Victory Secured For The GRAMMY® Awards Organization

We successfully defended the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (The Recording Academy), the GRAMMY® Award organization, in obtaining dismissal of a lawsuit challenging The Recording Academy's decision to trim its GRAMMY Award categories from 109 to 78.

The April 2011 lawsuit was brought by four recording artists seeking to reinstate Latin Jazz as a separate GRAMMY Award category. The lawsuit was dismissed last week by New York State Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Oing, who ruled that The Recording Academy's Board of Trustees acted properly in exercising its duties and responsibilities in accordance with the organization's bylaws and rules.

The Recording Academy was represented by Chuck Ortner, who also serves as the Academy's National Legal Counsel, Jennie Jones and Mike Feldman.

 

Pro Bono Assistance For Everybody Wins! USA

We are representing Everybody Wins! USA (EWUSA) in a number of pro bono corporate matters.

Everybody Wins! is a national children's literacy and mentoring nonprofit proven to build the skills and love of reading among low-income elementary students. By bringing volunteer mentors into schools for weekly one-on-one reading experiences through its Power Lunch program, everybody wins! -- children, schools, volunteers, their companies and ultimately, society. Our New York office participates in the Everybody Wins! New York program, thank to the efforts of Partner Andy Bettwy.

EWUSA was incorporated in 2006 with the idea of collecting all the Everybody Wins organizations across the country under one roof, thereby reducing back office costs, synergizing fundraising activities, and ensuring brand quality across the country. We are representing EWUSA on the a number of projects, including: merging EWUSA (a D.C. 501(c)(3) corporation) with Everybody Wins! Metro Boston (a Massachusetts 501(c)(3) corporation); drafting "Affiliate Agreements" for the existing chapters to sign; obtaining foreign qualification for EWUSA to do business & solicit funds as it expands into additional states; and assisting with trademark issues.

Patrick Murphy is leading a team that includes Mina Farbood, Patrick Myers and Mary Roetzer.

 

Five Partners Recognized by Washington DC Super Lawyers 2012

April 30, 2012 (Washington, DC) –– Five partners from the Washington, DC office were recognized in Washington DC Super Lawyers 2012, an annual guide to the top lawyers in the region featured in the April 29, 2012, issue of the Washington Post Magazine.

The lawyers and the practice areas in which they were named are:

• Mark Biros (Criminal Defense: White Collar)
• Trevor Chaplick (Mergers and Acquisitions)
• Paul Hamburger (Employee Benefits/ERISA)
• Larry Lorber (Employment & Labor)
• Dick Rowe (Securities & Corporate Finance)

The lawyers featured in Super Lawyers are selected through a rigorous, multiphase process that includes peer nominations and evaluations that are combined with third-party research..

 

New York City Bar Dedicates Proskauer Room

The New York City Bar dedicated a newly renovated room at its 44th Street headquarters to honor Joseph Proskauer (1877-1971), a justice of the Appellate Division, First Department, from 1927-30 who left the bench to join the firm that now bears his name. Proskauer served City Bar's vice president from 1930-32.

While maintaining a busy courtroom practice, Proskauer continued to fill various posts addressing legal reforms. He served on the New York City Charter Revision Committee, chaired the New York State Crime Commission investigating organized crime and governmental corruption, was President of the American Jewish Committee and a consultant to the American delegation at the United Nations Conference in San Francisco where he successfully stated the case for the inclusion of the individual rights provisions in the UN Charter.

On hand for the ribbon cutting were firm Chairman Joseph Leccese, Partners Robert Kaufman and Betsy Plevan former Partner and Corporation Counsel of the City of New York, Michael Cardozo.

 

PEMA Group Achieves Dramatic Gains in First Quarter M&A League Tables

Continuing to capitalize on its previous gains, our PEMA Group made an impressive showing in several M&A league tables for the first quarter of 2012.

MergerMarket ranked us in the top 10 (by value of transactions) for "Legal Advisors to California M&A" and "Legal Advisers to US (West) M&A" and 13th (up from 102nd in 2011) for "Legal Advisers to UK M&A." For the first time, Bloomberg ranked us in the top 10 (by value of transactions) for "UK Announced Deals," and in the top 20 for "Europe Announced Deals — Counsel to Principals." Bloomberg also ranked us in the top 20 for "Global Private Equity Announced Deals," up from 78 in 2011.

We represented NDS Group Ltd. in its acquisition by Cisco Systems, Inc., which was recognized as a European "Top Deal" by MergerMarket and on the "Top U.S. Deals Scoreboard" and "Top Europe Deals Scoreboard" by FactSet . We also placed on several of FactSet's league tables, including 9th for "UK Announced Deals" (by value) and 14th for "UK Announced Deals" (by volume) .