North Carolina Lawyers Weekly
Greensboro attorney Karen McKeithen Schaede was recently honored with a Triad Women Extraordinaire Award from Business Leader Media. The award is given to recognize exceptional women leaders in the Triad. Winners are selected “based on their outstanding professional achievements as well as their passionate efforts to make a difference in the business community and in their organizations,” according to Business Leader Media.
Schaede also was featured in a story in the December issue of Business Leader magazine.
She founded Karen McKeithen Schaede Attorney at Law in 2003. Her firm offers expertise in all areas of health law, including corporate compliance, HIPAA and the recently enacted HITECH law, in addition to business and employment law. Schaede is registered nurse as well as a lawyer.
Alston & Bird has announced that Heather Adams has joined the firm’s Research Triangle office as counsel in the litigation and trial practice group.
David K. Liggett has been named to succeed his father, Frank R. Liggett III, as managing partner at Ragsdale Liggett. Frank and David Liggett will remain in their practice areas of business and insurance regulatory law for the firm.
David Liggett, a former litigator with experience in commercial litigation, focuses his practice on corporate law and insurance regulatory law, representing companies with licensing, compliance and other issues before the N.C. Department of Insurance. He is admitted to practice in North Carolina, as well as the federal courts for the Eastern, Middle and Western districts of North Carolina, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
David Liggett has served as legal counsel to major corporations and insurance companies and, since 2004 he has served as counsel to the North Carolina Surplus Lines Association. He is a member and officer of the Federation of Regulatory Counsel. He is a member of the N.C. Association of Defense Attorneys and the Defense Research Institute.
David Liggett is a member of the American, North Carolina and Wake County Bar Associations.
Gallivan, White and Boyd, a law firm headquartered in Greenville, S.C., has opened an office in Charlotte. The firm was founded more than six decades ago.
C. William McGee, the firm’s managing shareholder, stated in a press release, “We have seen a significant increase in the demand for our services in North Carolina. Our new Charlotte office will allow the firm to serve our clients more effectively and efficiently throughout the region.”
The firm has 45 attorneys and 56 support staff. Its new office, located in SouthPark at 5960 Fairview Road, opened earlier this month.
Brandon Neuman, an attorney with Shanahan Law Group, has joined the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce’s board of advisers. The board, which was created in 1994, meets with the Chamber’s board of directors four times a year to stay abreast of and offer input on current business and community issues, including economic development, public policy, transportation and education.
Attorney Larry Coats, senior member of Coats and Bennett, a Cary-based intellectual property law firm, will join the North Carolina State University Biological and agricultural engineering advisory board effective April 2011.
Coats is an adjunct professor with the department. He will now join the advisory board comprised of 12 members, each holding a term of three years. Board members are chosen by the faculty of the Biological and Agricultural Engineering Department and represent a broad cross-section of the industry.
“As a graduate of the Biological and Agricultural Engineering program, I am pleased to have the opportunity to serve on the advisory board and contribute to one of the leading programs of its kind in the nation,” Coats said in a press release. He is a registered patent attorney and the firm’s senior member.
Coats leads the firm’s environmental practice area, in addition to his field of work that includes the mechanical arts as well as environmental and energy technologies such as wastewater treatment and heavy oil recovery. He has experience in patent and trademark infringement litigation and prosecution.
Coats obtained his bachelor of science in biological and agricultural engineering from N.C. State University in 1967, and his juris doctor from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1969. He is admitted to practice law in North Carolina before the N.C. Supreme Court, as well as before the Supreme Court in Pennsylvania and before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Raleigh attorney Mark Sullivan participated in the final working session of the Uniform Law Commission’s committee on military custody and visitation. He assisted with the completion of the draft Uniform Deployed Parents’ Custody Act, which deals with deployment issues for military parents, visitation rights, electronic testimony for those who are unable to be in court and expedited hearings so that service-members can get their affairs in order before deploying.
Sullivan was appointed as an adviser to the committee by the Family Law Section of the ABA.
