Law Firm News

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Law Firm News

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Alston & Bird LLP

The Wall Street Journal Notes Trevor W. Nagel and Lee Van Blerkom Have Joined Alston & Bird
The July 20th issue of The Wall Street Journal noted that Trevor Nagel and Lee Van Blerkom have joined Alston & Bird’s Technology Group in the Washington, DC, office.

07-20-2006

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Stafford Rosenbaum LLP

Brian Butler Selected for Inclusion in Chambers USA America's Leading Lawyers For Business 2006
Brian E. Butler has been included as a recommended litigator in this year’s “Chambers USA America’s Leading Lawyers for Business” directory.

The “Chambers USA” directory, published by Chambers and Partners, has become universally regarded as a guide to purchasers of legal services. Inclusion in Chambers USA is based on over 10,000 in-depth interviews with clients throughout the country. Because of the directory’s magnitude and because lawyers are not allowed to pay a fee to be listed, inclusion in Chambers USA is considered a singular honor.

Butler, who has tried numerous major cases to jury verdict or court decision, has represented clients in litigation for more than 35 years. He has conducted multiple jury trials, court trials, preliminary injunction hearings, arbitrations, and appeals in state and federal courts.

His broad range of litigation experience includes substantive claims, including antitrust, dealership, lender liability, corporate disputes, product liability, contract disputes and interference, insurance coverage, misrepresentation, conversion of intellectual property, building construction, patent infringement and civil rights.

07-20-2006

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Ross, Dixon & Bell, LLP

Jon R. Williams Honored as a Top Ten Attorney by The San Diego Daily Transcript
Ross, Dixon & Bell, LLP is pleased to announce that partner Jon Williams has been nominated by his peers and recognized by The San Diego Daily Transcript as one of "The Transcripts 10" - a Top Ten Attorney in San Diego for 2006. The Transcript requested nominations for the Top Attorneys in six categories from over 6,300 San Diego County attorneys. From the nominations submitted, The Daily Transcript selected the Top Ten Attorneys in San Diego . The Top Ten have earned the distinction of being the “best and brightest in San Diego ’s legal field.

07-20-2006

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Roetzel & Andress A Legal Professional Association

Roetzel & Andress Names Three New Partners in Cleveland Office
The law firm of Roetzel & Andress is pleased to announce Ronald C. Stansbury, Ezio A. Listati, and Suzanne Kleinsmith Saganich have joined the firm as Partners in the Cleveland Office.

""We are pleased to have Ron, Ezio, and Suzanne join our firm,"" said Robert Blackham, managing partner of the Cleveland office. ""The individual and collective expertise of these three partners will enhance the services our firm and this office, in particular, is able to offer our clients.""

Mr. Stansbury is a member of the Labor and Employment Practice Group, focusing on employee benefits and executive compensation law. He represents publicly and privately held corporations as well as individual executives. Mr. Stansbury is a member of the American, Ohio and Cleveland Bar Associations, as well as the Internal Revenue Service TE/GE Advisory Council, Great Lakes Region. He is a past Chair of the Midwest Pension and Benefits Conference. Mr. Stansbury received a juris doctorate degree, graduating summa cum laude, from The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law and a bachelor of arts degree from The Ohio State University.

Mr. Listati is a member of Business Litigation Practice Group and focuses his practice on contract, business and commercial real estate, FELA, insurance coverage, bad faith and professional liability matters, and product liability including medical device and drug litigation. A member of the American, Ohio and Cleveland Bar Associations, Mr. Listati is also a Business Mediator and Arbitrator for the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court. He earned a juris doctorate degree from Case Western Reserve University School of Law and a bachelor of science degree from John Carroll University.

Ms. Saganich is a member of the Real Estate Practice Group. She focuses on commercial lending and finance transactions, representing commercial lenders, developers, buyers, sellers, landlords and tenants in acquisition and development, architect/contractor agreements, commercial leasing, financing, sale/leasebacks and title insurance matters. Ms. Saganich is a member of the American, Ohio, and Texas Bar Associations. She earned a juris doctorate degree from Case Western Reserve University School of Law and a bachelor of arts degree from Kalamazoo College.

07-20-2006

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Rendigs, Fry, Kiely & Dennis, L.L.P.

Rendigs, Fry, Kiely & Dennis, L.L.P. Hires Associate Vaseem S. Hadi
Rendigs, Fry, Kiely & Dennis, L.L.P. is pleased to announce that Vaseem Hadi has joined the firm. Mr. Hadi focuses his practice on civil litigation, employment law, insurance coverage, and general litigation.

Mr. Hadi earned his law degree in 2002 from the University of Dayton School of Law. He is an active member of the Ohio state, Cincinnati, and Dayton Bar Associations. He is also a member of the Ohio Association of Civil Trial Attorneys (OACTA). Mr. Hadi is admitted to practice in Ohio, the Sixth Circuit and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.

07-20-2006

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Polsinelli, Shalton, Welte & Suelthaus, P.C.

Polsinelli Shalton Welte Suelthaus Unveils Diversity Scholarships for Kansas and Missouri Law School Students
Polsinelli Shalton Welte Suelthaus PC today announced the creation of the Polsinelli Diversity Scholarship for students at the six Kansas and Missouri law schools selected by the firm. The purpose of the scholarship is to promote a more diverse legal community by supporting talented minority students at area law schools.

In the scholarship’s initial term, the 2006-07 law school session, Polsinelli will provide a total of $45,000 in scholarship money. One incoming first-year law student from each of the six participating Kansas and Missouri law schools will be awarded a $7,500 scholarship. In the 2007-08 term, the $7,500 Polsinelli Diversity Scholarship will be awarded to a first-year and a second-year law student at each of the six law schools, totaling $90,000. In the 2008-09 term, the scholarship will be awarded to one first-, second- and third-year law school student at each of the six participating universities, totaling $135,000. The firm hopes the first-year students who receive the scholarship will achieve a level of academic success so that they will continue to receive the scholarship their second and third years as well.

Participating law schools are Washington University and St. Louis University in St. Louis, Mo., the University of Missouri, in Columbia, Mo., the University of Missouri-Kansas City, the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kan. and Washburn University in Topeka, Kan.

It is the goal of Polsinelli’s chairman and chief executive officer to increase the number of minority lawyers in the bar by supporting promising minority students in their law school education in Kansas and Missouri. “Our intent is to encourage outstanding minority students to attend law schools in Kansas and Missouri and then to remain in the area for their legal careers, with the obvious hope that some of these lawyers will join our firm,” said W. Russell Welsh. “A diverse workplace is an enriching one. Diversity is not a problem to be solved, but an opportunity to be seized.”

The firm is working with each of the six schools to define appropriate criteria for obtaining and retaining the scholarship in order to effectively increase the diversity of the law schools’ student bodies and ultimately of the Bar. The first recipients of the scholarship are expected to be announced later this summer.

“We are committed to ensuring that a KU Law education remains affordable and accessible to all qualified students, so I was thrilled to learn that Polsinelli Shalton Welte Suelthaus has worked with the Endowment Association to create a diversity scholarship,” said Gail B. Agrawal, who took the helm as Dean and Professor at the University of Kansas School of Law this week. “I can think of no better welcome for a new dean than such a visionary gift.”

“The diversity of the legal profession is crucially important to ensure that all members of the community have access to representation,” said Ellen Y. Suni, Dean of the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law. “This scholarship is an important move toward achieving that goal. We greatly appreciate the fact that Polsinelli Shalton Welte Suelthaus has taken the initiative, as a law firm, to assist us in our goal to attain a diverse student body.”

Polsinelli Shalton Welte Suelthaus has grown by 60 percent in the last two years alone with offices in four states (Missouri, Kansas, New York and Illinois) and the District of Columbia. During this time, the firm has added talented minority lawyers to better serve its clients. By these scholarships, Polsinelli also seeks to make law school students aware of the potential for a rewarding career at the firm, which was cited as the second fastest-growing law firm in the United States in 2004 by the National Law Journal.

07-20-2006

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White & Case, LLP

Wage and Hour Litigation Evolving With Changing Workforce
From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, corporations face a new challenge as wage and hour litigations move beyond standard hourly employee claims to suits filed on behalf of broker/dealers, technology consultants, drug reps and other non-traditional workers, say litigators at White & Case.

"The number of employees working a standard 40-hour work week in an office, retail store or a factory is declining, while the number of workers in non-traditional job arrangements, such as consulting, telecommuting, and job sharing, is rapidly increasing. Wage and hour litigation claims are being expanded to include these new types of workers, which is causing headaches for corporations as they try to make sense of what exactly constitutes an hourly or non-exempt employee,"" said White & Case's Heather McDevitt, a litigation partner in the New York office, who is experienced in handling such cases.

McDevitt adds that over the past few years, more than 35 suits have been filed against Wall Street brokerage firms seeking overtime compensation for registered brokers. In January, technical employees filed a suit against IBM alleging that it illegally declared such workers exempt to avoid paying overtime, and it's only one of the many technology firms likely to be targeted. The pharmaceutical industry is also attracting the interest of the plaintiffs' bar, with recent suits being filed on behalf of drug reps, who generally are compensated by a combination of salary and commission.

According to Dan Woods, a partner in White & Case's Los Angeles office, who has handled several wage and hour class actions, two main factors are driving this trend. Federal law (the Fair Labor Standards Act) allows groups of employees together to file a suit as a collective action, without having to secure class action certification. Additionally, nearly every US state has a statute that governs ""hourly"" workers, enabling suits to be filed in multiple states, which means corporations are going to have to prepare for a fight in multiple jurisdictions at the same time.

""To get a class action certified is a very costly, drawn out process and plaintiffs' lawyers must be able to clearly demonstrate that all the people named in the class share a commonality in terms of the complaint. But a 'collective action' requires less vigorous standards,"" said Woods.

Woods notes that the Bush Administration's new overtime rules, which went into effect in August 2004, may also be prompting the rise in wage and hour suits. That rule redefined the concept of ""exempt"" employees, making many of them ineligible for overtime. But corporations sometimes have difficulty interpreting just who qualifies under the new rules, particularly when it comes to employees working on full or partial commission, making companies prime targets for lawsuits.

"Wage and hour laws in individual states differ, further making compliance difficult for national employers, and federal laws differ from state law, adding to the problem,"" said Woods. ""Another problem for employers is that the statutes of limitations for these claims are often long, allowing the plaintiff's bar to reach back several years.""

McDevitt says that corporations can help limit liability in such suits by implementing a process of regular self-audits of their wage and hour policies to ensure that the evolving work practice is compliant with federal and state law.

"Audits like these can be done with the assistance of outside counsel knowledgeable in federal and state employment rules. This will reduce the risk of a claim being made against a company in the first place," said McDevitt.

07-20-2006

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