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Chair’s Comments: 2017-18 Officers Elected, Walter E. Dellinger III Honored, CLE on HB2 Held

By Robert Ward

The council held a brief meeting at 7:30 a.m. on Feb. 9, 2017. John Branch, chair of the Law School Committee, reported on a potential law school forum program which may be considered during the fall of 2017. Colin Shive, editor for our blog, The Constitutionalist, related that there would be forthcoming blog articles. Patricia Perkins presented the treasurer’s report, and a discussion ensued regarding the use of any potential section budget surplus. In this connection, Andi Bradford will consult LRE for recommendations for council consideration at the next council meeting.

As has been the custom, the Annual Meeting of the Constitutional Rights and Responsibilities Section was held in conjunction with the section’s sponsored CLE. The topic this year was North Carolina House Bill 2. At noon, the section meeting convened and for the agenda the nomination committee submitted a slate of officers and members for consideration by the section. The first agenda item was the nomination of Chair Michele Luecking-Sunman and Vice Chair Patricia Perkins to be submitted to and recommended for appointment by NCBA President-Elect Caryn Coppedge McNeill. Second, Secretary Tami Fitzgerald and Treasurer Chris Brook were elected. Third, the section elected four new Council members: Leto Copeley, Scott Gaylord, Ann McColl and Tom Segars. I extend my congratulations to them on their election and commend them for their willingness to serve our section for the upcoming 2017-2018 council year.

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The Chair’s Column: Construction Law Section, This Blog’s For You

By M. Riana Smith

Happy 2017! While it is the new year for everyone else, this time of year marks the half-way point of our bar year, which provides a great opportunity to see what we have accomplished so far, what is new and what is upcoming. Let’s start with what’s new. I am excited to introduce you to the section’s new blog format.

Rather than receiving our newsletter approximately every four months, you will receive more frequent posts on items of interest and affecting our section members – typically on a monthly basis. The motivation behind this change is to provide the members more timely access to important information instead of waiting until we have enough articles for the Change Order or until the next deadline. Expect to still receive the same great articles from section authors that you always have, but also look forward to blogs on other areas of law that may affect your practice, as well as legislative and case law updates. Changing the format has been in the works for some time. I want to thank the Newsletter Committee: Jonathan Massell, Lindsey Powell, Gib Laite and Todd Jones for their hard work that led to the successful launch of our new blog format. If you have ideas for a blog, an article (perhaps broken into a series of blog posts), or see another blog that should be re-blogged, please email our co-chairs (listed above) so they can make plans to include in future posts. Also, we welcome your feedback on this new format – good, bad (aka kindly constructive), or in-between, so we can continue to improve and better serve the section.

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The Chair’s Comments

By Robert Ward

HB2 will be the subject of the Constitutional Rights & Responsibilities Section’s upcoming annual CLE on Thursday, Feb. 9 at the Bar Center in Cary. During the section’s most recent council meeting, Eric Doggett, co-chair of our CLE committee, gave a brief summary and circulated a copy of the CLE program, which will focus on Session Law 2016-3 (House Bill2) Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act. This program will include the following topics:  an HB2 overview; HB2 and the Constitution; HB2 and employment law; and panel discussions addressing the interplay between local and state authority and the status of pending court proceedings challenging HB2.  This CLE program will help to better understand the details of this law and its potential implications.  This program will be presented on please mark your calendars and plan to attend to earn CLE credit and learn about this timely statewide topic.

The council meeting on Nov. 17, 2016, at the Bar Center also included a great beginning with remarks from four students from The Cary Academy: Grace Jin, a senior; three juniors, Danielle Carr, Max Nunez and Margaret Velto; and their history and government teacher Maret Jones.  It continued with an explanation from them as to how they related their classroom study of the U.S. Constitution to current events.  As you might imagine, the discussion that ensued was very informative and entertaining.  One particular classroom project conducted by these students was the convening of a mock constitutional convention in which they went over the Constitution line by line in an effort to determine if and how it could be amended to better address our changing times.  Not surprisingly, these students concluded that the Constitution was very well written, and that underscores how it has withstood the test of time.  Also, when asked by the council, the students responded that they would make very few changes to this venerable document.  On behalf of the council I presented each student a certificate of appreciation, a reprint of the U.S. Constitution and a copy of the book “Constitutional Law for Kids” by Ursula Furi-Perry, published by the American Bar Association and provided by the NCBA’s Law Related Education Department.

Committee updates included Colin Shive’s report for our blog, The Constitutionalist.  He informed the council that the Sept. 2, 2016 blog post contained an article entitled, “Economic Liberty Challenges In the 21st Century” by Drew Erteschik and J. M. Durnovich. Blog Chair Colin Shive further reported that there would be forthcoming articles for our blog from students from Elon University School of Law.

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The Chair’s Comments: Sports & Entertainment Law’s Game Plan For the Year

vandivershannonBy Shannon Vandiver

With over 150 member attorneys in industries spanning the sports and entertainment worlds including those that serve as in house and outside counsel for all of North Carolina’s major league sports teams and properties as well as many of its minor league, amateur, collegiate and youth sports entities and attorneys representing artists, entertainers and media outlets all over the state, the Sports and Entertainment Law Section is truly the hub of the sports and entertainment legal world for North Carolina.

Our attorneys serve clients that include NASCAR and other motorsports teams, drivers and sanctioning bodies as well as NFL, NHL and NBA teams; athletes, coaching staffs and support personnel; NCAA schools and conferences including the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Southeastern Conference; the North Carolina High School Athletic Association; media companies, stations and providers; musical, visual and performing artists, labels and venues; literary authors and publishers; and many, many others. Section members include corporate counsel, business transactional and litigation attorneys, attorneys who provide immigration law services for athletes, entertainers, performers, investors and producers; those whose practices are focused on technology or intellectual property, copyright, trademark or privacy law, promotions, digital media, internet, gaming and many other areas of the law that touch sports or entertainment. The largest concentrations of our section members are in the Charlotte and Triangle areas but we are also well represented in the Triad and in areas from Western North Carolina to the coast.

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The Chair’s Comments: Welcome to a New Year and a New Blog

fruth-darrellBy Darrell A. Fruth

Please allow me to introduce myself as chair of the IP Section, along with our new blog format.  We will use this blog to share articles and keep you posted on networking events and other programs that we are planning for the year.  If I can get you to do one thing, please mark April 28, 2017 on your calendar when you (and hopefully your family) will be attending our annual section meeting in Wilmington!

About Me   

It suits me to write my first Chair’s Comments in the form of a blog post, as I prefer less formal modes of communication. I spent my formative years in Las Vegas and then studied engineering at MIT and UC Berkeley before attending Yale for law school.  After law school, I clerked for a federal judge in Reno, NV, the “Biggest Little City in the World,” and practiced patent litigation in San Francisco.  I also took full advantage of the outdoor adventures, such as downhill skiing and mountain biking, that abound in the Sierras.  My family moved to Durham in 2005.  I currently serve as a partner at Brooks Pierce in Raleigh, where my broad IP practice includes licensing, assertion, and white collar defense.  I also co-teach the Start-Up Ventures Clinic at Duke Law School.

This Blog

With the support of section leadership, our intrepid editors Lauren Anderson and Michael Morlock decided to embrace the 21st century: We have switched our IP Links newsletter into a blog available to the entire world.  This should allow more timely stories delivered in shorter bites, but only if section members generate and share content relevant to our section.

The Year Ahead

Our section has strong leadership in the form of capable officers and dedicated committee chairs.  The trademark committee just conducted a seminar about beer law in Asheville.  Expect similar, top-notch programs throughout the year.  The cornerstone annual CLE will be presented, in collaboration with the Sports and Entertainment Section, in Wilmington on April 28.  We need you there.  Unless we have good attendance, the Bar Association will encourage us to hold all of our annual meetings at the Bar Center in Cary.  More importantly, our section sees real value in spending time getting to know one another.  In addition to CLE options, our events will stand out as a way to connect with your colleagues across the state.

I look forward to seeing you at an IP Section event soon!

Date Change For Section Annual Meeting/CLE

Due to a conflict with two CLE programs, the Constitutional Rights and Responsibilities Section is moving the date of its Annual Meeting and CLE from Jan. 13, 2017 to Feb. 9, 2017.  The CLE will focus on HB2 and the legal challenge to that bill, including its impact on employment law related issues as well as an analysis and discussion of the litigation resulting from the bill.  We apologize for any inconvenience with regard to the change of date and hope to see you on Feb. 9, 2017.

And Now For Something Completely Different … About CLE Titles

By Catherine Peglow

Have you ever wondered how our CLE programs get their names?

“The Alimony Tour – Not Starring John Cleese” was the name of the 2015 Family Law Section Annual Meeting CLE in Asheville. Now, I’m a Monty Python fan, but a clever name like that can present some problems when you consider the life cycle of a typical North Carolina Bar Association Foundation CLE program. After the live program, we generally do video replays across the state, and those video replays count as live CLE credit. After the replays finish, the program is edited into sessions and uploaded to our On Demand catalog. When you view those sessions online from the convenience of your home or office, they count as online CLE credit.

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The Chair’s Comments: An Exciting Course For the Year

By Robert M. Ward

I am honored to serve as chair for the 2016-2017 term. Let me begin by thanking Trey Allen for his outstanding job as our chair during the 2015-2016 term. Under Trey’s leadership we had a budget carryover, which was put to good use by Law Related Education. Additionally, as reported in the spring issue of The Constitutionalist, our membership increased more than 8 percent over the past year.

Our kickoff council meeting was held on Aug. 18, 2016, at the Bar Center. Jay Ferguson of Thomas, Ferguson & Mullins of Durham provided an excellent presentation: “Eighth Amendment: Evolving Standards of Decency to Eliminate the Death Penalty.” His presentation was quite informative and precipitated a lively discussion among the members of the council. To those of you who may be interested, Jay has agreed to share his Power Point presentation.  If you would like a copy, please contact him at:  [email protected]

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CLE Deadline Season: Legal Professionals, Start Your Engines

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Here we are two weeks before the North Carolina State Bar Mandatory Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) grace period ends on Feb. 29, 2016. I have started to call it the “silly season.” NASCAR fans are familiar with that term. It’s when drivers, crew chiefs and car manufacturers change at the end of the season in a flurry of somewhat unsettling activity.  Similarly, the phone is ringing off the hook here in the CLE Department, and there is a definite air of desperation in the voices of most of the people calling in, some of whom need to get in all 12 hours of MCLE before the end of February.

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