BakerHostetler’s International Disputes practice team will present the first program in a series of in-depth presentations and discussions that explore key legal and commercial issues unique to international contracts. It will include an in-person event and a webinar.

The program will be Thursday, Oct. 29, 2015, from 7:30 – 9 a.m. CDT for the in-person event (WEBINAR will start at 8 a.m. CDT).

Each presentation will be taught by experts from the legal and commercial sectors.

The event will cover:

• Choice of law – avoiding unintended consequences
• Choice of forum – choosing between arbitration or litigation in a foreign land
• Comparison of international arbitration forums – the difference between various international arbitration tribunals
• How to limit the length, scope, and cost of proceedings
• Currency repatriation – how do you make sure you can get paid or return the money home?
• Enforceability or avoidance of an award or judgment

Register to attend in person.

Register for the webinar.

iCONECT, developers of XERA e-discovery software, announced that all XERA licenses now will include XERA’s full suite of analytic tools, including: predictive coding, workflow, iCONECT’s XMPLAR, near-duplication, conceptual search, email threading and iVIEW cluster visualization.

“Allowing clients to use analytics on an unlimited amount of data, across all users and on all projects – without the additional per-gigabyte charges of other review products – provides much needed predictability to project budgets,” the company said in a release.

“The ability to include analytics, specifically predictive review with every project will mean real savings for our clients,” says Gavin W. Manes, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Avansic, an iCONECT hosting partner. “iCONECT continues to add value to the XERA platform, and now with near-dupe, threading and predictive review included in licensing, our clients will benefit immensely.”

Read more information.

Fitch, Even, Tabin & Flannery LLP will hold a complimentary webinar, “Current and Emerging Trends in Patent Law: Cases to Know and Cases to Watch,” presented by Joseph F. Marinelli and Eric L. Broxterman. The webinar will take place on Thursday, Oct. 29, 2015, at 9 am PDT / 10:00 am MDT / 11:00 am CDT / 12:00 noon EDT.

In a release, the firm said the patent landscape is constantly changing. This webinar will help you stay informed on recent significant judicial developments in patent law, in both litigation and prosecution, and will provide a preview of Federal Circuit decisions on the horizon for the last quarter of 2015 and into 2016.

The webinar will cover these topics and more:
• Patent-eligible subject matter under Alice—DDR Holdings, LLC v. Hotels.com
• The Supreme Court’s new claim indefiniteness standard in Nautilus—Dow Chemical Co. v. NOVA Chemicals Corp.
• Expert apportionment method for proving damages by reasonable royalty—Summit 6 v. Samsung
• Standards for injunctive relief—Apple v. Samsung
• Good-faith belief of invalidity as a defense to inducement—Commil USA v. Cisco Systems
• Appellate standard for claim construction—TEVA Pharmaceuticals v. Sandoz
• Patent exhaustion based on foreign sales—Lexmark v. Impression
• Approval of biosimilars—Amgen v. Sandoz

Speakers will be Fitch Even partners Joseph F. Marinelli and Eric L. Broxterman. Marinelli has a diverse intellectual property law practice covering all aspects of IP creation, management, enforcement, and licensing, with a particular emphasis on complex litigation. Broxterman is a litigator with extensive trial experience in patent cases and a registered patent attorney who also counsels clients on patent prosecution, infringement/invalidity opinions, and IP transactional issues.

CLE credit has been approved for California and Illinois and is pending in Nebraska. Other states may also award CLE credit upon attendee request. There is no fee to attend, but registration is required.

Register for the webinar.

Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP announces that administrative law attorney Marisol Saenz has joined the firm’s Government Affairs Practice in Austin, Texas.

Saenz joins Gardere from the Texas Department of Insurance, where she provided counsel to the commissioner of insurance and staff on compliance and regulatory matters, legislative and policy issues, and litigation. Her legal advice covered all phases of insurance regulation, including formation and licensing of regulated entities, major holding company transactions, examinations, financial solvency concerns and receiverships. Saenz also oversaw high-profile, complex federal civil and criminal litigation matters involving receivership estates as counsel to the insurance commissioner in his role as receiver.

Focusing her practice on counseling clients in insurance and other regulatory matters, Saenz provides representation before various state agencies and the Texas Legislature. In a release, the firm said she is proficient in analyzing matters under the Texas Insurance Code, Public Information Act, Open Meetings Act and Administrative Procedures Act, and is experienced in rulemaking and the legislative process.

“We are very excited to add Marisol’s insurance and overall administrative law expertise to the Firm’s Government Affairs team,” says Kimberly A. Yelkin, executive partner in Gardere’s Austin office. “Marisol’s proven track record of success will be an asset to our clients and will further advance our team’s influence in the Texas public policy process.”

Prior to working at the Texas Department of Insurance, Saenz served as a staff attorney for the Texas Water Development Board. She provided counsel regarding the financing of water projects across the state and planning for Texas’ future water needs, which required significant collaboration with federal, state, and local governmental entities and officials, in addition to members of the public and various parties of interest. She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Texas in 1999 and her juris doctorate from Pepperdine University School of Law in 2004. 

“I am thrilled to join the Gardere team,” says Saenz. “It is an honor and a privilege to have the opportunity to expand upon my administrative law experience as part of the Firm’s highly recognized Government Affairs Practice.”

A recent article published by Business Insider (here) is the latest in a run of recent media attention (more here) that Oracle has received regarding the software audit practices of its License Management Services (LMS) compliance arm, writes Christopher Barnett in Scott & Scott’s Oracle Audit Blog. In particular, the article details how Oracle’s sales teams may use the weight of oppressive LMS audit findings to drive customers toward the recurring-revenue business model embodied by Oracle’s expanding cloud services.

“The ‘enthusiasm’ with which LMS pursues undeserved windfalls from previously loyal customers is nearly legendary,” the blog post says. “The Business Insider article describes the LMS tactic of determining that all hosts in a VMware cluster must be licensed to capacity for an Oracle technology product – even if there is only one VM running the product on a single host in the cluster – simply because Oracle does not recognize VMware as an approved ‘hard partitioning technology.’ ”

Read the blog post.

National law firm Maron Marvel Bradley & Anderson LLC announced a major expansion that nearly doubles the size of its legal and support staff and expands its presence in several major metropolitan markets across the United States.

Thirty-two attorneys have joined Maron Marvel, all of whom focus their practices on toxic tort litigation, products liability, environmental litigation, and related practice areas, along with more than 60 paralegals and support staff. In addition to nearly doubling the firm’s headcount, the additions will expand the Delaware-based law firm into three states: Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.

In a release, the firm said the strategic expansion gives Maron Marvel Bradley & Anderson a significant presence along the Gulf Coast, with new offices in Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, and Jackson, Mississippi, as well as a new office in Red Bank, New Jersey. That expands Maron Marvel to a total of 67 attorneys and more than 110 support staff in 10 locations: the five new offices and the five existing offices in Wilmington, Delaware, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Jersey City, New Jersey, and Charleston, South Carolina.

“Our goal, from the very founding of our firm, has been to become the premier mass toxic tort firm in the country. This move helps get us there,” said James J. Maron, founding partner of Maron Marvel Bradley & Anderson. “This is a significant milestone in the evolution of our firm, and we look forward to combining the skills of our two legal teams to continue to meet our clients’ objectives, together.”

The new attorneys and staff formerly were with the national law firm of Forman Watkins Krutz & Tardy LLP. Thomas Tardy will be joining Maron Marvel, a move that he said is the result of more than a decade-long working relationship.

“For more than 10 years, our group has worked closely with Jim Maron and his team and have gained a healthy respect for them as attorneys and an appreciation for their business plan,” said Tardy. “Their vision and use of technology is aligned with ours, and we look forward to giving Maron Marvel a much larger presence in the Gulf and taking advantage of their multiple offices in the East.”

Most of the attorneys and staff joining Maron Marvel will continue to work from their existing offices and locations. The new arrangement went into effect on Oct. 1, 2015.

Tardy said the move was an amicable one.

“W.G. Watkins and Fred Krutz are two of my oldest friends,” Tardy said, of his former law partners. “We still have many long-standing relationships, and we value that history. It has been a pleasure to practice law with them.”

Maron said the expanded footprint and larger legal team offers great growth possibilities for the firm’s attorneys and staff and enhanced service for the firm’s clients.

“This is a historic day for our firm,” said Maron. “Our team is excited and energized by this growth, and we look forward to putting that energy to work on behalf of our clients nationwide.”

The new Maron Marvel Bradley & Anderson attorneys are:

Name Location
Thomas Tardy Jackson MS
Brannon Berry Jackson MS
Stefan Bourn Jackson MS
Sara Budslick Jackson MS
Julie Chaffin Jackson MS
Rebekah Clayton Jackson MS
Beau Cole Jackson MS
Marcy Croft Jackson MS
Richard Crump Jackson MS
Kay Dodge Jackson MS
Mary Margaret Gay Jackson MS
Laura Goodson Jackson MS
Samuel Habeeb Jackson MS
James House Jackson MS
Christi Jones Jackson MS
Sarah Beth Jones Jackson MS
Joanna Kuhn Jackson MS
Alexander Martin Jackson MS
John McCants Jackson MS
Chan McLeod Jackson MS
Donald Partridge Jackson MS
Clare Rush Jackson MS
Amanda Summerlin Jackson MS
Elizabeth Turley Jackson MS
Todd Ogden Dallas TX
John Parsons Dallas TX
John Robinson Dallas TX
Roger Nebel Houston TX
Ebony Morris New Orleans LA
Joseph Morton New Orleans LA
Michael Connery Philadelphia PA
Timothy Coughlan Red Bank NJ

About Maron Marvel Bradley & Anderson

Maron Marvel Bradley & Anderson LLC is a national law firm based in Wilmington, Delaware, with offices in Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Texas. The firm focuses its practice on mass toxic tort, products liability, and pharmaceutical, medical device, environmental and complex commercial disputes and represents public and private entities of all sizes. To learn more, visit the firm’s website.

A West Texas jury has awarded more than $43 million to a group of oil and gas investors after finding that their business partners had breached fiduciary duties by crediting themselves for financial contributions they never made and by excluding the investors from a lease acquisition project after it became apparent that the project would be tremendously successful.

Dallas attorneys Frank L. Branson, Eric T. Stahl and Debbie Branson of The Law Offices of Frank L. Branson represented one of the investor groups, consisting of Dallas-based Tiburon Land and Cattle LP and Trek Resources Inc. on behalf of the Three Finger/Black Shale Prospect Partnership. The Fisher County trial was heard in 32nd District Court in Roby.

“In Fisher County a deal is a deal,” said Branson in a report on the firm’s website. “It was very clear to the jurors that the defendants did not honor their word and took opportunities that did not belong to them, and that’s a very serious matter in West Texas.”

Read the article.

Insurers in the United States will face competing priorities for resources and time over the next 12 months, with cyber security preparedness challenging overall regulatory compliance readiness, argues Wolters Kluwer Financial Services and reported by Canadian Underwriter.

Wolters Kluwer Financial Services surveyed more than 300 insurance professionals in 2014 and 2015, tracking 10 factors across two consecutive 12-month periods to illustrate the overall level of regulatory and risk management pressures facing U.S. insurers.

“Overall, 60% of polled insurance professionals report that cyber security will receive escalated priority at their organization, followed by regulatory risk at 42%, notes a statement from the company, which offers risk management, compliance, finance and audit solutions and maintains operations in more than 170 countries,” reports Canadian Underwriter.

Read the report.

Dire predictions that the Affordable Care Act would lead to job losses and cuts in employee hours have so far proved to be unfounded, according to a new research paper from Federal Reserve Bank of New York economist Maxim Pinkovskiy and reported on the website of CBS Moneywatch.

According to the CBS report, “The fear was that employers who were newly required to provide health insurance to their workers would opt instead to cut hours or fire employees. But early numbers show that locations with a high percentage of uninsured Americans, such as Texas, ended up experiencing a rise in employment, salaries and output in comparison to areas with less exposure to the health care law, Pinkovskiy noted.”

Part-time work in states where Obamacare had major impact saw “a statistically insignificant decline in their part-time to full-time ratio,” Pinkovskiy wrote.

Read the report.

Frank Vogl, former senior World Bank official and international reporter for The Times of London, offers 10 specific recommendations to cure the banks of what he calls “their evil ways.” Bankers won’t like most of his proposals, he warns, but the time has come for radical reform.

“The immediate danger is that a continuation of current behavior by many large banks threatens to undermine our global financial system,” Vogl writes in an article for the Huffington Post.

Recommendation number 4 is: “Boards should establish precise guidelines for employee conduct and behavior and at least 50% of all pay to bank managers, including the chief executive officer, should be based on culture performance standards.”

And recommendation number 6 states: “Whistleblowers should be encouraged and protected so that managers can be swiftly alerted to wrongdoing.”

Frank Vogl is the co-founder of two nongovernmental anti-corruption organizations: Transparency International (TI) and the Partnership for Transparency Fund (PTF). He is president of Vogl Communications, Inc., Washington, DC — an international economics and finance consulting firm.

Read the article.

A Pennsylvania data backup site that has been revealed to store copies of emails from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appears to lack some standard security measures that could protect potentially sensitive communications from Clinton’s time in the U.S. State Department, according to a report in the Daily Mail Online.

The site said the facility is owned by Datto Inc. and was part of the network that stored classified messages from the private email server the Democratic presidential candidate used.

The report described doors without visible security, a lack of security patrols, open dumpsters, and no security fence.

Read the report.

A federal district court in New York recently held that a creditor could not be held liable for aggressively protecting its own interests when the plain language of the relevant documents permitted the actions taken by the creditor, according to a legal update from Dechert‘s Business Restructuring and Reorganization Group.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., No. 11-cv-7670 (RJS) (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 30, 2015) arose out of an adversary proceeding initiated by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and its affiliated against JPM, the update reports.

“The Debtors advanced multiple causes of action and theories against JPM, alleging that JPM improperly and unfairly appropriated value from the Debtors (thus harming their creditors) in the months leading up to LBHI’s bankruptcy filing by allegedly strong-arming the Debtors into providing it with additional collateral and protections,” it continues. “The Court, however, entered summary judgment against LBHI on nearly all counts because it found that the written contracts between JPM and LBHI expressly permitted JPM’s purportedly inequitable actions.”

Read the article.

Savvy owners – especially those with experience in litigation – know the importance of avoiding the growing variety of clauses that limit liability for construction industry vendors, writes Eric A. Grasberger of Stoel Rives LLP. Likewise, general contractors and architects need to be on guard against sub-tier liability waivers often lurking in the fine print or at the end of lengthy proposals.

“Owners are optimists and contractors are negotiators,” he writes. “Maybe this explains the increasing (and for owners, disturbing) presence of liability waivers in construction and design contracts.”

He discusses some of the clauses that should be considered carefully, including the consequential damages (CD) waiver, the limitation of liability (LOL), the warranty illusion, and options.

Read the article.

A Houston federal jury this week returned a verdict in favor of National Oilwell Varco, L.P., (NYSE: NOV), finding no wrongdoing in an employment discrimination lawsuit filed by eight African-Americans who sought $120 million in damages.

Houston-based NOV, an oilfield equipment supplier, argued that these employees were not treated differently because of their race. The jury heard 12 days of testimony in the trial before Judge Lee H. Rosenthal in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

The plaintiffs were represented by high-profile civil rights lawyer Angela M. Alioto of San Francisco’s Law Offices of Mayor Joseph L. Alioto and Angela Alioto in their claims of racial discrimination, hostile work environment and retaliation. Their lawsuit alleged that non-African-Americans received raises and promotions that were denied to the plaintiffs, in addition to claiming that racial slurs were frequently used in the workplace. However, the jury found that NOV had not violated the rights of the plaintiffs, seven former NOV employees and one current NOV employee.

NOV’s trial team was led by special trial counsel John Zavitsanos of Houston’s Ahmad, Zavitsanos, Anaipakos, Alavi & Mensing P.C., or AZA.  He offered evidence that showed there were several non-discriminatory reasons some of the workers did not receive promotions, were not asked to return to their jobs after taking unauthorized leave or were fired for cause.

“NOV always has promoted a diverse workplace where discrimination isn’t tolerated,” says Zavitsanos. “This was nothing more than an attempt by a discrimination law firm to pull out a playbook that has worked in other cases in hopes of cashing in.”

Also representing NOV along with Zavitsanos were attorneys Monique Gougisha Doucette and Christopher E. Moore of Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart’s New Orleans office. Assisting on the case was law school graduate Nathan Campbell, who is not yet licensed to practice law.

The plaintiffs in Vital, et al. v. National Oilwell Varco, No. 4:12-cv-01357, included former NOV employees Junious Vital, DeWarren Bellard, Damon Darby, Herbert Heard, Edward Jiles, Jerome Johnson, David Lane and current employee Billy Rose.

The Transportation Research Board’s National Cooperative Rail Research Program (NCRRP) has published a legal research digest that presents legal issues that attorneys may encounter when representing both freight and passenger railroad owners, and operators involved in railroad-related transactions.

Issues explored in the report range from abandonment and discontinuance to constitutional law, construction, contracts, interaction with regulatory agencies, safety, retirement, and numerous other subjects.

The electronic version of the digest includes more than 700 pages of case law presenting detailed summaries of statutes, regulations, cases, and relevant articles as a fundamental resource for use in understanding the background and broad ramifications of railroad-related law reflected in each category.

Download the digest.

Legal technology company Legal Hero has announced the launch of a new general counsel service to provide small businesses and entrepreneurs with access to regular guidance and legal advice.

Through its online portal, Legal Hero GC connects companies with an experienced, vetted attorney to act as an on-demand adviser and partner, giving businesses all the benefits of having an in-house lawyer without the excessive fees commonly associated with hiring an internal or external general counsel, the company said in a release.

“Most small business and entrepreneurs today don’t have the benefit of having in-house lawyers or external law firms on retainer like their larger competitors, but still need expert legal advice they can afford and trust,” the release said. “Legal Hero GC addresses this gap in the marketplace by matching companies with a vetted lawyer and guaranteed pricing to help guide their growing businesses through anything from employment law issues, corporate legal questions, contract and other document review, and whatever other legal support a company may need.”

“As an entrepreneur, I have a lot on my plate. With my Legal Hero GC, legal matters are no longer stressful and a lot of my time is freed up to focus on what matters most – growing my business,” said Daniel Heller, CEO of The Welcoming Committee. “Whether it’s providing advice on employment issues or helping me decipher a contract, I can always rely on my lawyer’s advice and their ability to make the project as seamless and efficient as possible.”

“As we worked with clients to connect them with the right lawyer for their legal projects, we realized there was a real need in the small business community for a general counsel platform that could help in a more on-demand capacity,” said Annie Webber, co-founder & CEO, Legal Hero. “Adding the Legal Hero GC service was a perfect fit for us as we’re constantly looking to find new ways to help small businesses and entrepreneurs get the legal support they need without the excessive costs and contracts associated with traditional law firms.”

The release continues:

Legal Hero GC is offered in three packages from early-stage entrepreneurs who need advice to keep their growth on track, to growing companies in need of regular guidance. By leveraging the online matching technology and the power of the Legal Hero attorney network, Legal Hero GC helps companies find the right attorney for their business needs.

Launched in November 2014, Legal Hero is a legal technology company that matches experienced lawyers to small businesses at significant price savings over traditional law firms.  Unlike other attorney matching services or providers of blank legal forms, Legal Hero brings quality and pricing certainty found through its vetted network of lawyers and transparent pricing of projects.

About Legal Hero

Legal Hero covers businesses’ most common legal needs. Specific projects offered include those involving business formation, employment law, intellectual property, real estate, and immigration. Legal Hero is available nationwide for intellectual property and immigration projects, and is currently available in New York, Massachusetts and Florida for all other projects, with plans to expand into additional states.

The National Association for Business Resources has named Everlaw one of the Bay Area’s Best and Brightest Companies to Work For. The award recognizes companies that excel at employee relations, use innovation to motivate employees, implement creative compensation programs, and more. The ediscovery company was recognized for its employee engagement and company culture.

The “101 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For” is a national program with annual award galas in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Houston, Milwaukee, San Diego and San Francisco. The legal technology company won the honor after an independent research firm’s evaluation of its compensation, benefits and employee solutions; employee enrichment, engagement and retention; employee education and development; recruitment, selection and orientation; employee achievement and recognition; communication and shared vision; diversity and inclusion; work-life balance; community initiatives and strategic company performance.

“We are honored to be recognized for our unique company culture and values,” said Everlaw CEO AJ Shankar. “Our team is the most important factor in achieving our mission to improve litigation, so we work hard to make a great experience for each team member. We’re proud to bring this approach and this recognition to the legal field.”

Read more.

Unified Patents, Inc. has announced the launch of two new programs tailored to startups: Secured by Unified and Protect: Membership with Insurance. Together, these products are intended to reduce emerging technology companies’ risk of being targeted by costly patent litigation, such as from Non-Practicing Entity (NPE) or “patent trolls.”

The first-of-its-kind Secured by Unified logo program lets any Unified member include a logo on its homepage indicating it is a Unified Patents member, and is thereby protected by Unified’s patent assertion deterrence services. And with Protect: Membership with Insurance, Unified now offers a new membership tier for companies earning annual revenues less than $20 million that provides many of the benefits of Unified’s full membership at a fraction of the cost — and, most importantly, includes the world’s least expensive patent litigation insurance, the company said in a release.

“Secured by Unified provides a smart solution for startups that have been lacking an efficient, effective and affordable way to deter against frivolous litigation from patent trolls,” said Application Developers Alliance Acting President Jake Ward. “We hope this new program sends a loud and clear warning to NPEs that asserting dubious patents in Unified’s protected zones comes with enormous potential downside, and that they should think twice before bringing a lawsuit.”

Read the release.

The recent meeting between the National Association of Corporate Directors’ Audit Committee Chair and Risk Oversight Advisory Councils featured discussions on emerging trends in cyber-risk oversight and their implications for directors.

The conversation focused on four topics:

• The role of the external audit firm
• IT function and the board’s interactions with the CIO
• Identifying cybersecurity vulnerabilities at the board level
• Potential sources for benchmarking company performance on cybersecurity management

Download a complimentary summary of the report.

James Waite, writing in Rental Management Magazine, addresses the problem equipment rental operators can face when a large customer wants to revise a contract or use their own.

“This is fairly commonplace when dealing with larger customers, particularly schools, governmental entities and some contractors,” he writes. “Importantly, there is no ‘established’ set of rules for dealing with these issues, making it difficult for rental operators to know whether they’re accepting merely ‘industry standard’ modifications or instead, assuming potentially catastrophic liabilities.”

He offers a list of provisions that operators should insist on retaining and another list of provisions that should be rejected.

Read the article.