I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and a happy start to the New Year!
On Thursday, January 30, 2020, the NCBA Insurance Law Section will host its seventh annual CLE at the North Carolina Bar Center in Cary, North Carolina. This year’s CLE covers a number of insurance-related topics including the Restatement of the Law of Liability Insurance, Top Insurance Law Decisions from 2019, E-Discovery in 2020, Cyber Insurance, and more.
This year’s CLE has been approved for 1.0 hour of Ethics/Professional Responsibility Credit AND also satisfies the NC State Bar Technology Training requirement.
As always, the Section will hold its annual meeting during the lunch break.
For more information and to register, click here. On behalf of the entire NCBA Insurance Law Section, we hope to see you there!
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Recent Cases from the Court of Appeals That May be Of Interest
On Tuesday, January 7, 2020, the Court of Appeals issued a large number of opinions, including several that may be of interest to administrative law practitioners. Opinions discussing the Rules of Civil Procedure and Rules of Evidence are included because of their potential usefulness in OAH cases. Myers v. Myers, although a family law case, will be of interest on several issues. Summaries are taken directly from the Court’s website, with a few notes added (they’re in complete sentences).
https://ncbarblogprod.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Blog-Header-1-1030x530.png00Administrativehttps://ncbarblogprod.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Blog-Header-1-1030x530.pngAdministrative2020-01-08 14:56:572020-01-09 09:30:46Recent Cases from the Court of Appeals That May be Of Interest
It’s the start of a new year and a new decade. Perhaps you’ve reflected on the time leading up to 2020 and have made some resolutions to better yourself in the new year. Maybe you want to better your relationships with your family, friends, colleagues, or yourself. But what about your outside counsel? After all, it is an important business relationship; colleague, advisor, direct report all in one. How are you going to strengthen that relationship?
So, as we begin a new year and new decade, it is a good time to ask yourself: How’s your relationship with outside counsel? What could you be doing differently? We scoured our colleagues (and friends) for some practical advice to get you moving in the right direction. Consider this your relationship advice, from your friendsin-house and outside:
From the way they are typically discussed in news stories, a casual observer could perhaps be forgiven for concluding that trademarks are primarily about confusion. In North Carolina – the only state that recognizes Trademark Law as a separate, board-certified specialty – we are not casual observers.As a result, we recognize that trademarks (and federal trademark registrations) might more properly be characterized by distinctiveness, by the ability to set one’s goods and services apart from others’. In an effort to accentuate this positive aspect of Trademark Law, here’s a look back at ten years of memorable trademarks registered at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.
https://ncbarblogprod.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Blog-Header-1-1030x530.png00IntellectualPropertyhttps://ncbarblogprod.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Blog-Header-1-1030x530.pngIntellectualProperty2020-01-07 13:36:442020-01-13 17:02:31Decade of Distinctiveness
From left, Jeffrey Russell, Melissa Michaud, Colin Shive and Stephen Rawson.
Tharrington Smith Announces Four New Partners Four associate attorneys—Melissa Michaud, Stephen Rawson, Jeffrey Russell, and Colin Shive—have been promoted to partners at Tharrington Smith in Raleigh. Michaud, Rawson, and Shive practice in the Education Law Section, and Russell practices in the Family Law Section.
Michaud has worked at Tharrington Smith since 2013, prior to which she taught middle school in eastern North Carolina through Teach for America. She holds a bachelor of arts in political science from Brown University and a juris doctorate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Rawson has worked at Tharrington Smith since 2013, prior to which he was a middle school science teacher in Kentucky. He holds a bachelor of science in physics and a juris doctorate from Duke University.
Russell has worked at Tharrington Smith since 2013 and is a board-certified specialist in Family Law. He holds a bachelor of arts in political science from Furman university and a juris doctorate, magna cum laude, from Campbell University.
Shive has worked at Tharrington Smith since 2012, prior to which he clerked for the Honorable William Osteen, Jr. of the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina. He holds a bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, from Clemson University and a juris doctorate with high honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
By Rachel Royal Steve Epstein considers it not only his duty as a lawyer, but his privilege, to provide pro bono service. “If not for me, who will do this work?” he questions. Since April 2010, Steve has spent his days as a Civil Litigation attorney at Poyner Spruill, LLP with a focus in Family Law.
By contrast, his pro bono work is where he steps out of his everyday comfort zone to delve into landlord tenant issues and customer disputes with car dealerships. He does this through Lawyer on the Line, a partnership between the NC Bar Foundation and Legal Aid of North Carolina.
Steve has been volunteering for Lawyer on the Line since its inception as the formerly known “Call 4All.” He handles approximately half a dozen calls per year, but he often assists the client well beyond the initial call, which has included writing demand letters, problem resolution, and even filing suit on the client’s behalf.
By Allison Standard Constance NCBA member Kevin Pratt understands that pro bono work is an opportunity to demystify the legal process for clients and pave a way to communication that can resolve clients’ issues. Pratt works on consumer cases with Legal Aid of North Carolina’s Lawyer on the Line program, and he also volunteers on landlord-tenant cases with Legal Aid of North Carolina-Charlotte.
In his pro bono work, he finds that information gaps exist between clients and their corporate adversaries, and with representation, the free flow of information allows the parties to better understand the dispute and resolve it amicably.
Recently, Pratt represented an elderly, disabled husband and father who was being sued by a creditor attempting to renew a previously obtained judgment. The client is a cancer survivor, and now has significant health problems resulting from an adverse reaction to chemotherapy.
It’s 2020. No longer is that the first line in a sci-fi movie. It’s fact.
With a new calendar year, it also marks another milestone. We are halfway through the bar year. It’s hard to believe my term as chair of the Sports and Entertainment Law Section is half over, but I’m excited about what we’ve done so far and thrilled about the next few months.
The last calendar year was a difficult one for me both personally and professionally. To those of you who know me well, this will not be a surprise. To anyone else: I’m a fairly open book so feel free to ask at the next networking event – let’s get to know each other better. That said, throughout the year, the support of connections that I’ve made – friends, really – through the NCBA and this Section have been invaluable. That includes the NCBA staff.
Without them, this year would have been much, much more difficult. That support wouldn’t have been available to me without a few simple networking events and repeated opportunities to build friendships through the NCBA.
So far this year, we have organized group outings to minor league baseball in Greensboro, virtual reality in Durham, happy hour in Cary and partnered with SLA and others for a college football game. This coming winter and spring, we are working on a joint event with the Corporate Counsel section, a Carolina Hurricanes game, The Racing Attorney Conference returns to Charlotte and more.
Over the next few months, I’d like to ask each of you to consider your role in the Section. At minimum, come enjoy some of these events. Then, there are lots of ways to be more involved. If you’re not already on a committee, join one. At the Section’s annual meeting in April, the Section council will vote on a new slate of officers – maybe one could be you. A committee of us will also recommend to the new chair a new set of committee leaders and new council members. If you have an interest in any of these positions or changing up your role, please reach out to me.
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North Carolina law prohibits unfair and deceptive trade practices, but not if those practices concern securities transactions.
The state supreme court announced this exemption in 1985 in Skinner v. E.F. Hutton & Co. The court expanded on the exemption’s reach in a 1991 decision called HAJMM Co. v. House of Raeford Farms, Inc. Thanks to these decisions, a plaintiff who alleges a violation of N.C.G.S. Section 75-1.1 about a securities transaction better have a sound argument on why Skinner, HAJMM, and their progeny don’t bar the claim.
This post concerns a recent North Carolina Business Court case called Beam v. Sunset Financial Services, Inc., in which the plaintiffs faced this situation and thought they had a winning game plan to sidestep these decisions.
https://ncbarblogprod.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Blog-Header-1-1030x530.png00Litigationhttps://ncbarblogprod.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Blog-Header-1-1030x530.pngLitigation2020-01-03 15:37:082020-01-06 09:38:30When Tiptoeing Around the Securities Exemption to North Carolina’s Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act, Take Each Step Carefully
We are saddened to hear of former International Practice Section Chair Richard (“Dick”) J. Boles Sr.’s passing on December 11. A native of Cambridge, Mass., Dick was a graduate of the Massachusetts Maritime Academy (1957) and UNC School of Law (1966).
Boles was a licensed Engineering Officer in the U.S. Merchant Marines and a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, held a commercial pilot’s license, and traveled to more than 40 countries, the Arctic and Antarctica. He also served as Construction Engineer on the U.S.S. Enterprise, the first nuclear powered Air Craft Carrier.
After earning his J.D., Dick clerked for the Chief Judge of the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. He became a highly respected tax attorney, publishing numerous articles in various journals on taxation and estate planning, including the North Carolina Law Review.
In addition to serving as Chair to our Section, Dick authored the North Carolina Foreign Legal Consultants Act, taught a course in International Taxation at UNC School of Law, and taught at the University of Sydney Law School in Sydney, Australia.
Richard is survived by his sons: Richard J. Boles, Jr. of Murrells Inlet, SC and Thomas E. Boles of Durham, NC. A sister, Mildred F. Donovan of Londonderry, New Hampshire, also survives.
More information can be found on the Goldfinch Funeral Home website.
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By Rachel Royal
By Allison Standard Constance
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