Regardless of whether you are a supplier or purchaser, it is imperative to know whether your contract with your purchaser or supplier is a “requirements contract,” according to a paper published by Greensfelder, Hemker, & Gale.

“Potentially conflicting terms and conditions in purchase orders and invoices exchanged between parties may result in the formation of a ‘requirements contract’ or preclude the formation of such an agreement. And whether you are a supplier or purchaser, a requirements contract will have a material impact on your rights and obligations.” writes Thadford Felton.

The paper defines requirements contracts and gives examples of building protections into contracts.

Read the paper.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has found that employee agreements to arbitrate may be obtained through written acknowledgments referencing company manuals, reports Pepper Hamilton in a new paper. An employee’s agreement to abide by a company manual is sufficient to send Title VII claims to an arbitrator.

“Arbitration remains a preferred forum for many employers, yet courts are often wary of enforcing arbitration agreements against employee-plaintiffs,” the paper says. “This has often been the case where employees made claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which provides for a statutory jury right that potentially conflicts with the Federal Arbitration Act.”

Authors of the paper are partners Jeffrey M. Goldman, Sharon R. Klein, Matthew H. Adler and associate Kevin Crisp.

Read the paper.

A one-hour complimentary webinar from eTERA will provide executives and their legal teams with best practices for managing document review projects, regardless of size and scope.

The webinar will be Wednesday, June 17, 2015, from 11 am to noon EDT.

In a release, eTERA said that document review, in many respects, is considered to be the most fundamental, costly and time-consuming aspect of the eDiscovery process. With the complexity and volume of today’s data only increasing, it is imperative for organizations to utilize best practices in managing the document review process, which will result in cost savings, increased efficiencies, enhanced decision making abilities and defensibility.

The release continues:

eTERA’s Ashish Prasad, Esq., Vice President and General Counsel, Todd Haley, Vice President of Business Intelligence, and Vazantha Meyers, Esq., Director of Managed Review, will discuss the following key topics:

• Development of the document review team
• How to ensure quality control
• Targeted keyword searches
• Review reporting and key metrics
• Avoiding several common pitfalls
• Privilege review
• Technology Assisted Review (“TAR”) including threading, near-duplication, context and predictive coding

Speakers:

Ashish Prasad
Vice President and General Counsel
eTERA Consulting

Ashish is a leading expert on the law and practice of eDiscovery. He is a former Litigation Partner and Chair of the Electronic Discovery and Records Management Practice at Mayer Brown LLP, the author of several treatises and dozens of articles on discovery topics, and the teacher of hundreds of legal education seminars over the past decade on topics of eDiscovery.

Todd Haley
Vice President of Business Intelligence
eTERA Consulting

Todd is an expert on the technology of eDiscovery. He is the former Chief Technology Officer of a major law firm, and has over two decades of experience managing the technology, business process and other aspects of eDiscovery and data management engagements.

Vazantha Meyers, Esq.
Director of Managed Review
eTERA Consulting

 Vazantha has extensive experience in all matters of eDiscovery.  She worked as a litigation associate at Mayer Brown LLP in the Electronic Discovery and Records Management Group, contributed to the Practicing Law Institute treatise Electronic Discovery Deskbook: Law and Practice (2009), and has written many articles and presentations on various topics related to eDiscovery.  

To register today for this complimentary webinar, please click here.

For additional information, please contact: Cassey Elder, Manager, Public Relations at marketing@eteraconsulting.com.

Feel free to forward this email to others in your organization that would benefit from this complimentary webinar.

About eTERA Consulting

eTERA Consulting, Built by the clients, for the clients™ is an award-winning leader in data and technology management providing innovative solutions to help clients overcome the high costs of managing large volumes of data, electronic discovery and content searching. As an international consultancy, eTERA offers five key services across the Electronic Discovery Reference Model including Early Information Assessment®, Forens1cs One℠, 1ntelligent One™, Rev1ew One™ and Opt1mum One.® These services help clients to proactively identify and analyze data early in the process allowing for significant data reduction, enhanced decision-making abilities, significant savings on eDiscovery costs and defensibility. eTERA Consulting provides clients with the necessary swat-team of experts needed to effectively manage litigation, government investigations and regulatory matters. eTERA Consulting utilizes software tools verified by the Gartner Group and is SSAE-16 certified to ensure the protection of client data. Headquartered in Washington, DC, and with offices in Chicago, Brussels, London and Paris, eTERA Consulting has served the legal industry since 2004. eTERA Consulting was selected by the Legal Times in 2014 as the Best End-to-End Litigation Consulting Firm and in 2013 as the Best Data and Technology Management eDiscovery Provider. eTERA Consulting has also been recognized by the National Law Journal for four consecutive years as the nation’s top End-to-End eDiscovery Company.

The national law firm of Quarles & Brady LLP announced that Nicole A. Bashor, an associate with the firm’s Intellectual Property Practice Group, has been appointed as an affiliate representative of the National LGBT Bar Association and Foundation board of directors.

“I am honored to serve on the board of the National LGBT Bar Association and Foundation,” said Bashor. “I join an accomplished group of professionals dedicated to promoting justice in and through the legal profession for the LGBT community.”

In 2014, the National LGBT Bar Association named Bashor one of the 40 Best LGBT Lawyers Under 40. The award honors LGBT legal professionals who have distinguished themselves in their field and demonstrate a commitment to LGBT equality. Bashor also is active in the Lesbian and Gay Bar Association of Chicago, where she is first vice president on the board of directors, and serves as chair of the Community Outreach Committee.

About Quarles & Brady LLP

Quarles & Brady is a full-service law firm with more than 475 attorneys offering an array of legal services to corporate and individual clients that range from small entrepreneurial businesses to Fortune 100 companies, with practice focuses in health care and life sciences, business law, data privacy and security, and complex litigation. The firm has offices in Chicago; Indianapolis; Madison; Milwaukee; Naples, Florida; Phoenix; Scottsdale; Tampa; Tucson; and Washington, D.C. Additional information can be found online at quarles.com, as well as on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

by Sean Cronin, ProcessUnity

Regulatory bodies including the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) have made clear that when a bank outsources functions to third parties, the bank is still responsible for managing risks associated with those functions. But what if the third party then outsources certain functions to yet another company? Is the bank now expected to manage risks associated with that company, which is now a fourth party vendor to the bank?

In a word, yes, and it so happens bank regulators make the same argument. “A bank’s use of third parties does not diminish the responsibility of its board of directors and senior management to ensure that the activity is performed in a safe and sound manner and in compliance with applicable laws,” says OCC Bulletin 2013-29, issued on Oct. 30, 2013. As one of the factors contributing to the number and complexity of bank relationships with third parties, the same document cites “contracting with third parties that subcontract activities to other foreign and domestic providers.” One of the OCC’s concerns is that banks enter into contracts “without assessing the adequacy of a third party’s risk management practices.”

Banks would do well to share those concerns and for the most part, they do. But the issue is a thorny one because it is indeed a complex task for banks to continually manage risk for all those third- and fourth-party vendors.

The operative word there is “continually,” because risk management is an ongoing process. Any company performs due diligence before contracting with a third-party service provider. But the key to effective risk management is ongoing follow-up, to ensure the controls that were in place when the relationship began remain in place over time, and change as necessary to manage new risks.

This level of risk mitigation requires a repeatable program that includes periodic inspection. “You don’t get what you expect, you get what you inspect,” as the saying goes.

At a minimum, inspection begins by identifying all fourth-party providers that are servicing your bank. You need to understand the type of information and services being outsourced, and what controls are in place to protect the bank’s interests.

The idea is to gain an understanding of the total risk across both third and fourth parties and what contingency plans are in place should an event occur. It makes sense to be proactive in this effort because banks will increasingly be under pressure from regulators and their own boards to prove a program is in place for managing both third- and fourth-party providers.

Such a program involves assessments that take a sampling of the controls that should be in place and asks vendors questions to ensure they are indeed in place and functioning as intended. But as banks continue to outsource more and more functions to cloud providers and others, the inspection process can become unwieldy at best and, at worst, untrustworthy.

To ease the burden, banks need to automate the process of conducting assessments and analyzing results. The program should be set up to follow risk tolerance guidelines and measurements that are well-defined and defensible to senior management and regulators.  It should produce documentation that helps illustrate where you may need to take steps to further reduce risk, such as diversifying to reduce exposure. In general, it should provide plenty of data elements and analytics to improve decision-making.

Besides the main benefit such an automated program provides – reducing your level of risk – this kind of proactive, self-policing program also gives banks a leg up in its meetings with regulators. It’s like taking a test where you know the questions ahead of time and can prepare your answers. The regulators will be asking you the same questions you’ve been asking your third- and fourth-party providers because you’ve, in effect, been regulating them all along.

Automating your vendor risk management program also ensures risk assessments don’t fall through the cracks because of overloaded internal auditors. What’s more, it eliminates the appearance of subjectivity in vendor classifications and ensures the process is repeatable. Automation also brings a new level of intelligence, because an automated system can find trends and the proverbial needle in a haystack that may help you prevent a serious breach.

Being proactive and finding those needles will help any bank prove it’s doing an effective job at regulating all of its service providers, both third and fourth party, all the while reducing its risk of exposure.

Moving to the Cloud: Why now? 

For law firms and financial institutions, questions linger about the transition to cloud-based technology: is it safe? How does it benefit the existing infrastructure? Will new IT personnel need to be hired in order to manage it?

The simple answer is that cloud-based solutions are designed to be easier to deploy and more affordable to manage than comparative on-premise solutions. There is minimal set-up involved in building a cloud database, and it’s managed by the vendor – not the IT department. Therefore, banks  and law firms don’t need to invest in new IT staff to deploy a cloud-based solution, and as needs change, new applications can be deployed as required.

The less time that financial and legal organizations have to spend relying on manual tasks to control risk enables them to better allocate resources to focus on high-risk management activities. Cloud-based solutions augment that approach by simplifying the deployment process and shifting the maintenance onus to the vendor – typically with lower costs and infinite scalability.

In recognition of the firm’s trial successes in 2014, Ahmad, Zavitsanos, Anaipakos, Alavi & Mensing P.C., or AZA, has earned selection as a Litigation Department of the Year for 2015  by the publishers of Texas Lawyer newspaper.

The annual honor recognizes the Texas-based litigation groups that have excelled during the previous year based on courtroom results. Just three general litigation firms are chosen statewide for having the top litigation departments.  AZA claimed the top spot among all Texas firms in their size category. The firm is featured in a June 1 profile story in Texas Lawyer titled, “Ahmad, Zavitsanos, Anaipakos, Alavi & Mensing More Than a ‘Tough Name’” (subscription required).

Read the story.

Cooley is enhancing its higher education practice with the addition of Katherine “Kate” Lee Carey who is joining the firm’s San Diego office as Special Counsel.

Carey has more than 14 years of experience in the legal, accreditation, administrative and regulatory aspects of higher education institutions and companies that provide services to the education industry. Most recently she served as the General Counsel and Vice President for Government Affairs at West Coast University and American Career College in California.

“Kate not only has tremendous hands-on experience but she is a highly-regarded leader in the formulation of California higher education policy,” said Mike Goldstein, the Washington, DC-based head of Cooley’s higher education practice. “Her arrival will strengthen our ability to assist our clients in their dealings with a complex web of regulatory agencies at all levels of government.”

In addition to her unique insider’s perspective regarding the day-to-day legal issues facing nationally and regionally accredited institutions, Carey brings deep experience in the development and implementation of legislative and policy priorities at the federal and state levels, including preparing legislative strategies and working on advocacy efforts. She currently serves on the Board of the California Association of Private Postsecondary Schools and on the Advisory Board for the California Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education.

A release from Cooley continues:

“Beyond her regulatory and policy expertise, Kate will provide strong leadership and expert guidance on legal issues relating to general business matters such as labor and employment law, student-related concerns and processes, litigation management and dispute resolution,” said Jay Vaughan, Cooley education partner who also focuses on regulatory issues impacting Cooley’s West Coast clients.

About Cooley’s Higher Education Practice

Cooley is at the forefront of the global transformation of the education and edtech sectors. The firm’s 2014 merger with DC-based regulatory firm Dow Lohnes has created a premier education industry practice, benefiting from Cooley’s long history as a leading technology law firm and coupled with best-in-class emerging company, business, IP and litigation practices to serve efficiently this fast-changing global sector.

About Cooley LLP

Cooley’s lawyers solve legal issues for entrepreneurs, investors, financial institutions and established companies. Clients partner with Cooley on transformative deals, complex IP and regulatory matters, and high-stakes litigation, often where innovation meets the law.

Cooley has 850 lawyers across 12 offices in the United States, China and Europe.

Tom Allman, Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Cincinnati

DTI presents an on-demand webinar featuring Tom Allman, a former general counsel and well-known student of the civil rulemaking process, in a discussion on how the new federal rules expected to go into effect Dec. 1 of this year will impact e-discovery obligations and strategy.

Tom Allman chaired both the Sedona Conference and the Rules Committee of Lawyers for Civil Justice. He participated in the Duke Conference Panel and has followed the rulemaking process resulting in the current rules. Currently, he serves as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Cincinnati and speaks and writes extensively on the topic. His paper on the rules amendments is regarded as a classic source on the topic.

The other presenter, Samantha Green, serves as e-discovery counsel for DTI and has more than a dozen years of litigation and consulting experience. At DTI, she serves as a subject matter expert on all aspects of eDiscovery and advises clients on strategy. Prior to joining DTI, she was the eDiscovery attorney in Blank Rome’s New York City office. Prior to that, she worked on a variety of complex litigation matters and conducted in-house CLEs and training programs on eDiscovery topics for Moses & Singer’s New York office, after having been an attorney with Proskauer Rose.

Download the recording and slides.

Carl Berkowitz, PE, Ph.D., AICP, a transportation and traffic engineering expert has posted the first part of an examination of a broad range of safety issues involving rail activity.

Topics in the paper include safe passenger boarding, pathways for passengers, stairs, handrails, ramps, elevators, escalators, crowding, platform-to-rail-car gap, passengers on the tracks, premature door closing, accidents between the train and platform, in-vehicle falls, jerk rate, operators and safety, applied attention, attention control, stopping distance, speed-distance relationship, emergency braking, derailments, crossing accidents, pedestrians on tracks, and more.

Berkowitz has served as a litigation consultant since 1997.

Read the white paper.

In a new book, noted environmentalist Lester Brown says the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources is not only unstoppable, but will happen much faster than anyone expected, reports Public Radio International.

Brown, founder of Worldwatch Institute and the Earth Policy Institute, has written 54 books and was called “one of the world’s most influential thinkers” by the Washington Post. PRI says that, when he speaks, people tend to pay attention. His new book is “The Great Transition: Shifting from Fossil Fuels to Solar and Wind Energy.”

“In many parts of the U.S., he says, putting solar panels on your roof now provides electricity at a lower cost than the local utility. Consequently, more and more people are putting solar panels on their roofs,” the report says.

Read the story and listen to the recorded interview.

The Texas Supreme Court has ruled that life settlements sold by Life Partners Inc. are securities under state law, breathing new life into lawsuits brought by the Texas State Securities Board and a putative class of investors, reports law360.com.

“In the Texas cases brought by the state securities regulator and a group of investors, Life Partners had won trial court dismissals. But appeals courts in Austin and Dallas revived the claims after finding the life settlements were investment contracts, not insurance contracts, making them securities under state law.” the report says.

Keith Langston of Langston Law Firm, based in Longview, Texas, represents the investors.

Read the opinion.

Read the story.

The top Texas premises liability verdict during the past 10 years is the record $27 million jury award won by the Dallas law firm Standly Hamilton, LLP, against fast food giant McDonald’s, according to the publishers ofVerdictSearch, the firm reported in a release.

Attorney Chris Hamilton of Standly Hamilton represented the families of Denton James Ward, 18, and Lauren Bailey Crisp, 19, in their claims that lax security contributed to the two teenagers’ deaths, the firm said in the release. Ward died after being severely beaten by a large group of people who had gathered in the McDonald’s parking lot in College Station during the early morning hours of Feb. 18, 2012. Crisp died shortly afterward in a car wreck while a friend attempted to rush her and Ward to the hospital.

“The jurors’ award in this case is in line with what they saw in McDonald’s complete lack of respect for customer safety,” Hamilton said. “While it is professionally gratifying to know that a verdict our firm won is ranked among the largest in Texas, the fact is that no amount of money will ever be able to reunite the victims and their families.”

Read the story.

Leading Texas-based design professionals attorney Mitchell S. Milby has joined Wilson Elser’s Dallas office as a partner.

In a release, the firm said the founder and sole shareholder of his former firm, Milby PLLC in Dallas, Milby says he has moved his practice to Wilson Elser because of its national, full-service platform and its high-caliber lawyers.

The release continues:

An accomplished trial attorney with more than 100 cases reaching verdict over his 21-year legal career, Milby focuses his practice on representing design professionals, primarily contractors, architects and engineers, as outside general counsel on matters that involve professional liability, corporate governance and all aspects of contracts and deal-making. He has represented numerous tier-one insurers, professional associations and major corporations across Texas and in other venues, including Florida, Oklahoma and California.

“We are fortunate to have such an accomplished, well-respected attorney join our ranks,” shared Stratton Horres, regional managing partner of Wilson Elser’s Dallas office and the partner in charge of lateral acquisitions. “Mitch adds depth to our growing Architects & Engineers Professional Liability practice throughout the state of Texas and nationwide. He is a tremendous asset to our firm and to our clients.”;

To stay closely aligned with the business sectors he serves, Milby is active in industry organizations; he serves as an advisory board member for the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and conducts continuing education courses designed for architects and engineers for organizations such as the AIA, the Texas Society of Professional Engineers, the University of Texas at Arlington Engineering Graduate Program, Texas Association of Paralegals and various bar associations. He also is an ongoing visiting instructor for the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington, Construction Management.

Additionally, Milby’s opinions have been published in the AIA magazine columns, the Dallas Business Journal, Texas Bar Journal, and Texas Lawyer. He also serves on the editorial board of the Journal of American Law.

Among his many accolades is his AV® Preeminent™ Rating by Martindale-Hubbell, selection for inclusion as a Texas Top Rated Lawyer, and achieving Professional Affiliate of the Year and Sustaining Partner status with the Dallas chapter of the AIA.

Milby graduated with honors with his J.D. degree from Lewis & Clark Law School (1994), where he also earned his certification in Environmental and Natural Resources Law. He graduated cum laude from Vanderbilt University with his B.A. degree (1991).

With an intense desire to win inside and out of the courtroom, Milby has finished one Ironman Triathlon and several marathons, and holds a number of awards for running races in Texas and Oregon.

Since January 1, 2015, Wilson Elser has opened its 27th U.S. office in Edwardsville, IL, and added 11 new partners nationally across practice areas including Bankruptcy, Commercial Services, Employment & Labor, and Insurance-Reinsurance Coverage. Lawrence Waks, a premier Texas-based intellectual property/entertainment attorney, joined the Dallas office in March.

Quarles & Brady LLP has announced that Mark W. Bina, a partner in the firm’s Litigation & Dispute Resolution and Health Law Practice Groups, has been elected to the board of directors of Chicago Volunteer Legal Services (CVLS).

CVLS is the oldest civil pro bono organization in Chicago, comprised of more than 3,000 attorneys who donate free legal services to thousands of low-income residents. Bina’s election to the board continues the firm’s association with the more than 50-year-old organization. CVLS operates 22 legal clinics across the Chicago area, hosted evenings and weekends at community organizations and churches.

Bina succeeds Quarles & Brady partner Christopher N. Skey on the board of directors. Firm associate Adam J. Falkof was recently elected to the CVLS Junior Board. All three practice out of the firm’s Chicago office.

“Mark is a distinguished pro bono attorney in his own right, and will be a great addition to the CVLS board of directors,” said Skey. “Quarles & Brady is extremely proud of its longtime relationship with this organization.”

Bina’s practice encompasses a variety of matters affecting businesses in state and federal trial and appellate courts across the country. In 2013, he received an award for excellence in pro bono service from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and the Chicago chapter of the Federal Bar Association.

About Quarles & Brady LLP

Quarles & Brady is a full-service law firm with more than 475 attorneys offering an array of legal services to corporate and individual clients that range from small entrepreneurial businesses to Fortune 100 companies, with practice focuses in health care and life sciences, business law, data privacy and security, and complex litigation. The firm has offices in Chicago; Indianapolis; Madison; Milwaukee; Naples, Florida; Phoenix; Scottsdale; Tampa; Tucson; and Washington, D.C. Additional information can be found online at quarles.com, as well as on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

Hogan Lovells has announced that , focusing on complex international disputes involving joint ventures, international investments, service agreements, construction projects, hospitality, banking and securities.

Haridi counsels corporations and financial institutions from across the globe in proceedings under the arbitration rules of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the International Centre for Dispute Resolution (AAA/ICDR), the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA), and the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL).

“We are thrilled to welcome Samaa to our global IA group and the New York office in particular. As the demand for international arbitration continues to grow, clients expect us not only to have a deep bench, but also the best lawyers with the unique set of skills, experiences, and know-how needed in different regions of the world and different industries,” said Daniel E. González, Global Head of Hogan Lovells’ International Arbitration practice. “Samaa, as a recognized international arbitrator and advocate, is exactly the kind of partner we want and clients expect.”

Haridi serves on the Board of Directors of the Arab Bankers Association of North America (ABANA) and JDRF (formerly known as the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation). She is a member of the panel of arbitrators of the American Arbitration Association’s International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR), the panel of arbitrators of the Cairo Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration (CRCICA), and the panel of arbitrators of the Dubai International Arbitration Center (DIAC). Additionally, Haridi is qualified to practice in New York, California, and England & Wales, and is trilingual in English, French, and Arabic – routinely handling work in all three languages.

“I am excited to join Hogan Lovells and to reunite with my former colleagues and friends Ollie Armas, Luis Enrique Graham, Thomas Pieper and Carlos Martinez,” said Haridi. “We all pretty much started our international arbitration careers at Thacher Proffitt &Wood. We took circuitous paths but we’re back together now and I am very excited to plug into the phenomenal platform of Hogan Lovells. I am so pleased to join a firm with such a strong reputation in New York, and worldwide.”

Haridi joins from Weil, Gotshal & Manges where she was a partner in the International Arbitration practice in Weil’s New York office.

About Hogan Lovells

Hogan Lovells is a leading global legal practice providing business-oriented legal advice and high-quality service across its exceptional breadth of practices to clients around the world.

“Hogan Lovells” or the “firm” is an international legal practice that includes Hogan Lovells US LLP and Hogan Lovells International LLP. For more information, see www.hoganlovells.com.

Bridgeway Software Inc. will present a webinar titled “5 Ways Matter Management Can Transform Your Legal Department and Why e-Billing Alone is Not Enough” Wednesday, June 10, at noon CDT.

“From advanced collaboration to improved early case assessment and robust reporting to risk management, global corporations are leveraging the value of matter management beyond e-billing to gain a competitive advantage,” Bridgeway says.

Industry leaders at Mattel, MetLife and Mutual of Omaha will be presenters during this uniquely formatted Bridgeway University webcast, moderated by legal industry analyst Ari Kaplan.

Some of the topics include:

• Where matter management starts and e-billing ends
• The value of broad data and ways to apply metrics to streamline your law department
• How a centralized source of information can unify legal operations to reduce cost and increase efficiency
• Best practices for simplifying the complexities associated with running a modern legal department
• A roadmap for getting started

RSVP for the webinar.

Berkman Solutions has compiled a list of 10 techniques to enhance the value of legal services after a contract is signed.

The list of techniques expands on such points as notifying clients of expiration dates and auto-renewal termination notice dates, and monitoring contract compliance for both parties, provisions, and regulations.

It also discusses assigning contract tasks to client staff, summarizing financial structure, and identifying contract assets.

“As a lawyer, you invest time to understand your client’s objectives, risks, and opportunities. What happens to your carefully drafted contract?” Berkman Solutions asks on its website. “Your contract is filed and forgotten. Your client needs the benefit of your drafting during the entire contract term. Your client’s need is your opportunity.”

Download the list.

James S. Brady, Office Managing Member of Dykema’s Grand Rapids office, has received the Marion Hilligan Public Service Award from Western Michigan University Cooley Law School to reflect a lifetime of community service. He was honored earlier this month during the annual Law Day luncheon hosted by the law school and the Grand Rapids Bar Association.

The Marion Hilligan Public Service Award is given in recognition of “contributions by a lawyer in public service to area governmental bodies or community organizations, reflecting greater individual responsibility in promoting public health and welfare through law.” The award is named after the law school’s first Associate Dean of its Grand Rapids campus, who made profound contributions to the school’s development.

Brady’s practice focuses on business and commercial litigation, white collar investigations, criminal law, health care fraud and environmental and energy law. He is former United States Attorney for the Western District of Michigan.

Outside of his practice, Brady’s involvement in the community and his reputation as a mentor are well-known. He serves as chair of Emmanuel Hospice, as a board member and former chair of St. Ann’s Skilled Nursing Home, and as a board member of Catholic Charities West Michigan. He previously taught at Cooley Law School and has acted as the past chair of the Western Michigan University Foundation and past president of the Grand Rapids Bar Association.

Western Michigan University and Thomas M. Cooley Law School affiliated in 2014, combining the status of a nationally-ranked, public, comprehensive research university with the commitment to practical legal education of an independent, non-profit, national law school.

Brady received his J.D. from the University of Notre Dame Law School, a B.S. from Western Michigan University , and is a graduate of Grand Rapids Catholic Central High School.

About Dykema

Dykema serves business entities worldwide on a wide range of complex legal issues. Dykema lawyers and other professionals in 15 U.S. offices work in close partnership with clients – from start-ups to Fortune 100 companies – to deliver outstanding results, unparalleled service and exceptional value in every engagement. To learn more, visit www.dykema.com and follow Dykema on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Dykema.

Daegis Inc. presents a complimentary on-demand webinar discussing how technology can help attorneys do much more than just review and produce documents.

Technology helps attorneys understand their case, test theories and develop litigation strategies — as soon as data is collected, Daegis says on its website. By utilizing technology to its best advantage, attorneys zero in on the information they need early on, even before a review has begun

Using an eDiscovery “toolkit” enables attorneys to:

• Assess the strengths and weaknesses of a case early on
• Determine if a complaint is an isolated incident or part of a pattern or practice
• Evaluate the likelihood that a putative class action meets the requirements for class certification
• Identify potential key witnesses
• Test litigation theories by searching the data, independent of the review
• Prepare for Rule 26 conferences
• Develop proportionality and cost shifting arguments for discovery motions, and
• Monitor the review to ensure that reviewers understand the case and to identify the need for clarification or retraining quickly

Watch the on-demand webinar.

CREATE.org, the Center for Responsible Enterprise And Trade, offers a free white paper discussing how to mitigate the risks of counterfeiting, piracy and trade secret theft.

This whitepaper outlines how companies can better safeguard key corporate intellectual property assets and better mitigate risks by integrating intellectual property protection into their Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) programs.

Protecting Intellectual Property Through Enterprise Risk Management, the whitepaper outlines how companies can follow the approach of the major ERM standards and frameworks already in place to address strategic, financial, operational, compliance and reputational risks.

Download the white paper.