E-Discovery Tips to Benefit Your Law Practice

The Legal Intelligencer hosts its annual Litigation Summit in Philadelphia, which covers a potpourri of issues from e-discovery to trends in the courtroom. As an avid Twitter user, I often share important tips from the speaker using the conference hashtag #TLILitSum. Another way to share those tips is to compile them in a blog for all of our lawyer friends who do not actively use social media.

E-Discovery Tips to Benefit Your Law Practice

The Legal Intelligencer hosts its annual Litigation Summit in Philadelphia, which covers a potpourri of issues from e-discovery to trends in the courtroom. As an avid Twitter user, I often share important tips from the speaker using the conference hashtag #TLILitSum. Another way to share those tips is to compile them in a blog for all of our lawyer friends who do not actively use social media.

Civil Practice: Woodchips Are Real Estate, So School Could Be Liable for Injury

A school district is facing potential liability for injuries a sixth-grade girl suffered on a school playground because a Monroe County judge ruled the layer of woodchips covering the playground qualified as the school's real estate.

Civil Practice: Auto Dealer Held Personally Liable for Selling 'Stolen' Car

A car dealer may be held personally liable for selling an allegedly stolen vehicle, an Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas judge has ruled.

Offit Kurman Expands Real Estate Practice

Jim Ettelson has joined the Philadelphia office of Baltimore-based Offit Kurman, where he will head up the firm's real estate practice.

Shortcuts: Mindfulness Requires Practice and Purpose

LIKE most people, I have my share of tension and anxiety. And I’m happy to find ways to cope that don’t involve illegal drugs. So when the term mindfulness began cropping up everywhere, I became intrigued.

Elementary school students practice it. Doctors practice it — and their patients. Prisoners practice it. There’s mindful eating that promises a healthier way of eating. And scans show mindfulness may change the way our brains function and help us improve attention, reduce stress hormones and even bounce back faster from negative information.

But, skeptic that I am, I wondered if it was being oversold as a panacea that is simple, safe and involves no heavy objects.

First, I had to figure out what exactly it is. I had an understanding that mindfulness went hand-in-hand with meditation, but also that it was more than that.

“Intentionally paying attention to the present nonjudgmentally” is the way that Janice Marturano explains it. Ms. Marturano is a former deputy general counsel and vice president for public responsibility at General Mills, and helped start its Mindful Leadership Forum in 2004. She left a few years ago to start the nonprofit Institute for Mindful Leadership.

What it’s not, she said, is only about reducing stress. Or about emptying our minds of all thoughts. Or about religion.

“People have the sense that mindfulness is something they can do by focusing on a raisin for five minutes,” said Michael Baime, director of the Penn Program for Mindfulness at the University of Pennsylvania Health System. “That is mindful practice, but it takes more than that.”

So here’s what I learned about the basic techniques. First, find a quiet place to focus your attention — on your breath or perhaps on an object. It’s not deep breathing, but rather experiencing “when the breath enters and leaves,” Ms. Marturano said. “Feel the stretch in the rib cage, without me doing anything. Can I notice when the mind takes a hike and redirect it? That redirection is the exercise.”

Perhaps you start at 10 minutes and work your way up to half an hour or 40 minutes a day. But that’s only part of the whole practice.

There’s also what Ms. Marturano calls “purposeful pauses.” Deciding that instead of thinking of a coming meeting while brushing your teeth you really focus on the taste of the toothpaste and the bristles and the water.

“Take yourself out of autopilot,” she said. And eventually expand that “being in the moment” to other parts of your life.

The idea is that over time you’ll feel more focused and more connected to yourself and others.

It sounds simple, but it’s not, because it so goes against the grain of how most of us think and operate. We want to get things done, to identify and fix problems. And that’s the opposite of what mindfulness is all about.

“The way it’s presented in the media, people begin to believe it’s a magic pill,” said Christy Matta, author of the book “The Stress Response” (2012, New Harbinger Publications). “I’ll clear my mind and I’ll be peaceful and stress-free. If that’s what people think, they’ll be disappointed.”

Rather, she said, “it takes time and sustained practice to experience the benefits.”

And, she said, if you go into it with the idea of reducing stress, you’re working against the very thing you’re trying to attain, because you’re aiming toward a goal.

Mindfulness, “is about being present,” she said. “You have to do it just to do it. You can’t strive for things.”

While being aware of your feelings may be nice when drinking a lovely cup of tea or relaxing in a garden, Ms. Matta said, part of mindfulness is also uncomfortable feelings — not trying to change or judge them, but being aware of them. And that may not feel so pleasant.

Dr. Baime said another common misconception is that mindfulness is about learning to be happy. It’s not. Nor is it about eliminating stress.

“Stress doesn’t go away, ever. That’s why we call it stress management rather than stress elimination,” he said. Rather, he said, mindfulness can “create a world where you experience depth, meaning and connectedness. You see joy and sadness more fully and settle more deeply into an authentic way of being.”

If that’s a bit tough to wrap one’s mind around, that’s O.K. Just go with it.

Eventually, mindfulness is supposed to help us spend less time worrying about the future or fretting about the past. We’ll gain perspective, listen better and step back to consider more choices and make decisions more clearly and intentionally, rather than reactively, Ms. Marturano said.

But you shouldn’t assume that mindfulness is the one answer to everything.

For instance, while it has been used to good effect in classrooms, it shouldn’t be used in isolation, said Linda Lantieri, director of the nonprofit group the Inner Resilience Program.

N.Y. Construction Law Firm Launches in Pa. With P3 Practice

New York-based construction law firm Peckar & Abramson has launched a Philadelphia-area office with the hire of a local attorney who focuses on public-private partnerships.

Frank M. Rapoport is no stranger to being the lone man in Philadelphia for an out-of-town firm. He is joining Peckar & Abramson from McKenna Long & Aldridge, where he was the only Pennsylvania lawyer at the firm.

Peckar & Abramson launched a new Devon, Pa., office upon Rapoport's hire. He will be working out of the 100-lawyer shop's New York and Devon locations.

Rapoport's hire comes less than a year after the July 2012 passage of Pennsylvania's Act 88, P3 enabling legislation that creates a state board to review possible opportunities for public-private partnerships. The board will look to identify opportunities and will also accept unsolicited proposals from private entities. New York and New Jersey are eyeing similar legislation, Rapoport said.

Rapoport had been with McKenna Long for the last 12 years, but it wasn't until about 2006 that the idea of a P3 legal practice really began to take off. There are only a few firms in Philadelphia who handle the work -- perhaps most notably Ballard Spahr, whose 50-plus attorney P3 practice includes former Pennsylvania Governor Edward G. Rendell.

Rapoport said he was doing P3 work before it was really called that. He represented GMH, now known as Balfour Beatty, in its $2 billion privatization of military housing. In that deal, the private company absorbed the cost of renovating all of the housing and then collected the soldiers' housing stipends when the homes were ready to be lived in.

The real push for P3 work took off in 2009 when the country began focusing on the need to redo its infrastructure and there wasn't taxpayer money to fund it, Rapoport said. Now, private equity funds and pension funds are interested in rebuilding the nation's roads and bridges with the idea that they will then be privately run after the improvements were made, he said.

The Northeast, including Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Maryland, are some of the last states to the P3 party, but this is now the region that is expected to see the most deal flow, Rapoport said. He said his old firm didn't have offices in New Jersey or much of a presence in New York or Pennsylvania. Peckar & Abramson has offices in New York, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., California, Florida, Chicago and Georgia. A call to McKenna Long was not immediately returned.

Rapoport said about 75 of Peckar & Abramson's 100 lawyers are pure construction attorneys. He said he adds the finance piece to the P3 table, focusing his practice on getting state and local governments on board and then pairing investors and contractors together who can take on these deals.

Much of Rapoport's early engagement on a project is not legal work but more on the government relations side. He often charges clients a small monthly retainer for this work with the idea that his firm gets the legal work that comes when the P3 deal is agreed to.

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Dorsey Beefs Up Bankruptcy Practice With Five-Lawyer Palo Alto Team

Dorsey & Whitney is expanding its bankruptcy practice with a team of lawyers from a Silicon Valley boutique.

Seeking a national platform, five lawyers from Murray & Murray, a Cupertino, Calif.-based bankruptcy firm, started work at Dorsey on Monday. Partners John Murray and Stephen O'Neill, of counsel Robert Franklin and Craig Prim and associate Thomas Hwang are the first Palo Alto-based lawyers in Dorsey's West Coast bankruptcy and restructuring practice.

"Murray & Murray is known to me and most everybody else to be the premier bankruptcy boutique in Northern California," said Craig Ritchey, Dorsey's Palo Alto office head. "We were just delighted to have them join our team."

The team specializes in Chapter 11 proceedings, assignments for the benefits of creditors and out-of-court workouts along with representing creditors.

Lawyers at Murray & Murray began exploring a move last August due to the decline in Chapter 11-related work in Northern California and their clients' needs to file in other states such as Delaware, where Dorsey has an office, said Murray, who was the firm's managing director.

"Having a national platform gives us opportunities elsewhere when things are slow here," he said.

Not all of the firm's lawyers decided to join Dorsey. Partner Janice Murray is retiring, associate Jenny Lynn Fountain is on maternity leave and partner Doris Kaelin is exploring other opportunities, John Murray said.

The firm has begun winding down its business and will dissolve later this year, he added. All active cases will be brought to Dorsey.

The new hires round out Dorsey's West Coast bankruptcy practice, which had previously been rooted in Salt Lake City and Minneapolis, Ritchey said.

Murray said he wrestled over whether to leave the firm that was founded in 1975 by his brother and has been his home for 35 years.

"I had a lot of mixed emotions about it," he said. "But I think that all and all this is going to be an incredible opportunity and a change that I really welcome."

Criminal Practice: Lawyer Need Not Advise Client of Plea's Pension Effect

Attorneys cannot be deemed ineffective for failing to advise a defendant that he or she may lose his or her pension if he or she enters a guilty plea to criminal charges, the state Supreme Court has ruled.

Criminal Practice: Justices to Decide Whether Daughter's Rape Allegations Were Hearsay

The state Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case over whether a young girl's videotaped statement that her father sexually abused her should be corroborated to be admitted in court.

Criminal Practice: Defense Counsel Raise Questions About Indicting Grand Juries

With the return of the indicting grand jury to Pennsylvania last week for cases involving witness intimidation, defense attorneys are raising concerns that the grand jury process provides much less protection for defendants, while prosecutors say that indicting grand juries are necessary to protect witnesses facing the threat of harm or even death if they testify about homicides and other serious crimes.

Davis Polk Launches Hong Kong Litigation Practice With Clifford Chance Hires

Davis Polk & Wardwell has recruited two Clifford Chance partners to launch a Hong Kong litigation practice.

Martin Rogers, the former head of Clifford Chance's Asia Pacific disputes practice and co-head of its regional financial regulatory practice, and partner James Wadham are both set to join Davis Polk "in the near term," according to Thomas Reid, the New York-based firm's managing partner.

Reid says the move was driven by the demand of domestic and international clients facing a rising tide of enforcement actions in Asia. "We certainly have seen our clients asking for help in enforcement matters in Asia with increasing frequency," he says.

The move is the firm's second major expansion into Hong Kong practice in recent years. Though it opened its Hong Kong office in 1993, Davis Polk, like many Wall Street firms, only practiced U.S. law in the region until 2010, when it launched a Hong Kong capital markets practice. Since then, most of Davis Polk's major New York rivals, including Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, and Sullivan & Cromwell have launched similar practices.

But Hong Kong capital markets have been in a severe slowdown since the end of 2011, and Davis Polk's push into local litigation reflects a desire to create a more balanced practice in the region.

Several firms have deployed litigation partners from the U.S. and elsewhere to advise companies in Asia on Foreign Corrupt Practices Act or Securities and Exchange Commission investigations. But Davis Polk is also eyeing the more active financial regulatory stance that Hong Kong's Securities & Futures Commission has adopted under chief executive Ashley Alder, a former partner at the firm now known as Herbert Smith Freehills.

The SFC recently announced a new Companies Bill that would make auditors criminally liable if they knowingly or recklessly omit a required statement from an auditor's report. And Hong Kong's securities regulator announced last week that banks could be held criminally liable if the companies they sponsor in IPOs provide false information on their prospectuses. Rogers has already been working with Davis Polk Hong Kong partner Bonnie Chan in advising 23 investment banks in their interactions with the SFC, says Reid.

Qualified in England and Hong Kong, Rogers has been a partner at Clifford Chance since 2002, when he moved to that firm from the Hong Kong office of Herbert Smith, where he had worked for 14 years and had been named Asia managing partner just prior to leaving.

Wadham began his career in New Zealand, where he worked for Auckland's Russell McVeagh. He joined Clifford Chance in Hong Kong in 2002 and became a partner in 2007. Like Rogers, he focuses on advising clients in the financial services industry. He is admitted in New Zealand, Hong Kong and England.

In a statement, Clifford Chance said it continued to have a strong litigation and dispute resolution practice in the region, noting its announcement last week of a formal law alliance with Singapore litigation boutique Cavenagh Law.

"We have every confidence this will not affect our relationships with our institutional clients as Clifford Chance offers the highest quality advice and service across the broadest range of international law expertise available in the market," the firm said.

Think Like a Client to Grow a Healthy Practice

With so much emphasis placed on research, document review and shadowing occurring in the first years of a lawyer?s career, it is imperative for the lawyer to take the initiative to increase her exposure and interaction with clients.

Davis Polk Launches Hong Kong Litigation Practice With Clifford Chance Hires

Davis Polk & Wardwell has recruited two Clifford Chance partners to launch a Hong Kong litigation practice.

Martin Rogers, the former head of Clifford Chance's Asia Pacific disputes practice and co-head of its regional financial regulatory practice, and partner James Wadham are both set to join Davis Polk "in the near term," according to Thomas Reid, the New York-based firm's managing partner.

Reid says the move was driven by the demand of domestic and international clients facing a rising tide of enforcement actions in Asia. "We certainly have seen our clients asking for help in enforcement matters in Asia with increasing frequency," he says.

The move is the firm's second major expansion into Hong Kong practice in recent years. Though it opened its Hong Kong office in 1993, Davis Polk, like many Wall Street firms, only practiced U.S. law in the region until 2010, when it launched a Hong Kong capital markets practice. Since then, most of Davis Polk's major New York rivals, including Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, and Sullivan & Cromwell have launched similar practices.

But Hong Kong capital markets have been in a severe slowdown since the end of 2011, and Davis Polk's push into local litigation reflects a desire to create a more balanced practice in the region.

Several firms have deployed litigation partners from the U.S. and elsewhere to advise companies in Asia on Foreign Corrupt Practices Act or Securities and Exchange Commission investigations. But Davis Polk is also eyeing the more active financial regulatory stance that Hong Kong's Securities & Futures Commission has adopted under chief executive Ashley Alder, a former partner at the firm now known as Herbert Smith Freehills.

The SFC recently announced a new Companies Bill that would make auditors criminally liable if they knowingly or recklessly omit a required statement from an auditor's report. And Hong Kong's securities regulator announced last week that banks could be held criminally liable if the companies they sponsor in IPOs provide false information on their prospectuses. Rogers has already been working with Davis Polk Hong Kong partner Bonnie Chan in advising 23 investment banks in their interactions with the SFC, says Reid.

Qualified in England and Hong Kong, Rogers has been a partner at Clifford Chance since 2002, when he moved to that firm from the Hong Kong office of Herbert Smith, where he had worked for 14 years and had been named Asia managing partner just prior to leaving.

Wadham began his career in New Zealand, where he worked for Auckland's Russell McVeagh. He joined Clifford Chance in Hong Kong in 2002 and became a partner in 2007. Like Rogers, he focuses on advising clients in the financial services industry. He is admitted in New Zealand, Hong Kong and England.

In a statement, Clifford Chance said it continued to have a strong litigation and dispute resolution practice in the region, noting its announcement last week of a formal law alliance with Singapore litigation boutique Cavenagh Law.

"We have every confidence this will not affect our relationships with our institutional clients as Clifford Chance offers the highest quality advice and service across the broadest range of international law expertise available in the market," the firm said.

Reed Smith Starts Emergency Relief and Injunction Practice

Reed Smith has created a new practice group geared toward helping clients in need of emergency litigation services. The emergency relief and injunction team consists of nine members of the firm?s commercial litigation and disputes practice.

Think Like a Client to Grow a Healthy Practice

With so much emphasis placed on research, document review and shadowing occurring in the first years of a lawyer?s career, it is imperative for the lawyer to take the initiative to increase her exposure and interaction with clients.

IP Lawyer's Practice Is Fashion-Forward

Karen Artz Ash
NYLJ/Rick Kopstein

Karen Artz Ash, national co-head of Katten Muchin Rosenman's intellectual property practice, has attended New York fashion week shows for the past nine years. You won't see many other lawyers at the invitation-only events, she said, noting, "It's not something that attorneys typically attend."

Ash said she wanted to be a fashion designer when she was very young, but she became interested in the law after her grandfather was killed in a construction accident and she observed a subsequent trial in a wrongful death case.

Ash, 55, is now a member of Katten's executive committee and chairs its pro bono committee. Focusing on fashion law, she has represented clients such as high-end designers Donna Karan, Elie Tahari, Han Feng, Marchesa, Haute Hippie and Alice & Olivia; apparel company Warnaco Group; teen retailer and designer Aeropostale; and discount apparel retailers Filene's Basement and Loehmann's.

Meanwhile, she just finished contributing to a fashion textbook for lawyers and a book for fashion designers; she is a contributor to fashion trade journal Women's Wear Daily; and she writes monthly columns on fashion licensing issues and trademark topics for other publications. Every year, as an adjunct professor at New York Law School, she teaches a class of about 20 students on IP licensing issues in the fashion field. The class field trip? A visit to Bloomingdale's.

Q: Describe the practice of fashion law.

A: Fashion law is an amalgam of several different practice areas. At the heart is intellectual property. This consists of proprietary rights vested in intangible assets, such as clients' trademark or brand, their unique trade dress, copyrighted fabric designs, design patents, utility patents, distinctive product trim or configurations (which may encompass one or more of the foregoing areas of intellectual property) and personalities (such as designers) associated with the company, brand or products.

Certainly, as fashion law contemplates the exploitation of intellectual property rights, another area of expertise is corporate law. A fashion lawyer should be conversant with general concepts of corporate law, including contract interpretation and enforcement, as well as the types of representations and warranties that would be appropriate for the parties to a fashion contract. The types of contracts that such area of the law generates include license and distribution agreements, manufacturing and sourcing agreements, agency and sales commission agreements, and assignment documentation, among others.

In addition, as the intangible assets of a fashion company are often the most valuable, these assets are used to secure financing. Accordingly, financing entities, such as banks or other equity investors, seek to obtain security interests in the intellectual property assets. An effective fashion lawyer should understand how to negotiate and conclude such arrangements, including the mechanics necessary to support perfection of security interests.

In the context of all of the above, it is important that a fashion lawyer understand and is able to address and identify bankruptcy risks associated with contracts.

Finally, it is important that an attorney engaged in the practice of advising fashion clients also understand and, at a minimum, be able to identify possible antitrust issues.

In short, the services provided by a fashion lawyer encompass many disciplines, perhaps initially rooted in a basic understanding of intellectual property law.

Q: What are some of the IP issues you handle most frequently?

A: Our practice runs the full gamut, working closely with our clients on:

• the selection, searching, clearance and registration of names/marks and copyrighted material, both domestically and internationally;

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Reed Smith Starts Emergency Relief and Injunction Practice

Reed Smith has created a new practice group geared toward helping clients in need of emergency litigation services. The emergency relief and injunction team consists of nine members of the firm?s commercial litigation and disputes practice.

Think Like a Client to Grow a Healthy Practice

With so much emphasis placed on research, document review and shadowing occurring in the first years of a lawyer?s career, it is imperative for the lawyer to take the initiative to increase her exposure and interaction with clients.

Think Like a Client to Grow a Healthy Practice

With so much emphasis placed on research, document review and shadowing occurring in the first years of a lawyer?s career, it is imperative for the lawyer to take the initiative to increase her exposure and interaction with clients.