Ralf Rodriguez has joined Foley & Lardner LLP’s Construction Practice as of counsel in the Miami office, the firm announced. Rodriguez has international experience litigating including construction law, commercial litigation, white-collar criminal defense and transportation law.

Rodriguez represents domestic and international general contractors, construction managers, sureties and other construction professionals in the United States and abroad in the negotiation, litigation, arbitration and mediation of construction and design defect claims, insurance claims and surety bond claims, among others. He has experience representing clients in zoning waivers, landlord and tenant disputes, environmental compliance, bankruptcy litigation and compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Rodriguez has assisted clients in connection with a variety of construction projects, including sports arenas, high rise condominium developments, manufacturing plants and hydroelectric power facilities. Projects include the Florida Marlins Baseball Park, the Florida Citrus Bowl, the Miami Intermodal Center and the Cerro De Aguila Hydroelectric Power Plant in Peru.

“As our clients look to expand globally, Ralf’s international experience litigating complex construction matters will be an extremely valuable asset,” said Jeff Blease, chair of Foley’s Construction Litigation Practice.

In a release, the firm said:

Rodriguez also represents corporate clients in internal investigations and government inquiries by defending regulatory actions and fraud claims, including advice regarding compliance with anti-corruption laws such as the False Claims Act, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and similar legislation. He has worked with numerous corporate clients to structure and reassess corporate compliance and training programs, and has counseled clients to complete numerous investigations of sensitive matters in foreign jurisdictions, including Latin America and the Caribbean.

In addition to his legal practice, Rodriguez served as a law enforcement professional with the Department of Treasury and completed many public corruption and organized crime investigations, while working closely with the U.S. Attorneys’ Office for the Southern District of Florida.

“Ralf’s knowledge and experience will serve our clients well, as the local construction industry continues to boom,” said William Davis, managing partner of Foley’s Miami office.

Prior to joining Foley, Rodriguez was at Peckar & Abramson.

Practical Law will present a free webinar about new DOL regulations that make major changes to the definition of “fiduciary investment advice” under ERISA.

The event will be Wednesday, July 13, at 1 p.m. Eastern time.

Practical Law’s webinar will explain the new standards and how they will affect investment advisers who give retirement advice and sell retirement products such as IRAs. The webinar will also focus on what plan sponsors need to do to comply.

Presenters:

George Sepsakos, Groom Law Group, (Washington, DC)

Heidi Winzeler, Director, Practical Law Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation

Register for the event.

Hogan Lovells announced that Michael Turrill has joined the firm’s Los Angeles office as a partner in the Litigation, Arbitration and Employment (LAE) Practice Group.

Turrill focuses his practice on complex commercial litigation, including the defense of consumer-related class actions under federal and state consumer protection laws, business torts and unfair competition litigation, intellectual property matters, employment litigation and contractual and partnership disputes. He represents clients in multiple industries including real estate, consumer goods, food and beverage, financial services, energy, and entertainment and media sectors.

“Mike’s extensive commercial litigation expertise complements our capabilities to address a number of rising issues across a variety of industries,” said Dennis Tracey, Head of Litigation in the Americas at Hogan Lovells. “His diverse background in the litigation space and team-focused qualities exemplify the firm’s approach to collaboration across several practices to better serve our clients.”

Prior to joining Hogan Lovells, Turrill was a partner in the L.A. office of an AmLaw 200 law firm. Turrill’s experiences include litigating in both state and federal courts as well as before arbitration panels around the country and internationally.

“Mike’s work in the real estate, consumer class action and media and entertainment space, including digital media, fit squarely within the core practice areas of the Los Angeles office and the firm,” said Barry Dastin, Office Managing Partner of Hogan Lovells’ Los Angeles office. “He is a well-known and widely respected lawyer in the community, and his arrival builds upon significant recent additions to our office, including Stephanie Yonekura, former Acting U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, and Paul Salvaty, both of whom have strengthened our litigation team led by Michael Maddigan.”

Turrill earned his J.D. from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, and his B.A. in History from Brown University. He was previously named Pro Bono Attorney of the Year by the University of Southern California’s Public Interest Law Foundation. Mike served for three years as adjunct professor at the USC Gould School of Law.

Veteran trial lawyer James Edward “Jim” Maloney has opened a solo practice in Houston, at The Esperson Buildings, 815 Walker St., Suite 1150.

Educated at Yale and a graduate of the Harvard Law School, he began his career at Baker Botts where he spent the next 35 years representing leading business executives and major corporations, with a client list that has included:

• Shell Oil Company
• Pennzoil-Quaker State
• Reliant Energy and its predecessors
• Match.com
• Novartis
• Lyondell Chemical Company
• Southern Pacific Railroad Company
• Ford Motor Company
• Bridgestone-Firestone
• T. Boone Pickens

When he left Baker Botts in 2012, Maloney had headed the firm’s securities litigation section and had also served as the longtime chair of the firm’s employment committee.

More recently, he was a partner at Andrews Kurth. There, his clients included a major international oil and gas exploration company and a number of special and conflicts committees of boards of directors at public companies and master limited partnerships. He has been involved in securities litigation work, corporate takeover disputes, corporate investigations, class actions and complex commercial disputes in both state and federal courts.

Over more than 40 years of practice, Maloney has tried more than 100 cases to jury and bench verdicts and managed thousands of others to successful resolution, he said in a release.

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A federal appeals court has overturned a historic antitrust settlement between retailers and Visa and MasterCard, reviving more than a decade of legal battles over processing fees, according to a report in The New York Times.

“The United States Court of Appeals in Manhattan said that the lawyers represented retailers with competing interests in the settlement, which was once valued at $7.25 billion, one of the largest in antitrust history,” wrote Rachel Abrams. “The judges pushed the suit back to a lower court.”

In a 2005 lawsuit, retailers accused credit card providers of scheming to fix the price of processing fees, the money the card companies charge retailers for each transaction, and a settlement was reached in 2012. But the court in Manhattan found that merchants had been “inadequately” represented in the settlement.

Read the article.

Reuters is reporting that a California jury ordered Oracle Corp. to pay Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Co. $3 billion in damages in a case over HP’s Itanium servers, an Oracle spokeswoman said on Thursday.

The Itaniuum processor is made by Intel Inc.

According to the report by Dan Levine: “Oracle decided to stop developing software for use with HP’s Itanium-based servers in 2011, saying that Intel made it clear that the chip was nearing the end of its life and was shifting its focus to its x86 microprocessor.”

“But HP said it had an agreement with Oracle that support for Itanium would continue, without which the equipment using the chip would become obsolete.”

Read the article.

Money Inc. has compiled a list of the 20 richest lawyers in the world, and they’re a diverse group: one went to prison, one was disbarred, another is deceased, one manages a law firm in Kenya, and a couple of them are TV judges. People on the list “are all practicing attorneys or judges. There are plenty of other ‘lawyers’ with a considerably higher net worth, but they simply have a law degree and no longer use it,” writes Nat Berman.

Richest Lawyer in the World

Richard Scruggs won big money in cases involving tobacco, asbestos, Ritalin and Lehman Brothers before running afoul of the law. In 2008, he pleaded guilty to judicial bribery and eventually served six years in federal prison. His net worth is $1.7 billion, according to Money Inc.

“Although he passed away at the age of 90 in December 2015, Joe Jamail makes this list because he was the wealthiest practicing lawyer in the United States at the time of his death. Often referred to as the ‘King of Torts,’ he represented Pennzoil in a 1985 lawsuit against rival Texaco,” Berman writes.

Read the article.

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Businesses need to have written protocols in place to deal with bankruptcy filings by their employees and independent contractors, or they risk serious sanctions and, potentially, punitive damages for violations of the bankruptcy laws, according to a report in Hunton & Williams’ Employment & Labor Law Perspectives blog.

The article discusses two scenarios: one in which the employer has unwittingly violated the Bankruptcy Code, and another in which the employer has knowingly violated the automatic bankruptcy stay by taking an action to collect a pre-bankruptcy debt from post-bankruptcy earnings.

“A process should be developed whereby notices relating to bankruptcy cases are channeled to a designated member of the legal or accounting team trained to immediately take action to ensure payments are correctly routed and stay violations are avoided,” the article says.

Read the article.

Foley & Lardner LLP announced that James Nicholas and Donald Schroeder have joined the firm’s Labor & Employment Practice as partners in the Boston office.

In a release, the firm said Nicholas represents and counsels employers on a wide range of federal and state employment issues, including wage and hour, employment classification, wrongful termination, discrimination and harassment, leaves of absence and the enforcement of noncompetition and nondisclosure agreements. He has represented clients in numerous actions before federal and state courts in cases involving claims for wage and hour violations, defamation and shareholder disputes, among others. A significant portion of his litigation experience involves defending employers against wage and hour class actions brought under the Fair Labor Standards Act and state wage and hour laws.

The release continues:

Schroeder has extensive national trial experience in state and federal courts representing Fortune 500 clients on a wide range of employment matters, including restrictive covenant litigation, wage and hour class actions and single plaintiff discrimination cases. His trial experience includes state and federal court jury trials, bench trials and employment arbitrations throughout the United States. Schroeder’s client base spans a number of industries including staffing, healthcare, sports, higher education and technology.

Schroeder also regularly handles traditional labor matters related to union avoidance training, unfair labor practice proceedings, union elections, mass picketing, labor arbitrations and collective bargaining negotiations. In his traditional labor work, Schroeder routinely appears before the National Labor Relations Board.

“We look forward to having Jim and Don on our team. Their strong track record litigating complex cases and vast experience will help ensure our clients remain compliant and protected across a myriad of employment issues,” said Kevin Hyde, chair of Foley’s Labor & Employment Practice.

In addition, both Nicholas and Schroeder have experience drafting C-Suite level employment agreements and advising clients on the terms and use of offer letters, employee handbooks and personnel policies.

“Our clients will benefit from Jim and Don’s decades of combined experience related to employment issues and proceedings. We are excited to add them to our robust litigation bench in Boston,” said Susan Pravda, managing partner of Foley’s Boston office.

In addition, they will be joined by their former colleagues, Jill Collins (Washington, D.C. office) and Erin Horton (Boston office), who are mid-level associates.

Hogan Lovells announced that Gejaa T. Gobena will join the firm’s Investigations, White Collar and Fraud (IWCF) practice as a partner in its Washington, D.C. office.

Prior to joining Hogan Lovells, Gobena served as Deputy Chief of the Fraud Section in the Criminal Division of the United States Department of Justice (USDOJ). As Deputy Chief, Gobena led the Criminal Division’s fifty-attorney health care fraud unit, supervising prosecutions brought by Medicare Fraud Strike Force teams across the country and spearheading the Unit’s recent shift to investigating and prosecuting broader corporate health care fraud schemes. In that position, he oversaw the prosecution of over a thousand individuals for health care fraud, including last week’s historic national health care fraud takedown which involved charging more than 300 individuals accused of committing fraud costing the government US$900 million.

In a release, the firm said:

Gobena will supplement Hogan Lovell’s substantial national IWCF practice by counseling clients as they navigate internal and government investigations, particularly health care fraud investigations. He will further assist Hogan Lovells’ clients looking to mitigate risk following the new USDOJ directive to pursue executives of target corporations more aggressively.

“Government agencies are evolving their enforcement strategies through innovations in technology, data and new legal theories,” said Crispin Rapinet, global head of the firm’s ICWF practice. “The range of Gejaa’s DOJ experience handling both False Claims Act cases as a younger lawyer and then in fraud prosecutions for the Criminal Division gives him tremendous skill as well as insight into the personalities and priorities driving DOJ decision-making, all of which will be of great value to our clients.”

During his tenure as DOJ Deputy Chief, Gobena supervised teams that prosecuted large corporate entities in cities throughout the country. He also worked and advised on non-health care fraud prosecutions and policy matters, including matters involving the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Earlier, Gobena was part of the HEAT (Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team) initiative in Detroit, where he worked with teams of investigators from Office of Inspector General-Health & Human Services, Federal Bureau of Investigation and numerous other law enforcement agencies to prosecute health care fraud cases to verdict before earning his promotion to supervisor.

And for several years before that, Gobena handled civil False Claims Act and qui tam matters for DOJ’s Civil Division.

“Our firm continues to identify and hire talented lawyers with government agency credentials and experience to provide our clients with a complete understanding of how enforcement agencies are pursuing investigations,” said Dennis Tracey, head of Litigation for the Americas. “Gejaa is a confident, personable and engaging litigator with a demonstrated thoughtful and thorough approach to handling legal challenges.”

In 2015, Gobena received the Award for Excellence from the Health and Human Services Department of the Office of the Inspector General. He also received the Assistant Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service in 2013, and the Attorney General’s Award for Fraud Prevention in 2011.

He earned his J.D. from Columbia University School of Law and his B.A. from The University of Virginia.

Quarles & Brady LLP today announced that it has achieved Gold Standard Re-Certification by the Women in Law Empowerment Forum (WILEF) for the six consecutive year. This year’s list includes 31 firms.

“We are proud to have made this list for the sixth year in a row,” said Darlene Austin, director of diversity & employee relations & corporate social responsibility. “Our repeated certification is proof positive that Quarles & Brady is committed to inclusive leadership among all attorneys in our firm; this is part of our culture. We are honored to have been recognized as one of the six firms to have met all of WILEF’s criteria.”

In a release, the firm said Gold Standard Certification emphasizes the leadership roles achieved by women partners, rather than the policies or practices of the firm or the overall number or percentage of women in the partnership. Law firms with 300 or more practicing lawyers in the United States were eligible if they successfully demonstrated that women represented a meaningful percentage of their equity partners, of their highest leadership positions, of their governance and compensation committees, and of their most highly compensated partners. To be certified, firms had to meet at least four of the six criteria:

• Women account for at least 20 percent of U.S. equity partners or, alternatively, one-third of non-lateral attorneys that became U.S. equity partners within the previous 12 months.
• Women represent at least 15 percent of firm and U.S. branch office heads combined.
• Women make up at least 20 percent of the firm’s primary governance committee.
• Women represent 20 percent or more of the firm’s compensation committee.
• Women make up at least 25 percent of practice group leaders or department heads.
• Women represent at least 15 percent of the top half of U.S. equity partners in terms of compensation.

About WILEF

Founded in 1997 by Elizabeth Anne “Betiayn” Tursi, with the support of R.R. Donnelley and several successful senior women attorneys, and subsequently of law firm and corporate sponsors, WILEF is dedicated to assisting women in law to assume leadership roles within the NLJ 250 and Fortune 1000 legal departments and within their respective communities. WILEF presents cutting edge programming that provides an educational and networking forum for women in law.

Corporate clients have been unenthusiastic on the topic of the $180,000 first-year lawyer, as well as the idea of big-name lawyers charging their clients $2,000 per hour, reports Above the Law. But this environment could present opportunity for competition from non-mega firms.

The site tells how the global general counsel for Bank of America let the nation’s largest law firms know that he doesn’t intend to absorb the cost of the salary increase. “While we respect the firms’ judgment about what best serves their long-term competitive interests,” he wrote in an email that has become public, “we are aware of no market-driven basis for such an increase and do not expect to bear the costs of the firms’ decisions.”

But there’s an opportunity here for firms that don’t appear on the top 100 lists, writes David Perla. “With the many tools available today, smaller providers of legal services have the capacity to present (in both appearance and reality) truly viable alternatives to their elite competition. This is true both for individual lawyers and for law firms as a whole,” he writes.

Read the article.

Conservative hopes for a transformational term at the Supreme Court ended with Justice Antonin Scalia’s death this winter, and liberals instead prevailed on what are likely to be the term’s most influential decisions, reports Robert Barnes of The Washington Post.

The most high-profile cases, including affirmative action, abortion restrictions, labor union fees, gerrymandering and the use of executive power, ended either with liberal victories or draws that set no precedent.

Barnes wrote that “it was the absence of Scalia, the bombastic senior justice whose intellect and bravado powered the court’s conservative wing, that altered the court’s tone and reversed its reputation as a welcoming place for conservative causes.”

“Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. took on Scalia’s role as dissenter, airing from the bench his disagreements with the majority on abortion and affirmative action,” the article continues. “But unlike Scalia, he lacks a love of the whip.”

Read the article.

Texas trial law firm Deans & Lyons, LLP announces that civil litigation attorney Lana P. Beverly has joined the firm’s Dallas office as an associate.

“Our firm is built on talented and aggressive attorneys who are fearless in the courtroom,” says firm co-founder Michael Lyons. “Lana brings some impressive credentials and we are very excited to add her to our team here in Dallas.”

Beverly joins the firm from the Dallas office of Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker LLP.

In a release, the firm said her experience includes representing both plaintiffs and defendants in civil litigation in state and federal courts. She focuses her practice on business disputes, including cases involving breach of contract, construction, breach of fiduciary duty and employment issues, as well as professional liability matters. She also represents clients in catastrophic personal injury and wrongful death claims.

While serving as a judicial clerk for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Beverly authored four appellate opinions involving criminal issues of first impression. She also worked as a judicial extern for the North Carolina Court of Appeals.

Beverly earned her law degree from the University of North Carolina School of Law in 2010 where she was the Notes Editor and Staff Member of the North Carolina Journal Of Law & Technology. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and was a National Merit Achievement Scholar.

Deans & Lyons, LLP has offices in Dallas and Houston.

Litigation associate Erin Nowell from the Dallas office of Simon Greenstone Panatier Bartlett, PC, has earned a spot on the 2016 National Bar Association “40 Under 40 Best Advocates” list, which recognizes the country’s leading young attorneys  for their legal accomplishments.

With approximately 65,000 members, the National Bar Association is the oldest and largest network of African-American attorneys and judges in the U.S., the firm said in an announcement. Award recipients are vetted by a panel of former association presidents and key individuals, in addition to a separate evaluation covering nominees’ advocacy, innovation, leadership and community involvement.

“Erin is very deserving of this recognition based on her immense passion for achieving justice for those who have been injured through no fault of their own,” says Jeffrey Simon, a founding shareholder of Simon Greenstone Panatier Bartlett. “We are not surprised she rose to the top of the hundreds of nominees for this award.”

A graduate of the University of Texas School of Law, Nowell devotes her practice to representing victim of serious injuries and wrongful death caused by toxic substances such as asbestos, benzene and silica, as well as dangerous pharmaceuticals and other defective products. She will be honored at the 40 Under 40 Awards Gala on July 18 during the group’s annual convention in St. Louis.

“I am honored to be in the company of such accomplished lawyers from across the nation,” says Nowell. “Hard work truly pays off, and I am fortunate to be at a firm where I am able to help my clients fight for justice each day.”

Quarles & Brady LLP lawyer J. Michael Hearon has been included in the National LGBT Bar Association’s 2016 class of the 40 under 40 Best LGBT Lawyers.

“I am very pleased to receive such an honorable distinction on behalf of the countless LGBT members that make up a significant part of the legal profession,” said Hearon. “This recognition truly reflects the global legal industry’s commitment to diversity and inclusion across all spectrums.”

The LGBT Bar established this award to recognize outstanding lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender legal professionals under the age of 40 who have distinguished themselves in their field and demonstrated a profound commitment to LGBT equality, the firm said in a release.

Hearon is a member of the firm’s Litigation & Dispute Resolution Practice Group where he focuses his practice on advising and defending financial institutions regarding lender liability and consumer protection issues.

Hearon received his law degree from the University of Kentucky College of Law, his MBA from Georgetown University, and his Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, from Transylvania University.

Form contracts are generic contracts created to cover subject areas rather than specific circumstances, explains Seattle lawyer Jordan Couch for ContractRoom.

“Fill in the blanks service contracts; downloadable buy/sell agreements; and state-provided leases are all form contracts commonly used by small to medium sized businesses, but this isn’t just a problem for small companies,” he writes. “Does your national property rental agency use the same contract in every state? Does your international distributor use the same contracts for different types of goods and dealers? If the answer is yes, you will run into problems.”

He offers reasons why form contracts shouldn’t be used and offers a solution.

Read the article.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Dallas-based Breitling Energy Corp. and its CEO, “Frack Master” Chris Faulkner, of fraudulently spending tens of millions of dollars of investors’ money on lavish meals, expensive cars, strippers and escorts, reports Mark Curriden of The Texas Lawbook in the Houston Chronicle‘s FuelFix blog.

The SEC claims that Faulkner presided over an $80 million oil and gas fraud that included Breitling, Crude Energy, Patriot Energy  and Breitling Oil and Gas. Charges also named eight corporate executives, including Breitling Energy General Counsel Jeremy Wagers, who previously practiced law at Houston-based Vinson & Elkins and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in Houston, Curriden reports.

“Faulkner,  a frequent guest on CNBC, Fox Business News and CNN, , disseminated false and misleading offering materials, misappropriated tens of millions of dollars of investor funds and attempted to manipulate Breitling Energy’s stock, the SEC charged in a 63-page complaint filed Friday in federal court in Dallas. Faulkner was dubbed “frack master” by the media because of his advocacy of the industry, according to Breitling Energy’s web site,” according to the report.

Read the article.

With U.S. crude almost doubling in price since February and natural gas gaining about 38 percent just since May 26, stakeholders in at least three bankrupt energy companies are contending that corporate assets have risen so much in value that they deserve a bigger payout, reports Bloomberg News.

The news service, citing a letter by its reporter, says that “Sabine Oil & Gas Corp.’s unsecured creditors and note holders of Forest Oil Co., which merged with Sabine in 2014, filed a report last week seeking a jump in recoveries. Shareholders of bankrupt driller Penn Virginia Corp. questioned current valuations, while Ultra Petroleum Corp. shareholders, who are the first to be wiped out in a bankruptcy, said earlier this month that they are “very likely ‘in the money.’”

Sabine creditors creditors are claiming the company is ignoring the recent increase in oil and gas prices to inflate the amount paid to the secured lenders at the expense of junior ones.

Read the article.