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Graydon Head & Ritchey LLP

Graydon Head & Ritchey LLP Announces the Addition of Nathan H. Blaske
Graydon Head & Ritchey LLP is pleased to announce the addition of Nathan H. Blaske as an Associate attorney. Blaske joins the Litigation and Dispute Resolution Client Service Department, focusing primarily on bankruptcy, creditor’s rights and commercial litigation. In private practice since 2003, Blaske was chosen by his peers as a "Rising Star" in Law & Politics magazine in 2005 & 2006.

Blaske earned his J.D. in 2003 from Salmon P. Chase College of Law at the University of Northern Kentucky. He received his B.B.A. in Marketing and Financing from the University of Kentucky in 2000. Blaske is a member of the Ohio State Bar Association, the Cincinnati Bar Association, Indiana State Bar Association and the Kentucky Bar Association.

11-09-2006

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Farella Braun + Martel LLP

Important Changes in Sick Leave Policies Mandated for San Francisco Workers
Employers with workers within the city limits of San Francisco will likely need to revise their sick leave policies to insure compliance with the new requirements passed by San Francisco voters on Tuesday. Proposition F requires payment of sick leave to all employees working within the San Francisco city limits beginning February 5, 2007.

Under the new ordinance, employees must accrue at least one hour of sick leave for every thirty hours worked. Businesses with fewer than 10 employees may cap accrued sick leave at five sick days per year, and businesses with 10 or more employees may cap accrued sick leave at nine sick days per year. Accrued sick leave carries over from year to year, subject to the aforementioned caps. Existing unrestricted paid time off policies can be used to satisfy the new requirements, but employers must offer at least the minimum amount of paid time off required under the new ordinance.

Employees may take this newly mandated paid sick leave for their own illness or treatment, to care for an ill family member, or to take a family member to medical appointments. Covered family members include children, parents, siblings, grandparents, grandchildren, spouses and registered domestic partners. Importantly, single employees may designate one unrelated person in lieu of a spouse or domestic partner, and may use their sick days to care for that person. However, the employee must make the designation when sick leave first begins accruing, and can only change that designation once annually.

Employees hired on or before February 5, 2007 begin to accrue this newly mandated sick leave on that date. Employees hired after February 5, 2007, begin accruing sick leave 90 days after their hire date. Unlike vacation pay, sick leave need not be cashed out upon separation from employment. Employers are required to maintain records of sick days accrued and used for at least four years. They may use only reasonable measures to insure that sick days are being used for a lawful purpose.

The San Francisco Office of Labor Standards Enforcement is responsible for publishing multi-lingual notices advising employees of this right to sick leave. Employers are required to post the notice at the worksite in English, Chinese, Spanish and any other language spoken by at least 5% of their workforce.

Violations of the new ordinance are subject to various administrative and civil penalties, including monetary fines equal to three times the value of any sick leave unlawfully withheld, plus liquidated damages equal to $50 for each hour of sick leave withheld, in addition to attorney's fee and interest.

Employers with workers in San Francisco who do not presently offer sick leave or unrestricted paid time off to their employees, including temporary workers and part-time workers, will be required to implement policies providing for these new benefits. Many employers who already maintain sick leave benefits will be required to review and revise those policies, to insure that they are providing benefits at least equal to those required by the ordinance. Since very few employers allow single employees to use sick days to care for non-family members, it is likely that most employers will need to revise their current sick leave policies.

11-09-2006

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Brown, Raysman, Millstein, Felder & Steiner, L.L.P.

Participants Laud First Annual Women in Construction Conference
Thelen Reid and Priest LLP— soon to be Thelen Reid Brown Raysman & Steiner LLP—hosted the “First Annual Women in Construction Conference—A Leadership & Networking Conference by Women, for Women,” at its Washington, DC office November 9. The four-panel conference was coordinated by Thelen Reid Construction partner Barbara Werther, Esq., along with fellow Board of Directors, Lisa Enloe of Held Enloe & Associates LLC, Kathy S. Taub, Esq. of Kathy S. Taub LLC, Barbara C. Wagner of The Clark Construction Group, Tracy Browne from Centex Construction, Margaret Van Voast of WCD Metro LLC and Cecilia Morgan, Esq. of JAMS.

The full-day conference brought together high-powered business, legal, and community leaders with experience in areas that are of critical importance to women working in the construction and design industry. The agenda combined valuable technical information with ideas and advice about how to improve professional skills like networking and negotiating.

The first panel, World Trade Center, focused on the “hypothetical rebuild” of the site and the costs of determining property insurance claims. Panelists Lisa Enloe, Jon Held of Held Enloe & Associates and Jane Stevens of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP discussed the key legal and construction issues for one of the largest insurance cases in history. They also described their innovative work in creating a construction model used for the insurance appraisal that predicts what it would cost to completely rebuild the World Trade Center complex. Thelen Reid attorney Melissa Lesmes then concluded the panel with a discussion of current insurance and risk management protections for catastrophic events.

The second panel, Mentoring, was moderated by Barbara Wagner and was made up of respected professionals in various stages of their careers: Margaret Van Voast, Doug Turner of Centex Construction, Liz Walsh of Thelen Reid & Priest LLP, Susannah O’Connor of The Clark Construction Group, LeeAnn Goodwin of Smoot Construction, and Christine Merdon of McKissack & McKissack. The panelists provided insight and inspiration to the younger women in the audience, but also emphasized the tremendous responsibility women have to those who follow in their footsteps. Susannah O’Connor’s story of being “hit on” by a potential client resonated, and engaged the audience in an interactive discussion.

Kathy Taub led the third panel, Top 5 Issues in Construction Contracts, and addressed recent trends in drafting construction contracts and the implications of various clauses from the perspective of developers, owners and contractors.

Panelists Gretchen Dudney of J Street Development, Jane Mahaffie of Stonebridge Associates Inc. and Rosemarie Schmidt of Marriott International Inc. discussed consequential damages, risk-shifting clauses, responsibility for errors and omissions, and the differences in bargaining power between the various parties to a construction contract.

The fourth panel, Women as Negotiators, was moderated by JAMS’ Cecilia Morgan and featured an elite panel of both sitting and retired judges, as well as three arbitrators/mediators. The panel, Judge Ruth Burg (ret.) and Judge Cheryl Scott of the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals, Judge Marion Blank Horn of the United States Court of Federal Claims, Judith Ittig of Ittig & Ittig PC and conference chair and organizer Barbara Werther, provided insight into the effectiveness of various negotiation styles used by female negotiators. Judge Horn’s story of being asked to serve coffee when the parties did not realize she was a judge was a sad reminder that women are not always regarded as professionals. “Take control of the situation,” was the advice. The judges on the panel offered valuable advice regarding their own experiences, and provided tips for effective negotiation.

The conference also featured two dynamic keynote speakers. Lurita Alexis Doan, Administrator of General Services, U.S. General Services Administration, gave a memorable address about taking charge of your life as a wife, mother, and business executive. She counseled the “elder stateswomen” to mentor the up-and-coming women of the trade and advised attendees to relish the role of “the only woman in the room” by taking advantage of the free marketing while at the same time conducting yourself responsibly.

The second keynote speaker, Katherine Gurun, a mediator at JAMS, shared her personal success story and unique career path that took her to positions around the globe. She advised that opportunities often come at inconvenient times and shared her thoughts on making extremely difficult career choices. She stressed the importance of staying true to yourself and pursuing your goals, even when all logic points to giving up.

The event culminated with a networking reception and a guided tour of the Smithsonian Institute’s National Portrait Gallery and American Art Museum, conducted by the gallery’s architect, Mary Kay Lanzillotta of Hartman Cox Architects.

The conference would not have happened without the generosity of its sponsors: Gold Sponsors: Centex Construction, Davis Construction; Silver Sponsors: The Crowley Group, Held Enloe & Associates, Forrester Construction, JAMS; Bronze Sponsors: KCE Structural Engineer, PC, StructureTone, Stonebridge Associates, The Construction Superconference.

The First Annual Women in Construction Conference was a huge success, judging by the comments:

You could give lessons on how to present a conference. The topics were so interesting and the panels and individual speakers were all outstanding. Everything was organized perfectly…Thank you for this special event.


The Seminar was unbelievable! For all of us ladies, you deserve our sincerest thanks for taking the in initiative to provide such a session.


I thoroughly enjoyed myself…The panels and panelists were great! Most conferences cannot hold my attention for an entire day and this certainly did. It was all very well done and I was proud to have been included with such prestigious panel speakers.


I have personally never been to a conference that had it all—energy, information, curiosity, humor, knowledge…they usually all impart something, but this was truly a special experience. Attention to detail in most all of our jobs is a requirement—Thelen took it to a new level or raised it to an art form.


I was honored and proud to be part of such accomplished, successful, smart, and nice women! It was amazing how everyone connected and I think they all felt the same way. Thelen did a wonderful job on the details!


The speakers were great, knowledgeable and articulate. It was a pleasure to hear from so many intelligent and successful women who spoke with humor and insight.


Very exciting to meet and listen to so many wonderful, talented, intelligent, successful women in the construction industry—proud day!


The mix of participants, in terms of age and experience, was just perfect!


The conference was over the top! The next day DAVIS had an “all hands” meeting and the ladies who attended the conference were so pumped. Thank you for all your hard work in putting it together.

11-09-2006

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Barnes & Thornburg LLP

Koenig Speaks About Non-competes
John Koenig of the Indianapolis office gave a presentation November 9 to the Indiana Chapter of the Risk and Insurance Management Society, Inc. regarding using non-competes as a risk management tool and an overview of employment practices liability insurance.

11-09-2006

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Shearman & Sterling LLP

Shearman & Sterling Advises on World's Largest-Ever IPO
Shearman & Sterling LLP has represented the underwriters Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, China International Capital Corporation Ltd. and ICEA Capital Ltd. in connection with the US$22 billion initial public offering and dual listing of Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC). This is the world's largest IPO ever. ICBC is China's largest commercial bank with more than 18,000 branches and more than 150 million customers. The Rule 144A/Regulation S offering is the first to be concurrently listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

Attorneys included partners Matthew Bersani (HK-CM), Laurence Crouch (MP-Tax), Robert Evans (NY-CM) and Alan Seem (BJ-CM), counsel Megan Tang (HK-CM), associates Chris Chen (BJ-MA), Yunlong Gao (BJ-CM), Kevin Krist (LO-CM), Pingping Liu (BJ-CM), Dennis Mieskoski (MP-TX), Nicole Oversier (HK-CM), Russell Sacks (NY-CM), Yihan Sun (BJ-CM), Vivian Wong (HK-CM) and Kevin Zhang (NY-CM) and legal assistants Xiuqin Cao (BJ-MA), Minxia Gu (BJ-IA), Kailing Li (BJ-MA), Wendy Li (BJ-MA), Emma Liu (BJ-MA), Eve Song (BJ-MA), Kellie Wu (BJ-MA) and Pei Zhao (BJ-MA).

11-09-2006

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Shearman & Sterling LLP

Shearman & Sterling Named 2006 Sager Award Winner
The Minority Corporate Counsel Association awarded Shearman & Sterling LLP one of its top honors yesterday at its annual Northeast Region Diversity Dinner in recognition of the firm's ongoing commitment to promoting diversity.

"We are honored to be recognized for our diversity initiatives," said Senior Partner Rohan S. Weerasinghe, who addressed an audience of more than 1,000 industry leaders as he accepted the Thomas L. Sager Award. "We must not accept the notion that the diversity progress achieved so far gives us leave to ease our efforts."

The award was given in recognition of the firm's ongoing efforts to improve the hiring, retention and promotion of diverse attorneys.

"Our lawyers and staff are a cross section of the world community," said Mr. Weerasinghe. "Their varied backgrounds, experiences and perspectives have advanced the quality of the legal services we provide and have helped shape our firm culture.

11-09-2006

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Proskauer & Rose, LLP

Proskauer Rose Handles Billion-Dollar Stock Offering for Celgene
Proskauer Rose LLP, an international law firm with more than 700 lawyers in the United States and Europe, has completed a 20-million-share common stock offering with gross proceeds of $1.032 billion on behalf of Celgene Corporation (Nasdaq: CELG), a global pharmaceutical company engaged in the discovery, development and commercialization of innovative therapies for cancer and immune-inflammatory related diseases.

The deal represents Proskauer's largest on behalf of Celgene, which offered the stock to meet the anticipated demand for its shares by index funds following Standard and Poor Corporation's recent inclusion of the company in its S&P 500 Index. Proskauer has represented Celgene since its incorporation in 1986.

"We're extremely proud to be a part of this important milestone event for Celgene, which has long been a signature client," said Robert Cantone, partner in Proskauer's Corporate Department, who served as lead attorney on the matter.

Proskauer's Corporate Department consists of over 175 attorneys worldwide. The firm's corporate attorneys counsel clients in the full range of sophisticated financial transactions and in daily business and regulatory matters. The department's core practice areas include Mergers and Acquisitions, Capital Markets, Private Investment Funds, Finance, and Bankruptcy.

11-09-2006

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