DXC Technology’s law department transformation would not have been possible without UnitedLex, who co-conceptualized and executed our shared vision for the law department of the future,” said Bill Deckelman. “Through an impressive combination of process improvement, enhanced technologies, insightful data analytics, and transparent financial management, UnitedLex has helped us create a more strategic and effective law department that can support our growth and future success.”

UnitedLex’s solutions team analyzed every function, resource group, process, and technology used by CSC and HPES to create an ideal framework for DXC’s new law department – the ability to capture value by focusing on cost predictability, which traditional law firms and service providers were not able to do.

“UnitedLex’s engagement with DXC further demonstrates our proven ability to combine legal talent, technology, and process optimization to deliver positive business impact,” said Dan Reed, CEO of UnitedLex. “The transformation of DXC’s law department is a landmark moment for the legal industry and sets a new precedent for the way legal services are provided.”

As part of the strategic relationship, select attorneys, contract and commercial professionals, and other experts were rebadged from HPES and CSC to UnitedLex and, along with legacy professionals from UnitedLex, formed a core team that is further infused with DXC’s in-house professionals. UnitedLex currently deploys more than 250 senior attorneys, contract and commercial professionals, engineers, and other experts in support of DXC around the globe. The UnitedLex platform allows DXC to reduce required resources by more than 30 percent, while enhancing operating performance and preserving the intellectual capital and domain expertise of the larger legal organization.

National law firm Dykema announced the addition of Richard L. Lieberman to its Taxation Practice Group as senior counsel in the firm’s Chicago office.

Lieberman joins Dykema after spending more than eight years as a partner with Burke, Warren, MacKay & Serritella, P.C., where he served as Chair of the firm’s Tax and Employee Benefits practice. Prior to that, he was a principal at Deloitte Tax LLP for more than a decade.

In a release, the firm said Lieberman has more than 30 years of experience in a broad range of federal and state tax matters, with emphasis on tax issues related to real estate, mergers & acquisitions, joint ventures, restructurings, partnerships, limited liability companies, and S corporations. He also advises clients on the tax aspects of executive compensation arrangements, including designing and advising on the implementation of executive, equity, and deferred compensation programs.

In addition, Lieberman has been actively involved in representing not-for-profit organizations in both obtaining and retaining exemption from federal, state, and local taxes, avoiding unrelated business income tax, and addressing private inurement and intermediate sanctions issues. He has long represented clients in connection with adjustments proposed by the Internal Revenue Service and a myriad of state Departments of Revenue.

“Richard brings much needed state and local tax, as well as transactional, experience to our Chicago office and the firm’s national platform,” said Mike Cumming, Leader of Dykema’s Taxation Practice Group.

Lieberman earned a J.D., with high honors, from IIT/Chicago-Kent College of Law, an LL.M. (International Legal Studies) from New York University School of Law, an LL.M. (Taxation) from DePaul University College of Law, and a B.B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Johnson & Johnson and Bayer AG are responsible for a woman’s injuries tied to the blood-thinning drug Xarelto and must pay almost $28 million in damages, jurors concluded in the companies’ first loss at a trial over the medicine.

Bloomberg Technology reports that the plaintiff said she took Xarelto, sold by J&J’s Janssen Pharmaceuticals unit, for more than a year before being hospitalized in 2014 with gastrointestinal bleeding she blamed on the drug.

The jury in Philadelphia on Tuesday ordered J&J and Bayer, which jointly developed the product, to pay $1.8 million in actual damages and $26 million in punitive damages.

“The companies still face more than 21,000 patent suits over Xarelto, which has been linked to at least 370 deaths, according to U.S. Food and Drug Administration reports. Patients have said that Xarelto can cause uncontrollable bleeding and that Bayer and J&J failed to provide an antidote. Some also claim the companies failed to properly warn about the drug’s risks,” according to Bloomberg’s Jef Feeley and Margaret Cronin Fisk.

Read the Bloomberg article.

A juvenile and domestic relations judge in southwest Virginia was removed from the bench by the Virginia Supreme Court after he admitted contacting two key witnesses in a pending federal corruption case against his wife, according to The Washington Post.

“Pomrenke also has been found guilty of contempt of court by a federal judge in Bristol in connection with his wife’s case and on Thursday was sentenced to two months in prison and ordered to pay the maximum allowable fine of $1,000,” writes the Post‘s Tom Jackman.

His wife, Stacey Pomrenkeis serving a 34-month prison sentence on multiple charges of conspiracy, extortion and wire fraud from her time as chief financial officer of Bristol Virginia Utilities.

Read the Post’s article.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s lawyers told a New York state judge on Tuesday that under the U.S. Constitution she had no jurisdiction over the president and therefore urged her to dismiss a defamation lawsuit by a woman who has accused Trump of sexual harassment, reports Reuters.

Summer Zervos, a former contestant on Trump’s reality show “The Apprentice,” contends that Trump’s denials of her accusations amounted to false and defamatory statements, according to reporter Jonathan Allen. She said she and her business have suffered harm because Trump branded her a liar.

Trump lawyer Marc Kasowitz told the judge that “a state court may not exercise jurisdiction over the president of the United States while he or she is in office.”

But the lead lawyer for Zervos pointed out that there is no case holding that a federal official can’t be held to account in state court.

Read the Reuters article.

For the sixth year in a row, the commercial litigation and intellectual property firm Ahmad, Zavitsanos, Anaipakos, Alavi & Mensing P.C., or AZA, is being recognized among the nation’s Best Law Firms by U.S. News & World Report and The Best Lawyers in America.

“Ahmad, Zavitsanos, Anaipakos, Alavi & Mensing is our go-to firm for any high-stakes litigation. They are smart, tough and effective,” one C-Suite client executive told the publications’ researchers.

Houston’s AZA is listed in the 2018 top tier of area metropolitan law firms for commercial litigation. The selection of Best Law Firms is based on a rigorous process that includes client and lawyer evaluations and peer review from other attorneys in the same practice areas.

Read details of the award.

Zapproved has published a complimentary recap of the PREX17 keynote address by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, which explores the boundary layer between law and technology in the connected society.

In the fallout of the Edward Snowden NSA leaks, he explores the reasons why monitoring and evaluating the impact of our technology are crucial and discusses in detail:

• When weighing the importance of privacy, consider all of your personal information from all of your email accounts, social profiles and medical profiles.
• Ten years ago technology was the number one way privacy was compromised. Now, technology is the number one leading tool for how privacy is protected.
• Digital surveillance has become so prevalent and consequential that the NSA’s motto for their citizen surveillance programs is “Collect it all.”

Download the keynote summary.

Minority lawyers now make up 16 percent of law firms — a record high — but remain scarce at the top, where only 9 percent of law partners are people of color, according to new data collected by the Minority Corporate Counsel Association.

Put another way, The Washington Post reports, nearly half of their white counterparts make partner, while the vast majority of minorities remain associates.

Reporter Tracy Jan writes that only 11 percent of general counsel at Fortune 500 companies are black, Hispanic, Asian or Native American even though minorities make up a third of the legal profession as a whole.

Read the Post article.

Delegating a $12 million arbitration to accountants rather than lawyers in Apache v. YPF SA was the right call, writes Charles Sartain in the Gray Reed Energy & the Law blog. The problem was in the procedures and protections for a party believing the accountants got it wrong.

Sartain provides background: “Apache sold its entire business in Argentina to YPF for $700 million. The Sale and Purchase Agreement allowed for adjustments to the consideration based on a variety of factors. The parties traded accounting statements, and a dispute arose over a ‘Lock Box Working Capital’ amount and ‘Leakage.’ YPF contended that Apache owed $12 million.”

The parties submitted the dispute to KPMG, which found that Apache owned $98. million. Apache challenged the finding.

Read the article.

Firm fixed-price contracts seem like a simple concept in practice — agreements that do not allow for the modification of the contract price after award without an express agreement between the parties. But in reality, there is very little case law guiding the practical approach to these types of contracts, writes Marion T. Hack of Pepper Hamilton.

In her article on the firm’s website, she examines the definition of fixed-price contracts and cases in which the audit provision in the contract has been unsuccessfully used to assert claims for reimbursement and False Claims Act liability.

Read the article.

A non-compete provision is different than most other contractual terms, because simply having mutual consent and consideration will not automatically render it enforceable for reasons of public policy, points out an article in The In-House Advisor by Shep Davidson of Burns & Levinson.

“While some businesses try to make an end-run around this law by requiring an employee to forfeit some benefit or pay liquidated damages if he/she competes against his/her company, any such requirement will be viewed through the same public policy lens used to scrutinize a formal non-compete provision,” he writes.

Davidson warns that, while a liquidated damages provision is not a silver bullet, if properly drafted, such a clause can be a significant deterrent to an employee who might otherwise decide to test the bounds of a non-compete.

Read the article.

Elie Mystal, writing for Above the Law, discusses some top factors to remember when dealing with a sexual predator who has signed you to a non-disclosure agreement.

Among those factors are: the need for the predator to show actual injury, the information disclosed has to be secret and confidential, courts will consider public policy, and courts will consider unequal bargaining power.

“If you’ve signed a non-disclosure agreement, it’s a risk to violate it. You might get sued, you might be forced to pay back some money,” she warns. “Or you might set liberating case law that allows more of these claims to come forward.”

Read the article.