Welcome To a New Bar Year: Come See Us in Chapel Hill on Wednesday

By Alan Parry

Welcome to a new year for the North Carolina Bar Association’s Litigation Section!  We have a lot in store for Section members this year, with a focus on social events around the state to give members an opportunity to network with other litigators, judges, and court staff.  We will, of course, continue to offer CLE on topics of interest to litigators, and we also hope that Section members will use this Litigation Section blog, both to stay abreast of events and developments and to publish their own articles and posts of interest.

 

NCBA Litigation Section Social
Top of the Hill Restaurant and Brewery
100 E Franklin St #300, Chapel Hill, NC 27514
Wednesday, Aug. 21,  5-6:30 p.m.
RSVP here.

There will be much more to come about the events and activities we have planned for Section members this bar year, but I wanted to drop a short note to introduce myself as the new Section chair and mainly to remind you about the first of our Section social events, which is coming up this week in Chapel Hill.  There is no formal program – just a great opportunity to meet and catch up with other Section members.  Drinks and appetizers are on us, and we hope to see you there!

 

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Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Act Changes the Adult Prosecution Age to 18

By Nathan Jarvis

Today in North Carolina, 16 and 17-year-olds are automatically prosecuted as an adult for criminal offenses. The Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Act, which is effective on December 1, 2019, will change the adult prosecution age to 18 years old to align with the current policies of all other States in the United States. This means that 16 and 17-year-olds will start being prosecuted in juvenile court instead of in adult court and a youth’s split-second decision will not automatically lead to adult punishment.

Who is Not Included?

“Raise the Age” will not apply to motor vehicle offenses defined by the Motor Vehicle Act. Defense attorneys should be aware that offenses such as unauthorized use of a motor vehicle or breaking and entering a motor vehicle may trigger this exclusion. Also, some juveniles will be excluded from this Act, such as: (1) married or emancipated juveniles; (2) those that have been transferred and convicted in superior court; and (3) those that have been convicted of a felony or misdemeanor, including motor vehicle offenses, in district or superior court.

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Checking In: August 26, 2019

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Adam deNobriga joins the Charlotte office of Bell, Davis & Pitt as a director. He has nine years of experience as a litigator, particularly focusing on construction defect, property damage, and professional malpractice. deNobriga has worked on cases in N.C. Superior Court, N.C. Business Court, and federal courts. He is licensed to practice law in Tennessee as well as North Carolina.

 

 

 

Jared Mobley has been appointed managing partner of the Charlotte office of K&L Gates. He focuses his practice on complex aspects of U.S. federal, state and local taxation, including creating and implementing tax-efficient structures for the firm’s clients. He holds a Juris Doctorate from the University of South Carolina and a Master of Laws in tax law from New York University.

 

 

 

 

Spencer Beard joins the Wilmington office of McAngus Goudelock & Courie. Beard is a litigation attorney of 15 years, with a particular focus on construction and trucking, and he is admitted to the bar in both Mississippi and North Carolina. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Mississippi.

 

 

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What’s It Take To Argue a SCOTUS Case? A Lot Of Midnight Oil

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When the chance to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court comes up, sleep becomes a distant memory. We got a behind-the-case look from some NCBA members who were there this spring. Find this story and more in the August edition of North Carolina Lawyer magazine.

By Amber Nimocks

Drew Erteschik’s phone buzzed in his pocket like a bug zapper. He first thought the texts were from his wife, suggesting what he might pick up for dinner. But one glance at the text from his law partner, “We have it!! We have cert!!” — the first of approximately 250 messages blowing up his phone — and he knew this was bigger than what was for supper.

It was Jan. 11, and the U.S. Supreme Court had just granted certiorari in N.C. Department of Revenue v. The Kimberley Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust. N.C. Solicitor General Matt Sawchak, Sawchak’s colleagues Jim Doggett and Ryan Park, former N.C. Supreme Court Justice Bob Orr, and Erteschik represented the Department of Revenue.

With the cert grant, the clock began ticking. The team had only three months to ready their A games for scrutiny by the U.S. Supreme Court. Sleep would be become a rare luxury for those focused on the case, as comprehensive research and analysis, brief writing, and argument preparation consumed all hours of the day.

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Scholarships Available For 2019 Elder Law Basics Program

By Shirley M. Diefenbach

The North Carolina Bar Association Elder and Special Needs Law Section has established a scholarship program for CLE program tuition for NCBA-Basics of Elder and Special Needs Law Program, to be held on Oct. 10 at the Bar Center.  The scholarship will pay no more than 100% of the lowest NCBA member registration fee for the program. A limited number of scholarships are available. Any attorney member of the NCBA Elder and Special Needs Law Section is eligible to apply for CLE scholarship. Non-member attorneys interested in the CLE scholarship are required to apply for membership in the Elder and Special Needs Law Section before or concurrently with submission of an application for CLE Scholarships.

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How To Survive Law School

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By Sarah Cansler

As soon as you get your acceptance letter into law school, you will start to receive all kinds of unsolicited advice. You should always take such advice with a grain of salt, because everyone’s experiences in law school are different, and you know (or will quickly learn) what you need to do to succeed and stay happy and healthy while you do it.

With that said, I am about to provide—you guessed it—some unsolicited advice about how to survive law school. I’m not here to tell you how to get good grades or your dream job, because there are plenty of people wiser and more experienced than I am who can help you accomplish those worthy goals. Instead, I’m here to give you my thoughts on how to make your three years in law school a tolerable, and perhaps even enjoyable, experience.

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A New Year With a New Name

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By Sarah E. Schtakleff

Dear Fellow International Practice Section Members,

Welcome to the 2019-2020 Bar Association year, I am honored to serve as your chair and would like to thank Jennifer Parser for her role as chair for the 2018-2019 Bar year.

Did you notice anything different? Last year, we changed our name to “International Practice Section” to better capture the wide range of cross-border work that our members do. We will continue to provide these updates and other interesting articles to our members through our blog. If you come across any articles that would make a good addition to the blog, be sure to send them our way and we’ll do the rest!

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Enduring Tedium: The Future of Fights Over Electronically Stored Information

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By Sean F. Herrmann

“Seeking justice often involves enduring tedium.” It’s fitting that North Carolina’s first substantive legal decision on eDiscovery begins with this pithy observation. Employment litigators often lament the virtual hellscape of discovering electronically stored information (“ESI”). But the era when paper was king is long dead, and the fight is now firmly in the cyber world of custodians, native formats, and keyword searches.

For those in federal court, at least rules and precedent exist to help guide them through the dark ESI forest (especially those that find themselves before Chief Judge Frank Whitney in the Western District of North Carolina). North Carolina state court practitioners haven’t been so lucky. That is until this week. On Aug. 6, 2019, the North Carolina Court of Appeals issued its first substantive decision on ESI in Crosmun v. Trustees of Fayetteville Technical Cmty. Coll. (No. COA18-1054). Judge Lucy Inman, who authored the opinion, put it well: “This appeal presents this Court with our first opportunity to address the contours of eDiscovery within the context of North Carolina common and statutory law regarding the attorney-client privilege and work-product doctrine.” The Court ultimately reversed the trial court’s order granting Plaintiffs’ forensic expert direct access to Defendants’ ESI, but the way the Court got there and its recommendations on remand are far more important than the holding itself.

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Medical Record Retrieval In the Modern Era: A Primer On HITECH

By Martin A. Ginsburg

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) of 2009 was a natural outgrowth of the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). HIPAA was designed to protect personal information while facilitating the transfer of information between the “covered entities” to improve the continuity of care across the spectrum of providers.

An unfortunate consequence of ratcheting up protections under HIPAA for personal health information was to make it more difficult for patients to access their own records. With unauthorized disclosures so broadly defined, additional consequences of non-compliance included the threat of civil penalties levied by the courts and limits being placed on reimbursements and payments by the Federal government.

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