Regulatory Ramblings: Episode 74 - Global Women in AI/Corporate Director Liability: Discretionary, Not Fiduciary with Tram Anh Nguyen and Marc I. Steinberg
Choosing a Trustee: Navigating the Complexities and Key Considerations
Five Tips for a New Public Company Director
Sunday Book Review: June 15, 2025. The Books on Corporate Governance Edition
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Forfeitures Under Fire
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Navigating Fiduciary Responsibilities in a Tide-Turning ESG Era
How ERISA Litigators Strengthen Plan Compliance and Risk Management: One-on-One with Jeb Gerth
What happens when a majority owner makes a bad-faith capital call?
#WorkforceWednesday®: New DOL Guidance - ERISA Plan Cybersecurity Update - Employment Law This Week®
John Wick - What You Need To Know about the Corporate Transparency Act
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - ERISA Forfeiture Litigation
Once Removed Episode 24: Expressing Goals and Intent for the Trust
Episode 322 -- Checking in on Caremark Cases
What Can A Tax Attorney Do For You? A Podcast With Janathan Allen
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - New Federal Rule Aims to Hold Investment Advisors to a Higher Standard
A Primer On Trusts - A Podcast with Janathan Allen
Podcast - Deberes fiduciarios de los administradores
New SEC Private Funds Rules – What Is Happening and What You Need to Know - Troutman Pepper Podcast
Podcast Episode 189: Adding Context to Compliance and Color To Your Legal Practice
BVI Companies and M&A
The law of trusts originated in equity to evade the constraints of common law; it was a part of property law in which one person held legal title to assets and another held equitable title. The person holding legal title...more
The common interest doctrine can sometimes protect as privileged communications between separately represented clients. But litigants seeking the doctrine’s protection face many hurdles and often fail....more
An entity’s minority shareholders or partners obviously look to the entity’s governance documents when assessing their rights and obligations. On the privilege front, minority owners sometimes aggressively seek the entity’s...more
Transactional attorneys play a key strategic role in drafting essential documents, such as corporate formations and contracts, on behalf of corporate clients. With a client’s current needs at the forefront—often accompanied...more
Providers negotiating with doctors and other medical professionals who are bound by enforceable restrictive covenants is tricky business. By virtue of his/her/their position, these physicians may owe fiduciary duties to the...more
In certain circumstances, shareholders of corporations and members of limited liability companies can obtain confidential communications between corporate management and the company’s attorney that would otherwise be...more
When corporate management requests or obtains legal advice from corporate counsel, management expects those communications to be protected from disclosure by the attorney-client privilege, and usually they are. But there are...more
No corporate lawyer wants to get drawn into a nasty litigation between an entity’s owners. But the reality is that corporate and general counsel often find themselves unwittingly ensnared in business divorce cases. Sometimes...more
On May 23, 2022, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania held that the fiduciary exception to the attorney-client privilege and attorney work product doctrine is consistent with Pennsylvania law. This ruling was highly anticipated...more
David Johnson presented his paper on “The More The Merrier: Issues Arising From Co-Trustees Managing Trusts” to the Tarrant County Probate Bar Association on September 16, 2022. This presentation addressed the benefits and...more
Settlors often place some or all of the ownership in a closely-held business in a trust. A trustee managing a trust with an interest in a closely held business has difficult management issues to address and this often raises...more
Under old English trust law, courts gave trust beneficiaries access to otherwise privileged communications between the trust fiduciary and its lawyer advising him or her on trust administration matters. The main case bringing...more
It has now been 20 years since the historic collapse of WorldCom, Inc. (“WorldCom” or the “Company”). A review of the WorldCom collapse yields some continuing lessons for corporate counsel....more
Picture this. Years after leaving your in-house counsel role at Company A, you find yourself being deposed in a litigation matter with Company A’s adversary inquiring into your legal notes and internal privileged...more
David F. Johnson presented “Advising Trustees Who Manage Closely-Held Business Interest” to the WealthCounsel webinar on June 30, 2022. Settlors often place some or all of the ownership in a closely-held business in a trust....more
Directors owe fiduciary duties to the company. To make informed decisions and satisfy those fiduciary duties, directors generally have broad access to the company’s books and records, with a few exceptions. A corporate...more
A most basic precept of the law is the attorney-client privilege. A litigant being able to speak freely and completely with his or her counsel without the fear of the conversation being revealed has been a cornerstone of...more
A Massachusetts district court recently ordered defendants in an ERISA fiduciary breach case to produce certain communications with their in-house and outside counsel, rejecting defendants’ argument that the communications...more
Drachman v. BioDelivery Sciences International, Inc., C.A. No. 2019-0728-LWW (Del. Ch. Aug. 25, 2021) - Drachman addresses the attorney-client privilege, certain exceptions thereto, including the Garner doctrine, and...more
In a forthcoming chapter in The Cambridge Handbook of Investor Protection (Cambridge University Press, 2021) UCLA Law Professor Sung Hui Kim asks "Do Lawyers Make Good Gatekeepers"? She posits that there is "a strong case...more
David Johnson presented his paper “The More The Merrier? Issues Arising From Co-Trustees Administering Trusts” to the State Bar of Texas’s Advanced Estate Planning and Probate Course on June 9, 2021. This presentation...more
Welcome to the inaugural issue of The Insider. This new publication from King & Spalding’s Public Companies Practice, which will be produced periodically, is focused on key developments for chief legal officers and their...more
Former Theranos CEO Denied Attorney-Client Privilege Over Communications with Company Attorneys; District of Massachusetts Allows Putative Securities Class Action to Proceed Against OvaScience Investors; Delaware Chancery...more
Many family member trustees are uncertain about whether and to what extent they can use trust assets to obtain legal representation. For example, when two parents choose their daughter, upon their incapacity or death, to...more
In Belliveau v. Barco, Inc., a licensor of intellectual property sued the owner of the licensee for breach of fiduciary duty related to the sublicensing to a third party. No. 19-50717, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 2489 (5th Cir....more