Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP has added three partners to the firm's Labor and Employment practice group: Thomas R. Kaufman, Michael L. Gallion and Gregg A. Fisch.  Kaufman, Gallion and Fisch join Sheppard Mullin's Los Angeles/Century City office from Seyfarth Shaw in Los Angeles, where Kaufman was co-chair of Seyfarth's national wage/hour class action practice group.  

"We are very excited to welcome Tom, Mike and Gregg.  They are tremendously talented and collectively bring a wide range of labor and employment law experience, including a specialization in wage-and-hour law – an area the firm is already known for," said Guy N. Halgren, chairman of Sheppard Mullin.  "We have one of the biggest and best employment practices in California, and this group further strengthens the capabilities of one of our signature practice groups."

"We look forward to joining Sheppard Mullin, a top-notch full service firm with a strong footprint in Los Angeles and throughout California," Kaufman commented.  "I am impressed with the firm's marquee labor and employment practice, including the group's continued growth in recent years and firm management's support in growing it further."  

"I am very excited to continue to practice with Tom and Gregg at Sheppard Mullin.  We are thrilled to be part of a firm with such a distinguished labor and employment group and one with such a strong California platform," said Gallion.  "Sheppard Mullin's labor and employment practice has been well known in California for years and the firm has done an excellent job expanding this brand nationally.  The firm's unwavering commitment to client service, diversity, and its top notch practice groups outside of labor and employment were also big draws."

Kaufman is a wage/hour specialist and has handled more than eighty class actions for a wide variety of industries, including banks and mortgage lenders, hospitals, large newspapers, information technology companies, restaurants, and other retailers.  Kaufman also is experienced in litigating employment discrimination cases, including winning several jury trials.  He received a J.D. from University of California, Los Angeles in 1995.

Gallion is a seasoned employment litigator and counselor.  He has significant experience handling complex employment litigation, including California wage and hour class actions and nationwide discrimination class actions.  Gallion has also developed a significant counseling practice, regularly advising clients on the most challenging aspects of employment law, including workforce reclassifications, mergers and acquisitions, reductions in force, and high-profile investigations. He has been recognized as a Southern California Super Lawyer and was recognized by Chambers in 2009 and 2010 as a leader in his field.  Gallion received a J.D., Order of the Coif, from the University of Tennessee in 1995.

Fisch has extensive experience in all aspects of employment litigation, and has successfully defended management before federal and state courts and administrative agencies in defense of complaints for class action and single-plaintiff matters, involving wage-and-hour violations, wrongful termination, age, race, gender, and national origin discrimination, sexual harassment, retaliation, and other statutory, contract and tort-related claims, as well as in relation to union campaigns and elections.  He received a J.D. from New York University School of Law in 1996.  

Sheppard Mullin has 200 attorneys based in its Los Angeles offices and its Labor and Employment practice group includes 75 attorneys firmwide. 

About Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP

Sheppard Mullin is a full service AmLaw 100 firm with 550 attorneys in 11 offices located in the United States and Asia.  Since 1927, companies have turned to Sheppard Mullin to handle corporate and technology matters, high stakes litigation and complex financial transactions.  In the U.S., the firm's clients include more than half of the Fortune 100.  For more information, please visit www.sheppardmullin.com. 

Attorneys at the law firm of Gallop, Johnson & Neuman, L.C. are advising companies considering mergers, tender offers, acquisition transactions and joint ventures of any size to carefully examine any potential antitrust risks prior to closing the business deal.  

That is because the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are increasing scrutiny of transactions that could potentially lessen competition or create a monopoly, even when those transactions do not warrant mandatory review under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act’s (Hart-Scott) jurisdictional and filing-fee thresholds for transactions triggering mandatory antitrust review.  

Glenn E. Davis, chair of the Antitrust Practice Group at Gallop, Johnson & Neuman, said, “Identifying potential antitrust issues prior to closing a deal could save companies considerable effort and expense in litigating against a federal antitrust agency over a relatively modest transaction, or permit proactive planning to structure deals to avoid or minimize risk.”

On January 19, 2010, the FTC announced that for the first time it was lowering the Hart-Scott jurisdictional and filing-fee thresholds for transactions that prompt mandatory antitrust review. The 2010 revisions decreased the basic notification threshold for all transactions from $65.2 million to $63.4 million.

Amy K. Mistler, attorney in the Antitrust Practice Group at Gallop, Johnson & Neuman, said, “While Hart-Scott only requires federal notification for transactions exceeding $63.4 million, this year the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission have significantly increased antitrust review of transactions falling below the Hart-Scott threshold as well.”  

“The FTC and DOJ are keeping an especially close watch on mergers and acquisitions that result in one company gaining a substantial share of its relevant market,” Davis noted. For example, in January of 2010 the DOJ filed suit against Dean Foods Co., the country’s largest processor and distributor of dairy products, for antitrust violations in its $35 million acquisition of two Wisconsin dairy-processing plants from a local dairy cooperative.  The DOJ alleged that the deal was likely to substantially lessen competition in milk sales to schools and convenience stores in Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan.

In March of 2010, the DOJ challenged a $5 million merger between the country’s two largest providers of voting machine equipment because the deal gave one company control over more than 70 percent of the voting-machine market. After filing suit to challenge the merger, the DOJ reached a settlement agreement with Election Systems & Software, Inc.  

In May 2010, the FTC filed suit against Dun & Bradstreet Corp. because the database company’s $29 million acquisition of competitor Quality Education Data (QED) gave it more than 90 percent of the market for K-12 education data.  When the suit was filed, Richard Feinstein, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, announced: “Despite its relatively low dollar value, this transaction dramatically decreased competition in the marketplace…When Dun & Bradstreet acquired QED, it bought its closest competitor and created a monopoly. That’s going to get the FTC’s attention every time.”

For more information, contact Glenn E. Davis or Amy K. Mistler at 314.615.6000 with questions or concerns regarding federal antitrust policy or review. A complete list of the 2010 adjusted thresholds can be accessed via the FTC website at http://www.ftc.gov/os/fedreg/2010/january/1001218claytonact7a.pdf. 

Gallop, Johnson & Neuman, L.C., a full service law firm of 80 attorneys, has provided legal services to clients in diverse industries since 1976 and is one of the largest law firms in St. Louis. The firm serves public corporations; privately-held companies; entrepreneurs and start-up enterprises; individuals and families; trustees and trust beneficiaries; charities; and non-profit entities. 

For more information about Gallop, Johnson & Neuman, contact Lois A. LaDriere, Director of Marketing, at 314.615.6000 or see the website http://www.gjn.com.

The Milwaukee-based law firm of Gonzalez Saggio & Harlan LLP, recognized as one of the nation’s largest minority-owned law firms, said Tuesday that it has opened an Atlanta office.

The June 1 opening in the Atlanta Financial Center in Buckhead, Ga., becomes the firm's 15th location and extends the law firm’s national presence.

Joining the firm in Atlanta are a founding partner and two attorneys from the Atlanta office of another minority-owned law firm, Adorno & Yoss. Two other administrative personnel also left the Miami-based firm for Gonzalez Saggio & Harlan.

Although Gonzalez Saggio & Harlan formed in Milwaukee in 1989. In the late 1990s, the firm expanded when it opened an office in Des Moines, Iowa, and then grew further, opening offices in Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio; Indianapolis; and Chicago.

More recently, it added offices on the East and West coasts, opening a New York City office in 2007 and a Los Angeles office a year ago.

Other office locations include Las Vegas.; Nashville, Tenn.; Phoenix; Washington, D.C., and Wayne, N.J.

Gonzalez Saggio has minority-owned certification from the National Minority Supplier Development Council, a required designation for companies that use minority-certified vendors and recognizes minority-owned businesses with nationwide proven capability.

The presiding judge in the Rohm & Haas/Dow Chemical cancer cluster trial, which had been scheduled to begin on June 7, has set September 20 as the new trial date.

Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Allan Tereshko, in ordering the new schedule in the first of 31 related cases, cited “issues attendant to a trial of this magnitude and complexity,” including pending appeals filed by the defendant of pre-trial motions. The plaintiff in the trial is Joanne Branham on behalf of her deceased husband, Franklin Delano Branham, from McCullom Lake, Illinois.

All the plaintiffs (ten have died since the suits were filed) assert that Philadelphia-based Rohm & Haas, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dow, poisoned the air and groundwater in the McCullom Lake community with vinyl chloride (among other toxic chemicals) discharged from its chemical-manufacturing plant into an unlined waste pit near their homes. They allege that prolonged exposure caused them to contract rare malignant brain cancers and brain tumors.

Mr. Branham was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a lethal form of brain cancer, in 2004, just a few years after he and Joanne relocated to Apache Junction, Arizona, near Phoenix. He died just one month after brain surgery. 

Contacts:
Aaron J. Freiwald, Esq.
ajf@layserfreiwald.com
215.875.8000
Stephan Rosenfeld (for Layser & Freiwald)
215.514.4101
steph@idadvisors.com

Attorneys Say Clients Left in Limbo

Yet again, the U.S. Senate reached a dead-end this week on a possible solution to the expired estate tax. Unless action is taken soon, the federal tax -- temporarily phased completely for this year only -- will jump to a 55 percent rate with a $1 million per spouse exemption in January.

“Hope was in sight,” said Boston area attorney Hank Whittenberg, a tax and estate planning specialist, "but Congressional bickering blocked a reasonable solution. It seems that each party will continue using this as political fodder until after the mid-term elections -- and then it might be too late to take any action before the end of the year."

Members of the Senate appeared to be in general agreement of a proposal to eliminate a retroactive estate tax increase and reduce the tax to 35 percent while raising the exemption to $5 million. However, following a policy luncheon this week, key finance leaders disclosed any such agreement no longer existed.

Meanwhile, the current House proposal resurrects the 2009 estate taxes retroactively to January 1, 2010, allowing for a $3.5 million per person exemption and a flat rate of 45 percent. That proposal is exempt from the Pay-As-You-Go rules, while the lower Senate proposal would not be exempt from the Pay-Go rules.

"Either proposal is better than the limbo our clients are being left in," Whittenberg said. "Without clear indications of whether a retroactive tax will be instituted for 2010, how much of an exemption will be allowed, or what tax rates will be, those pursuing even the most basic planning face a number of uncertainties. We're still able to help families establish effective plans, but the situation could be so much better and more streamlined. Estate attorneys across the nation join me in calling on Congress to simply address this issue once and for all. Action is long overdue." 

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Serving clients throughout the Northeast region, attorneys at Whittenberg Knudsen, LLP focus primarily on estate planning, business law, and probate and trust administration and litigation. Attorney Whittenberg is recognized nationally for expertise in estate and tax planning. He is a partner of Whittenberg Knudsen, LLP, a founding member of WealthCounsel (a national attorney organization of approximately 1,500 estate and wealth strategies attorneys), and a former elected board member of the Member Advisory Board of the National Network of Estate Planning Attorneys.