Noted Dallas business litigator Melanie Okon has been named one of the top North Texas energy attorneys in the Dallas Business Journal’s 2014 listing of Who’s Who in Energy.

Ms. Okon, a name partner in Dallas-based Estes Okon Thorne & Carr PLLC, will be featured among the 17 key lawyers who represent companies in the energy industry in the Who’s Who in Energy section, which will be published in the Nov. 28 edition of the Dallas Business Journal.

“This recognition for Melanie reinforces what we’ve known for years,” says firm founding partner Dawn Estes. “Her work for energy companies in disputes involving pipeline construction, nuisance complaints, contract litigation and other matters has been consistently exceptional, and we’re proud to work with her. It is a significant accomplishment to earn a place on this list in one of the country’s top states for energy production.”

Read the story.

Urjanet presents a complimentary webinar about accessing timely, accurate, and high-quality energy data as the first step for making smarter, more profitable, and eco-friendly energy decisions.

“Acquiring energy data, with its large volumes and disparate formats, is a daunting task because there are no standards in the industry,” said Urjanet’s Vice President of Sales, Erik Becker, who moderates the panel discussion. “In this webinar we discuss how essential it is to have good data to make informed decisions related to energy.”

On its website, Urjanet says attendees will learn what causes good energy data to go bad, why bad data leads to missed opportunities and poor capital investments, and how automating energy data can help reduce energy costs and carbon emissions. For this session, Urjanet partnered with energy management industry experts including Joseph Aamidor, Product Manager for JCI, and Alisdair McDougall of the leading research analyst firm Verdantix.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

Electricity Pylons by Nick Page, on Flickr

ABB has posted a complimentary on-demand webinar on planning for electrical grid stability and reliability.

While weather events like Hurricane Sandy grab national headlines, they aren’t the only threat to transmission grids, ABB says on its website. The shift in generation caused by the integration of renewables and coal plant closures has also created issues with grid stability and reliability. Add in aging infrastructure, and stresses on the transmission grid are only going to get worse.

Preparing the system to withstand and recover from these failures and events requires proper planning and optimization of investments.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

Compliancy Group will host a complimentary webinar to help health care organizations manage patient receivables in a more efficient, profitable way.

The 90-minute webinar will be Tuesday, Jan. 20, at 2 p.m. Eastern time.

Health care and biotech companies are increasingly seeing attacks by cyber criminals, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Those criminals are looking for the trove of valuable details the companies hold — stock information, research secrets and even patients’ personal data, industry experts said.

At the same time, the health and life-science sectors are underprepared for the assault from such sophisticated thieves. Well-planned “phishing” attacks and confidence tricks fool executives, scientists and hospital workers, who are often pressured to put productivity ahead of good online security practices, the Union-Tribune reports.

“Health care, a sector that accounts for one-sixth of the nation’s economy, makes an obvious target for fraud. The industry is increasingly exposed to hacking as records traditionally kept on paper are computerized. And the trend is likely to grow because the federal government is funding the adoption of electronic health records nationwide,” the newspaper says.

Read the story.

IBM offers a complimentary on-demand webinar on how to optimize proper contract governance across the global organization.

Contracts are the foundation of every business relationship, IBM says on its website. But today, most businesses can’t ensure that the proper protections are contained in each and every agreement, as many legal departments don’t have the staff or resources to examine every single contract under management.

This webinar covers: Why flexibility matters to contracting for your people, your processes and the supporting technology, how to leverage contract management solutions to fit the ever-changing landscape of your enterprise, and what your peers are doing today to keep extending the value of contracting.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

Selectica offers a free white paper on integration of contract management as the key to transforming spend data into process efficiency, performance analysis and savings.

Contracts frequently provide information that is critical to determining who and how much business should be awarded to various suppliers. Bringing all the information together transforms spend data into sourcing intelligence that can be used to inform buy-side procurement decisions. Many centralized procurement organizations are integrating contract data into their processes and technology for strategic purchasing, Selectica says on its website.

This white paper discusses how to:

• Create greater trust and transparency with suppliers and shareholders
• Locate additional savings and cost avoidance opportunities
• Streamline moving from award decision to actual contract
• Create a solid foundation for spend and performance analysis

Download the white paper.

Robert Half Technology has posted its 2015 “IT Hiring Forecast and Local Trend Report,” which was released Dec. 2.

The report discusses the latest trends and salary data for more than 70 positions, including:

Download the hiring guide.

The Center for Resource Solutions has posted a complimentary on-demand webinar outlining guidelines for states to use existing renewable energy certificate (REC) tracking systems as an integral part of state compliance for the EPA’s Clean Power Plan.

The webinar is titled “Tracking Renewable Energy for the U.S. EPA’s Clean Power Plan: Guidelines for States to Use Existing REC Tracking Systems to Comply with 111(d).”

These REC tracking systems, together with state policies designed to increase the production and use of renewable electricity, will be critical to states looking to use renewable energy like wind and solar to reduce the carbon intensity of their power sector, CRS says on its website.

Watch the on-demand webinar and see the slides.

Energy Central presents a free on-demand webinar on the delicate balancing energy providers face between meeting regulations and keeping transmission and distribution assets safe.

“Volumes have been penned on how to weather and respond to NERC CIP regulations, and even more volumes have amassed on the extra components required to truly keep assets safe,” Energy Central writes on its website. “In this hour, we’ll bring together both sides of the issue and examine how to blend processes. Since you’ll have to contend with both concepts using the same equipment, the same people and the same technology, smart thinking dictates looking at both needs and planning efficiently at the same time. But where do you start?”

Free registration is required to view the webinar.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

Merrill DataSite has posted a complimentary white paper titled “Budget needs for contract management solutions: How to set budget expectations and understand vendor pricing models.”

Determining what a new contract management system really costs can be elusive, Merrill DataSite says on its website. “If you’ve talked with a few vendors, you may have found them maddeningly vague when it comes to cost, leaving you with more questions than concrete answers.

“There’s a reason vendors are reluctant to throw out a number that may be misleading. Companies’ contract management needs are so diverse that putting a price tag on meeting them is no quick, simple thing. Yet that ballpark number is precisely what you need, in order to advocate and build a case for a new system.”

The new white paper can help readers understand the cost drivers and the potential scale of budget required to meet a company’s needs.

Download the white paper.

There is little guidance about how much monitoring of an employee’s or job candidate’s social media activities is advisable or legal, panelists said Oct. 15 at a discussion hosted by the Professional Services Council and the Equal Employment Advisory Council.

“We’re in the very early stages of the legal development here,” said Mike Eastman, senior counsel and vice president for public policy at the EEAC. “There’s no U.S. Supreme Court case interpreting Facebook posts and employment law.”

According to a report at Bloomberg BNA, government and industry have a responsibility to know what’s being posted to social media, said Charlie Sowell, senior vice president of Salient Federal Solutions, an information technology, training and engineering service company that employs workers with security clearances.

Read the story.

In a federal lawsuit against a former client, Venable doesn’t simply accuse Overseas Lease Group Inc. of failing to pay a $300,000 bill, reports the ABA Journal.

The company fraudulently induced Venable to step in and pursue big-ticket contract litigation against the U.S. government on its behalf after failing to pay a $229,000 bill to its former counsel, contends the complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, The Journal reports.

Then, by urging Venable to handle the case aggressively, OLG unnecessarily ran up the bill at its new law firm, the suit says.

“We intend to vigorously defend the allegations, including raising claims of gross overbilling, overstaffing and duplicative charging of time as reported to us by our independent expert’s review of the Venable invoices,” OLG general counsel Donna Marie Zerbo told the Blog of Legal Times.

Read the story.

SanDisk Corp.. a global leader in flash memory storage solutions, has announced that it has appointed Mark Brazeal as senior vice president and chief legal officer. Brazeal is responsible for SanDisk’s intellectual property portfolio and licensing as well as all other legal areas, including commercial agreements, M&A transactions, litigation, corporate securities law and governance.

Brazeal spent the past 14 years at Broadcom where he most recently served as senior vice president and senior deputy general counsel with responsibilities including a wide variety of IP matters and litigation for the company.

Prior to Broadcom, Brazeal focused on IP licensing and litigation at law firms Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in Palo Alto, CA, Yuasa and Hara in Tokyo, Japan, and Howrey & Simon in Washington, D.C.

Read the story.

The Association of Corporate Counsel’s Litigation Committee presents a free on-demand webinar on the international judgment enforcement and asset recovery process.

The event was sponsored by Kobre & Kim LLP.

On its website, ACC says the value of judgments and arbitration awards coming out of large-scale litigation continues to rise, so does the challenge of enforcing them. Sophisticated judgment debtors today often hold assets protected in a variety of structures in offshore financial centers around the world, which create challenging roadblocks to efficient and prompt recovery that can only be overcome with the right tools and strategies.

In this webcast, a group of internationally based attorneys, experienced in enforcing high value judgments and recovering hidden assets share their first-hand insights into the international judgment enforcement and asset recovery process. The panel discussion includes analysis of effective asset tracing, utilizing specific legal tools available in the U.S., Europe, Asia and offshore jurisdictions as well as the alternative fee structures available to minimize costs and risks.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

Practical Law and Honigman Miller Schwartz & Cohn LLP have posted a free on-demand webinar titled “Insider Perspective: Antitrust Treatment of Physician Practice Acquisitions,” a discussion of the decisions in Saint Alphonsus, et al v. St. Luke’s, et al and Federal Trade Commission, et al v. St. Luke’s, et al, the first cases to address the antitrust implications of hospital acquisitions of physician practices.

Peter Herrick, Senior Trial Counsel, Federal Trade Commission; David Ettinger, counsel for St. Alphonsus Health System; and Stephanie Westermeier, General Counsel, Saint Alphonsus Health System offered their insider perspectives about these landmark decisions in which they were directly involved, including which evidence was most persuasive and counseling tips for future physician group acquisitions.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

Business Finance has posted a complimentary online webinar titled “Is Your Finance Department Data Driven? Conquering the Challenge of ‘Doing More with Less’.”

On its website, the magazine says today’s CFO is increasingly called upon to “do more with less.” This means providing value-added analytics to the business that help the firm improve profitability, meet ever-increasing transparency requirements from regulators and management and simultaneously maintain or reduce Finance and IT spend.

In pursuit of this goal, many leading finance departments have discovered the transformative value of a data-driven approach to managing financial and operational information and analytics, Business Finance says. This webinar details the way in which leading finance departments are using analytical capabilities to maximize reporting and analytic transparency while increasing functional efficiency.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

Freeport-McMoRan Inc. reportedly is nearing a $100 million-plus settlement to resolve shareholder litigation over its 2013 purchase of two oil-and-gas companies, an unusually big win for investors, who are increasingly challenging merger deals.

Recent reports indicate that Freeport is close to a deal to set aside more than $130 million, most of which will be paid out to its shareholders. The agreement, which is not yet final, would resolve allegations that the company overpaid when it bought McMoRan Exploration Co. and Plains Exploration & Production Co. for a combined $9 billion last year, reports The New York Times.

The Times says this deal is unusual because few M&A lawsuits yield any money for investors. And it’s also unusual because the case was filed as a “derivative” lawsuit, in which shareholders sue board members and others on behalf of the company itself.

Read the story.

International law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer is urging multinational companies to move whistleblowing up their risk agendas as a global survey of more than 2,500 middle and senior managers reveals high levels of corporate complacency.

The survey found that more than one in ten (12%) employees have blown the whistle, while almost half of employees (46%) would consider blowing the whistle. However, less than one in ten (7%) say whistleblowing is currently an important issue for their organization and less than half (44%) say their companies either don’t have a whistleblowing policy or fail to publicize it if there is one.

On its website, the firm says the survey data also shows that employees continue to fear reprisal for blowing the whistle. More than one third (37%) of all employees surveyed believe senior management at their organization would either treat them less favorably or look for ways to terminate their employment if they blew the whistle. Four in every ten (40%) employees say their organization discourages or actively discourages whistleblowing.

Read the report.

Corporate law departments will have a big hand in changing the legal market over the next 10 years, law firm leaders said in Altman Weil’s sixth annual Law Firms in Transition Survey, which was released recently.

Large majorities of law firm leaders responding to the survey agree that greater price competition, practice efficiency, commoditization of legal work, competition from nontraditional service providers, and non-hourly billing are all permanent changes in the legal landscape. For the most part, these are changes that have been imposed upon them from without – from more demanding clients and more competitive newcomers who are challenging the rules of legal service delivery.

When asked about the most likely change agent in the legal market over the next ten years, 34% of law firm leaders identified corporate law departments as the force most likely to lead change; 32% chose technology innovation; and, 15% selected non-law-firm providers of legal services. Only 10%of respondents believe that law firms will take the lead in reinventing the legal market.

Read the survey.