Law Firm News

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Law Firm News

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Husch Blackwell Sanders LLP

Blackwell Sanders Assists Aquila in Closing Sale of Michigan Natural Gas Utility Operations
Blackwell Sanders recently represented Aquila, Inc. (NYSE: ILA), which operates natural gas and electric utilities in several Midwestern states, in connection with the closing of the sale of its Michigan natural gas utility operations to Michigan Gas Utilities Corporation, a subsidiary of WPS Resources Corporation (NYSE: WPS). The sale generated a base price of $269.5 million, plus an adjustment for working capital and other items. The Blackwell Sanders deal team included Fred Strasheim, Scott Jarboe, Doug Worley, Pat Martin, Howard Barewin, Erin Dedrickson, Ellen Pantaenius, Wade Kerrigan, and Katie Flaherty.

04-10-2006

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Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor, LLP

Norman Powell Joins Elite Company in Commercial Finance Law
a partner in the Business Planning, Transactions and Restructuring Section of Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor, LLP, has become only the second Delaware attorney inducted as a Fellow in the American College of Commercial Finance Lawyers (ACCFL), joining previous inductee, the Honorable Thomas L. Ambro (circuit judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit).

Powell was inducted into the College in a special ceremony in Tampa, Florida on Saturday, April 8, 2006, during the ACCFL annual meeting. Election to the College is limited to commercial finance lawyers, jurists and academics who have not only achieved preeminence in the field of commercial finance law, but who also have contributed significantly to the education of others in commercial finance law through teaching, lecturing or published writings.

The ACCFL, founded in 1991 by a group of lawyers active on the Commercial Financial Services Committee of the Business Law Section of the American Bar Association, is a professional organization dedicated to promoting the field of commercial finance law through education, legislative reform and the recognition of distinguished practitioners, jurists and academics. The College offers a venue to promote and celebrate outstanding achievement and advances in the field of commercial finance law.

Nomination for Fellow is by invitation only and each Fellow must be approved by the ACCFL Board of Regents. Qualification requirements include the highest ethical and moral standards and excellent character; substantial experience in the field of commercial finance law; and repeated and substantial contributions to the promotion of learning and scholarship in commercial finance law through teaching, lecturing or published writings.

04-10-2006

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Tyler Cooper & Alcorn, LLP

Tyler Cooper Adds Two New Partners to the Firm
The law firm of Tyler Cooper announced today that Howard L. Pierce and Gerald A. DeSimone have joined the firm as partners. Both attorneys will reside in the Hartford office, concentrating their practices in the areas of Health Care Fraud and Abuse Litigation.

Mr. Pierce has more than a decade of experience in criminal and civil litigation involving health care insurance fraud, with a national practice representing both insurance companies and self-insured organizations. The cases he has handled involve a wide range of insurance fraud and abuse, involving violations of health care providers against Medicare and Medicaid. He is currently general counsel for the New England Anti-Fraud Association.

Mr. Pierce brings to his practice many years of experience as an insurance fraud investigator. He spent sixteen years as a federal agent, including a decade with the Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where he prosecuted violations of federal Medicare/Medicaid laws. In the private sector, he worked on fraud detection and deterrence for insurers including ITT Hartford Life Company and as a Corporate Officer at Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Company.

Most recently, Mr. Pierce headed up the Health Care Fraud and Abuse Practice at another Connecticut law firm. His experience encompasses defense of property/casualty insurance carriers in fraud cases, general litigations and white collar crime.

Also joining Tyler Cooper as a partner is Gerald A. DeSimone, who has wide experience in handling complex health care fraud and abuse cases. He represents health care insurance payers in a variety of matters, including overbilling, overutilization and fraud. Mr. DeSimone also has extensive experience in complex mass tort litigation as former regional counsel for a nationwide defendant in asbestos personal injury litigation.

Mr. Pierce is a graduate of the University of Buffalo and Quinnipiac University School of Law. Mr. DeSimone graduated from Brown University and the University of Connecticut School of Law.

""We are delighted to be bringing aboard two attorneys with such strong backgrounds in the area of health care fraud and abuse,"" said William S. Fish, Jr., Managing Partner of Tyler Cooper. ""We look forward to their contributions as we continue to expand our heath care practice.

04-10-2006

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Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP

AIG General Counsel and Former Senior Officer at New York Federal Reserve Ernest Patrikis Joins Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman
NEW YORK – Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP announced that Ernest T. Patrikis, Senior Vice President and General Counsel at American International Group, Inc., will be joining the firm next month as a partner to lead and expand its regulatory practice for financial services clients. He will be resident in the firm’s New York office.

Mr. Patrikis is one of the country’s leading banking and financial services attorneys. Prior to his eight-year tenure at AIG, he spent 30 years with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, managing a legal department that advised on all aspects of bank supervision, regulation and enforcement. He also directed the national Fedwire electronic funds system, which handles trillions of dollars in funds and securities daily for the 12 member Fed banks. Mr. Patrikis served as an alternate member of the Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed’s monetary policymaking group, and rose to become the second highest officer of the New York Fed.

At AIG, Mr. Patrikis held what is unquestionably one of the most visible – and challenging – legal posts within the financial services industry. He joined AIG in 1998 as a special advisor to former Chairman M.R. Greenberg. He became general counsel in 1999, taking over one of the largest corporate law departments in the world, with some 460 in-house lawyers. Mr. Patrikis helped restructure the department while also directing the company’s vast international network of outside counsel.

In addition to managing worldwide corporate litigation, regulatory affairs, compliance and enforcement, Mr. Patrikis played an active role in acquisitions at AIG, helping negotiate the company’s historic 2001 acquisition of American General Life Insurance, which further transformed AIG into the world’s leading international insurance organization.

Over the last several years, Mr. Patrikis has been instrumental in guiding AIG through a gauntlet of regulatory probes and enforcement actions, as well as numerous civil lawsuits. Throughout, he has worked closely with AIG’s new chief executive Martin Sullivan, the senior officers of the company, and also its board of directors. This involved settlements with the New York Attorney General’s office, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the New York Department of Insurance, as well as negotiations with state regulators and contacts with foreign regulators.

“Ernie Patrikis has held one of the hottest seats in the legal profession the past few years, and it is a reflection of his tremendous skill and stature within the financial services industry that AIG has been able to navigate successfully through so many highly-charged matters.” said Michael Schumaecker, who heads Pillsbury’s firm-wide finance section. Mr. Schumaecker noted that Pillsbury represents more than 200 financial services clients, including commercial and savings banks, investment banks, insurance and reinsurance companies, credit unions, trust companies, investment advisors, broker-dealers, credit card issuers, private equity firms, investment funds and financial services trade associations.

“Ernie is extremely well known in the international financial community and has been a major player for more than a generation. He brings an extraordinary portfolio of accomplishments, plus important relationships across the industry,” Mr. Schumaecker said.

Pillsbury firm-wide chair Mary Cranston added that “Ernie’s presence substantially expands our regulatory practice at the national and international levels. We expect him to play a leadership role in expanding our ability to assist clients on matters before critical regulators and enforcement agencies. Our financial services clients will benefit enormously from his knowledge and experience.”

Mr. Patrikis acknowledged that his workload over the last several years has been “relentless, but also extremely fulfilling in that I was helping steer one of the world’s preeminent companies through some troubling times, while preserving the core that has made AIG a global leader in diversified financial products and services. Now that most of the major matters have been settled, it is time for me to try a new direction. I’m eager to return to the work that I enjoy doing in financial market compliance.”

Mr. Patrikis noted that his position at AIG afforded him a unique perspective on outside counsel, with well over 1,000 firms reporting to his office. “Having led large-scale teams for both a Federal Reserve Bank and a top global corporation, I want to do the same for a major law firm, in this case one with an established client base of financial institutions that can benefit from a full-scale regulatory practice at the highest level,” he said.

“Pillsbury offers a great platform from which to expand its financial services regulatory practice to a world class presence – the clients are there, and so are the attorneys, with strong experience firmwide in banking, litigation, enforcement and investigations, corporate, compliance and other related areas,” Mr. Patrikis explained. “I see my job as helping pull it all together into an integrated group. And I expect to have fun doing it.”

Deep background in banking regulations and enforcement

Mr. Patrikis was already a financial institutions super-lawyer when he joined AIG, by virtue of his three decades of service at the Federal Reserve. While working at the New York Fed, Mr. Patrikis served as Deputy General Counsel of the Federal Open Market Committee as well as General Counsel and then First Vice President of the Bank.

For years he functioned as chief operating officer, overseeing a host of Fed activities, including the legal aspects of wholesale financial market transactions encompassing government securities, foreign exchange, and derivatives, as well as the operational aspects of wholesale wire transfers of funds and securities, check collection and coin and currency as well as Fedwire. He also directed submission of amicus briefs on behalf of financial market participants in matters regarding SEC attachment of foreign bank assets and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission’s jurisdiction over government securities and foreign exchange transactions.

Mr. Patrikis actively participated in major bank holding company applications, including the legal and policy aspects of proposals that severed the separation of commercial and investment banking businesses. He worked with Fed staff in drafting the International Banking Act that governs the operations of foreign banks in the United States. And he frequently made presentations to the Fed’s Board of Governors in Washington on enforcement and payments issues. More recently, he has worked on the need for a federal charter and regulator for insurers.

He was also visible in enforcement actions, directing inquiries into violations of law and regulations, and often negotiating cease-and-desist and other enforcement actions involving violations of statutes and regulations as well as unsafe or unsound banking practices.
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Mr. Patrikis’s time at the Fed had moments of high drama. When the American hostages were taken in Iran in 1979, he advised the Treasury Department on its asset freeze regulations. Later, he served in London, Frankfurt, and Algiers as one of the two negotiators on the financial aspects of the settlement with Iran. Working alongside Warren Christopher, who later became Secretary of State under President Clinton, Mr. Patrikis helped negotiate the transfer to Iran of blocked U.S. bank assets which ultimately led to the hostages’ release in 1980.

He was named the New York Fed’s First Vice President in 1995, becoming the second ranking officer of the largest bank in the Federal Reserve System. At the time of his appointment, the National Law Journal called him “absolutely one of the top banking lawyers in New York” and “perhaps the nation’s foremost expert in payment systems.”

Among other high-profile assignments, Mr. Patrikis has served on the staff of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets. On the international scene, he frequently met with central bankers around the world, served as a member of the Committee on Payments and Settlement Systems of the G-10 central bank governors, and frequently provided legal advice to the Basle Committee on Banking Supervision. He also was actively involved in central bank negotiations relating to sovereign debt restructurings in Latin America and elsewhere.

Mr. Patrikis is a member of the advisory committee of the Business Council for the United Nations and a member of the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ legal advisory committees, as well as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Patrikis is a director of the Atlantic Legal Foundation and the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, having testified before Congress for ISDA.

A native of Swampscott, Mass., whose parents were first-generation Greek-Americans, Mr. Patrikis received his B.A. with honors in economics from the University of Massachusetts (1961) and his J.D. from Cornell Law School (1964).

04-10-2006

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Pennington, Moore, Wilkinson, Bell & Dunbar P.A.

Pennington Partners Attend State Law Resources Meeting
Douglas Bell and Samuel Bell III will be attending the Spring meeting of State Law Resources. They will have as their guests at the meeting the firm's client, Patrick Theisen from McDonald's, and Laurel Grammig, the general counsel for Brown & Brown Insurance.

State Law Resources, Inc. is a national network of independent law firms -- one from each state and the District of Columbia -- selected for their experience in administrative, regulatory and government relations at the state and federal level. Each firm also has unique public- and private-sector experience.

Brown & Brown is the seventh largest independent insurance intermediary organization in the U.S., and the eighth largest such firm in the world.

04-10-2006

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Ruskin, Moscou & Faltischek, PC

Ruskin Moscou Faltischek Attorneys Tapped As Major Contributors to 2006 Legal Manual for New York Physicians.
Ruskin Moscou Faltischek, P.C. announced today that six of its attorneys were tapped as authors for the prestigious Legal Manual for New York Physicians. Article contribution was significant: Partners Ellen F. Kessler, Gregory J. Naclerio, Alexander G. Bateman, Jr., and Jay B. Silverman and associate Sandra Maliszewski, along with Jeffrey M. Schlossberg, of counsel, wrote or co-authored nine articles for the manual.

Ruskin Moscou Faltischek attorneys researched and wrote articles on topics ranging from Formation and Implementation of Private Physician Practices to Physician Advertising, and Patient/Resident Rights to Physicians Charged with a Crime. Commenting on the significant level of firm contribution, Gregg Naclerio, partner and co-chair of the firm's Health Care Regulatory and Transactional Practices, said, ""We are pleased to have served as a major contributor to this manual. The firm prides itself on its cutting edge knowledge of the legal changes in health law, which ensures our clients receive the best advice and representation.

The Legal Manual for New York Physicians is the result of collaboration between the Health Law Section of the New York State Bar Association and the Medical Society of the State of New York. It gives physicians and their staffs - as well as lawyers - a clearer understanding of the many legal and regulatory requirements that affect the practice of medicine.

04-07-2006

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Hurwitz & Fine, P.C.

Ross Named to Top Health Care 50
We are pleased to congratulate our partner, Lawrence M. Ross, on his being chosen by Business First as one of 50 influential and innovative leaders in Western New York in the health sciences community. Larry has been recognized as the only lawyer included in this prestigious listing, based on his counseling of persons and institutions in the health sciences areas.

04-07-2006

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