Plenary Sessions

Opening Plenary – Thursday, September 24, 8:45 – 9:45 a.m.

Just Listen: The Secret Weapon for Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

Please join us for a thought-provoking discussion with Dr. Mark Goulston, the author of the new book, Just Listen, on how to persuade anyone to do anything. Mark Goulston is a business advisor and consultant trained as a clinical psychiatrist who honed his skills as an FBI/police hostage negotiation trainer. Dr. Goulston will use real-life examples to lay out his special listening techniques designed to "get through" to just about anyone. You will walk away from this session with precise strategies and techniques for communicating with your colleagues, your clients, opposing counsel and the court.

Mark Goulston, M.D., Santa Monica, CA

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Plenary – Friday, September 25, 8:45 – 10:15 a.m.

That Scary "S" Word: Are Major Court Sanctions on the Rise?

From Zubalake to Broadcom, this session will survey recent trends in court sanctions against clients and counsel. This panel of prominent lawyers and Judge Scheindlin, who decided the Zubalake cases, will shed light on why more big case sanctions seem to be surfacing. Are increasingly reckless practitioners just getting their come-uppance, or is there something more to it? What ethical dilemmas do counsel face in defending themselves when the client’s conduct creates the sanctions issues? The panel will not only illuminate recent trends in sanctions, it will provide invaluable tips on how to avoid incurring a court’s wrath and how to deal with an ethically-challenged client.

Jeffrey D. Colman, Partner, Jenner & Block, Chicago, IL
Pamela Phillips, Director, Litigation Department, Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin, San Francisco, CA
Hon. Shira A. Scheindlin, United States District Judge, Southern District of New York, New York, NY

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Plenary – Friday, September 25, 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Mediation Illustrated

You are defending a case with strong defenses but enormous prospective damages and a likely policy limit demand. Now your case is going to court-ordered mediation. The clients and carrier are amenable to settling the case, but only within a reasonable range. You strive to maximize your ability to resolve the case at mediation, which requires persuading the mediator to manage the plaintiff’s expectations. You need to be prepared to preempt an unfavorable mediator’s proposal. In this staged mediation session, you will immerse yourself in the process and observe seasoned practitioners demonstrating effective mediation techniques and strategies in a legal malpractice case.

Glenn A. Bergenfield, Principal, Glenn A. Bergenfield, Attorney at Law, Princeton, NJ
Jeff Goode, Vice President, Claims, XL Select Professional, Dallas, TX
Hon. Stuart A. Nudelman, ADR Systems of America LLC, Chicago, IL
William E. Wright, Jr., Partner, Deutsch, Kerrigan & Stiles, New Orleans, LA

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Breakouts

Front-End Protection: Fee-Agreement Tips to Reduce Lawyers’ Risk

This session will deliver practical tips for managing risk through fee agreements. Our experienced panelists will discuss the ins and outs of conducting initial client intake, using form fee agreements, defining your financial arrangements, documenting attorney liens, and addressing end-of-engagement issues at the outset. You will learn how to protect yourself and your law firm, and to best serve your clients, by structuring an appropriate and ethical fee agreement.

David Cameron Carr, Principal, Law Office of David Cameron Carr, San Diego, CA
Susan Hackett, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Association of Corporate Counsel, Washington, DC
Jett Hanna, Senior Vice President, Texas Lawyers' Insurance Exchange, Austin, TX
Mark P. Harty, Managing Partner, Morrison Mahoney LLP, Boston, MA

Tying Cost to Value: A New Wave of Attorney Fee Structures?

Join us for an informative, interactive roundtable session led by the Association of Corporate Counsel's (ACC) Susan Hackett. ACC has issued a "Value Challenge" to attorneys across the nation to promote effective change and reconnect value to billable hours. Please attend this session to discuss what fee arrangements you are using and seeing others use, and the success, or lack thereof, of those arrangements. Brainstorm with your colleagues on the best ways to get compensated for your services while still responding to the client’s need for value and efficiency.

Susan Hackett, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Association of Corporate Counsel, Washington, DC

Of Course I Respect You… Building a Durable Claims Manager – Defense Counsel Relationship

A smooth, solid relationship between a claims manager and defense counsel can make all the difference in defending malpractice claims. Learn how the best claims managers work with defense counsel without working them over – knowing when to push and pry and when to let the lawyers do their stuff. Understand the steps savvy panel lawyers take to develop relationships with claims managers and forge lasting connections. This panel of insurance claims maestros and defense lawyer luminaries will leave you with a firm handle on what to do, and what to avoid, in order to make this tricky but critical relationship work.

George A. Berman, Partner, Peabody & Arnold LLP, Boston, MA
Janice J. DiGennaro, Partner, Rivkin Radler, Uniondale, NY
Nicholas A. Gumpel, Vice President-Claims, The Plus Companies, Bridgewater, NJ
Susan Hackett, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Association of Corporate Counsel, Washington, DC
Tony Vranas, Claims Consulting Director, CNA, Chicago, IL

Highest-Risk Behavior: Specific Lawyer Activities Most Likely to Lead to Malpractice Claims

Plaintiff's Personal Injury, Real Estate Planning, Family Law, and Estate, Trust and Probate have been the top four areas of practice in terms of claims frequency for years. Do you know the most common errors leading to claims in each of these areas of law? We have assembled an expert panel of insurance executives and risk managers to highlight the top causes of the claims by count and severity in each of these areas of practice. The panel will provide specific risk management recommendations on avoiding claims in each of these areas of law.

Noelle Albanese, Senior Claims Specialist-Professional Liability Claims, Liberty International Underwriters, New York, NY
Carter L. Hampton, Principal, Hampton Law, Fort Worth, TX
Mark O. Krueger, Claim Attorney, Minnesota Lawyers Mutual Insurance Company, Minneapolis, MN
Christine L. Mast, Partner, Hawkins & Parnell, Atlanta, GA
Daniel Pinnington, Director, practicePRO, Lawyers' Professional Indemnity Company, Toronto, ON

The Ethics, Benefits and Dangers of "Unbundled" Legal Services

While limiting the scope of your representation, also known as "unbundling," may offer advantages for the client, it can also present ethical dilemmas and potential malpractice exposure. Join this session to learn how attorneys can properly and safely limit the scope of their representation, and hear a legal ethics expert discuss the implication of the rules of professional conduct as applied to limited scope representation. This expert panel will discuss and explore issues such as: ethical limitations on unbundling; how to address limited scope representation in fee agreements; the propriety of ghostwriting pleadings; and the standards for withdrawal at the conclusion of the limited representation.

James McCauley, Legal Ethics Counsel, Virginia State Bar, Richmond, VA
Christian A. Stiegemeyer, Executive Vice President and Director of Risk Management, The Bar Plan, St. Louis, MO
M. Sue Talia, Law Offices of M. Sue Talia, Danville, CA

How Corporate Bankruptcies Can Put a Bull’s Eye on Lawyers

You have loyally represented your corporate client for many years. To hold down fees, you have not documented all your advice to the client, including some that the CEO ignored. Now bad times have driven the client into bankruptcy, and the bankruptcy trustee is scouring the client’s pre-bankruptcy conduct – and the advice you gave the client at the time. The panelists will discuss what a bankruptcy trustee considers in deciding whether to sue the debtor’s former counsel; the issues facing the defendant law firm’s defense counsel; and what the defendant law firm might have done differently, before the client’s bankruptcy, to avoid the eventual malpractice claim.

Robert F. Coleman, Principal, Robert F. Coleman & Associates, Chicago, IL
Randall D. Crocker, President and CEO, von Briesen & Roper, S.C., Milwaukee, WI
Kenneth D. Small, Senior Claims Counsel, ALAS, Inc., Chicago, IL

Firm Counsel Project Roundtable – "This is Privileged, Right?" The Scope of the Privilege for Internal Firm Communications

The goal of the ABA Business Law Section’s Firm Counsel Project is to build a community of lawyers within law firms, corporate law departments, and other law offices who perform internal functions related to ethics, risk management, or loss prevention. This session will focus on the scope of the privilege for internal firm communications. For more information on this effort go to http://www.abanet.org/dch/committee.cfm?com=CL290005.

When Good Risks Go Bad: Systematically Assessing Firms and Files in a Tough Economy

When times are good, bumps in the road won’t cause problems. But in tough times, money issues can make for unhappy clients who will then look for ways to kill deals or recover from attorneys on deals that have gone bad. Come to this session to learn about the various ways unhappy clients may allege their lawyers messed up: ambiguous retainers; vague language in documents; poor communication; missed deadlines/delay; unanticipated circumstances; unexpected results; and conflicts of interest. You will gain new perspectives on the claims risks that arise in a tough economy and better insights on how to manage people and systems so that the risks are reduced or avoided. Underwriters will gain a better understanding on the questions they should ask when doing their analyses.

Mark Goulston, M.D., Santa Monica, CA
Malcolm M. Mercer, Partner and General Counsel, McCarthy Tétrault, Toronto, ON
Renard G. Wright, Underwriting and Distribution Manager, OneBeacon Professional, New York, NY

Risk-Spotting in the New Law Firm Landscape: Liability and Coverage Issues (2-Hour Session)

With an increasing number of lawyers on the move during the recent economic crisis, and with alternative employment arrangements becoming more prominent, new liability concerns for lawyers and firms are surfacing, with attendant questions about insurance coverage for them. Among these hot issues are the exposure of a lawyer's prior and current firms for malpractice committed while the lawyer was at the prior firm; the liability of a defunct firm and its partners/employees; malpractice that starts at one firm and continues to another firm; and the responsibility of merged firms for acts committed before the merger. Moreover, the increase in "of counsel," temporary and other contract relationships has created novel liability and coverage issues. In these situations, the definition of "insured" and "predecessor firm," "other insurance" clauses, nose and tail coverage, "discovery" clauses, and retroactive date and "prior knowledge" limitations become very important. Join this experienced panel to learn more about these cutting-edge issues.

Elliott Abrutyn, Partner, Morgan Melhuish Abrutyn Attorneys at Law, Livingston, NJ
Sharon Burns, Assistant Vice President-Lawyers Professional Liability, Zurich American Insurance Company, New York, NY
A. Michael Furman, Partner, Furman, Kornfeld & Brennan, New York, NY
David A. Grossbaum, Partner, Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP, Boston, MA
William F. Healey, Vice President, Axis Insurance, Hartford, CT
Lisa A. Ryder, Senior Claims Officer, Chubb & Son, Simsbury, CT
Michael J. Sullivan, President, Collins, Einhorn, Farrell & Ulanoff, Southfield, MI

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