Cleveland-Marshall's three excellent journals, The Cleveland State Law Review, The Global Business Law Review, and the Journal of Law and Health, are pleased to present CMLAW's 1st Annual Symposium Day, hosting expert panels to address timely legal issues in a five-hour CLE event. Cosponsored by The Gnoêsis Group.
Sponsored by The Cleveland State Law Review
This panel will discuss the applicability and enforcement of antitrust law in the twenty-first century. In particular, our symposium will focus on the challenges posed by “big tech” platforms like Facebook, Amazon, Google, and Apple and whether federal (the Sherman Act) and state antitrust laws are adequate to support competition in the marketplace.
The topic is important and timely because the practice of antitrust law is evolving as various lawmakers and regulators propose different frameworks for enforcement. The states, the federal government (DOJ/FTC), and the European are stepping up enforcement against big tech platforms and presidential candidates are laying out new frameworks for American antitrust policy. We believe that our symposium will benefit any attorney who advises business entities.
This panel will be educational because attendees will have the opportunity to hear from experts in the antitrust field: prominent antitrust professors in the region. Moreover, they will hear from lawmakers, like two Ohio state senators, who are currently investigating big tech companies and rethinking the state's antitrust legislation. Finally, they will hear from regulators and individuals associated with startups to learn about the potential harm to small business without government action.
Rita Bryce, JD, LISW is an antitrust professor at Case Western Reserve University Law School. Bryce worked for the U.S. Department of Justice in the Antitrust Division, and as a federal prosecutor. She is also a Licensed Independent Social Worker.
Senator John Eklund is a member of the Ohio State Senate, representing the 18th District. He is a member of the Judiciary Committee (Chairman), Energy and Public Utilities Committee, Finance Committee, General Government and Agency Review Committee, Rules and Reference Committee, and Ways and Means Committee. Eklund is also Senior Counsel at Calfee, Halter & Griswold LLP, where much of his work has been centered on areas pertaining to anti-trust litigation, trade regulation, price fixing, class actions, and mergers and acquisitions. He has been named an Ohio Super Lawyer in antitrust litigation and is listed in Best Lawyers in America for Antitrust Law.
Diana Moss is the President of the American Antitrust Institute in Washington, D.C. She is an economist whose work spans both antitrust and regulation, with industry expertise in electricity, petroleum, agriculture, airlines, telecommunications, and healthcare. She is editor of Network Access, Regulation and Antitrust (2005). Dr. Moss is Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Economics at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Senator Larry Obhof is the President of the Ohio Senate for the 133rd General Assembly, representing the 22nd District. President Obhof serves on the Intergovernmental Policy Advisory Committee on Trade (IGPAC), which provides policy advice to the U.S. Trade Representative on issues involving trade and development, including the impact and implementation of trade agreements. He also chairs the Ohio Senate’s Rules and Reference Committee and is Vice Chair of the Joint Legislative Ethics Committee. Prior to his election as President of the Senate, he served as both President Pro Tempore and as Majority Whip.
Daniel Rauch serves as Senior Counsel to the Colorado Attorney General. Rauch was formerly an associate at Wheeler, Trigg & O’Donnell and a Tenth Circuit Clerk for current Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. Rauch’s article, Sherman’s Missing “Supplement”: Prosecutorial Capacity, Agency Incentives, and the False Dawn of Antitrust Federalism is being published in issue 68.2 of Cleveland State Law Review.
Chris Sagers is the James A. Thomas Distinguished Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Cleveland-Marshall Solo Practice Incubator at Cleveland Marshall College of Law. He is the author of several books, including United States v. Apple: Competition in America (Harvard Univ. Press 2019). He is a member of the American Law Institute, a Senior Fellow of the American Antitrust Institute, and a leadership member of the ABA Antitrust Section.
Charles Stack is the CEO of Flashstarts, a startup accelerator and micro-venture fund in Cleveland. In 1992, Stack started Books.com, the first online bookstore. Charles won the Ohio Venture Association (OVA) Venture of the Year award in 2007. He has mentored and/or been a judge at numerous business plan and startup competitions including multiple Startup Weekends and the many University hackathons.
Alec Stapp is a Fellow at the International Center for Law & Economics in Washington, D.C. Previously, he worked as a technology policy fellow at the Niskanen Center in Washington, D.C. and as an MA fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Arlington, VA. He has a master’s degree in economics from George Mason University and a B.S. in economics from the University of Arizona.
**Attendance at this individual panel earns 2.5 CLE Hours
Sponsored by the Global Business Law Review
Rideshare platforms, such as Uber, Lyft, and Waymo provide a feasible, low-cost alternative to traditional rideshare methods of technology. However, laws and regulations have not caught up with this new technology. For example, the drivers do not neatly fit in a category with taxi drivers. Unlike taxi drivers, most drivers employed by these new rideshare companies are not full-time employees; and they use their own vehicles not only to pick up customers, but also for personal driving. This panel will discuss a variety of legal issues affecting these new rideshare companies from the perspective of public and private employment, insurance, and tort litigation.
Sheryl King Benford is General Counsel and Deputy Manager for Legal Affairs at the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (GCRTA). She supervises and oversees litigation, labor issues, risk management, and safety at the GCRTA.
Mathew Parker is a partner at Fisher Phillips and works in their autonomous vehicles practice group. Mathew has been counsel in more than 20 class and collective actions involving some of the most common wage-and-hour “traps” like misclassification of exempt employees or independent contractors; failure to properly calculate the regular rate of pay; tips, service charges, and tip pools.
Dana Paris is a trial attorney at Nurenberg, Paris, Heller and McCarthy and specializes in representing victims who have suffered injuries as a result of automotive collisions; trucking collisions; motorcycle collisions; medical negligence; and birth trauma.
John P. O’Neil specializes in tort litigation involving personal injuries and has tried more than 80 jury trial in various areas of the law, including transportation and premises liability.
Dedrick Stephens, CFE is the Commissioner of Assessments and Licenses for the City of Cleveland. Dedrick oversees multiple operations in the administration of 75+ different local, state, and federal laws in the fields of excise tax administration, business regulation assessments and weights & measures regulations. He is also active in regulatory governance of emerging technologies and industries. He has participated in a National Institute of Standards and Technology subcommittee analyzing proposed legislation to regulate the measurement of distance from global positioning systems that are utilized by Uber and Lyft.
**Attendance at this individual panel earns 1.25 CLE Hours
Sponsored by the Journal for Law And Health
This panel will examine the history of the legalization of medical marijuana in Ohio, and the current movement to have it legalized for recreational purposes. The speakers will explore the possible public health consequences of legalization; the ways legalization might impact other areas of law; the ethical issues that arise from representing marijuana clients; and the conflict between state and federal law.
Ian Friedman is a partner at Friedman & Nemecek, L.L.C., which is a Cleveland-based criminal defense law firm. His practice is focused on criminal, cyber, and white-collar matters. He represents individuals and entities across the United States and has served as counsel in Europe, Asia, and South America. Ian is the current President of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association. He is a past-President of the Ohio Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and was the first lawyer to be named its “Lawyer of The Year” in 2010. He is a Fellow of the American Board of Criminal Lawyers and served as President in 2018. He is an Adjunct Professor at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law where he has taught Cybercrime since 2006. In 2019, he was named by his peers as Best Lawyers, Lawyer of the Year, Criminal Defense, General Practice in Cleveland.
Tom Heran - Professional Ethics and Marijuana Law: Tom Haren is an associate at Frantz Ward in Cleveland, Ohio. His practice is focused on marijuana law and policy. His reputation in the Cleveland legal community has made him a go-to attorney for Ohio’s incoming medical marijuana industry. In this role, he works with the medical marijuana cultivator, processor, and dispensary applications and license holders. He assists clients in license application and acquisition, zoning and municipal law, product labeling and packaging, and regulatory compliance. Mr. Haren is a former nominee for the State Senate and often shares his experience and expertise by speaking at industry conferences and events.
David Patton -The History and Future of Marijuana Law: David Patton began his legal career in the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, working in administrative enforcement. He served on the Major Appeals Group handling cases in the U.S. Supreme Court, the Ohio Supreme Court, and other state and federal appellate courts. Since joining the private sector in Solon, Ohio, Mr. Patton assists clients in obtaining, protecting, and maintaining licenses. Mr. Patton’s interest in medical marijuana law in Ohio stems from personal experience: his son was diagnosed with epilepsy in 2013 and greatly benefits from the use of cannabidiol. After seeing positive results in his son, Mr. Patton has put his legal expertise to work in the emerging medical marijuana industry by using his experience in administrative and regulatory law.
**Attendance at this individual panel earns 1.25 CLE Hours
Cleveland-Marshall College of Law and the IOT Collaborative in partnership with the University College London’s world-leading Centre for Blockchain Technologies UCL CBT) invite you to attend the Blockchain Law and Business Basics Workshop.
As digital assets and currencies begin to gain wider mainstream and institutional adoption ($200+bn market cap, $20-30+bn daily transactional volumes and $1.5bn in VC investments [2019]), there is a growing demand for high-quality education on how blockchain or distributed ledger technology is changing the way business is executed; why blockchain is different; how it works and the legal issues it raises.
This workshop is grounded in the growing number of significant industrial and governmental research engagements conducted by UCL CBT. The workshop is a thorough program that provides an in-depth understanding of the fundamentals of the underlying technology and design principles behind DLT’s, its different governance structures and effects on business models, regulations, legal issues culminating with exploration of practical applications in financial services, manufacturing/IoT, law and healthcare.
Anyone interested in learning about blockchain legal issues and business applications. The workshop is accessible to all fields and all levels of experience.
• What is a blockchain or "Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT)"?
• DLT Design
• DLT Governance and Consensus models
• Legal and Regulatory Implication of DLTs
• Use cases and applications of DLT
- Cryptocurrencies
- Financial Services
- Legal Services
- Manufacturing/IoT
- Healthcare
Thamim Ahmed, Researcher, UCL Centre for Blockchain TechnologiesThamim focuses on Research and Development activities within financial services sector at the leading Centre for Blockchain Technologies at University College London (UCL CBT). Core activities involve carrying out token economic designs, building DLT solutions for central banks, start-ups and governmental institutions and advising subject matter experts on building technical capabilities of their blockchain applications.
Thamim has a background as a physicist then engineer and product manager, and possesses deep knowledge of the fintech industry, specialising on payment systems and digital assets. Thamim has a proven ability to lead teams in defining strategy and executing software solutions. He is an expert at architecting systems through meaningful user experience that will enrich lives and build business success.
On a more personal level, Thamim has a deep-rooted belief that DLT’s will be the answer to bridging the gap between machine and human interaction, to which a ‘privacy first’ approach will play a crucial role in ensuring trust is sustained and coordinated by large organisations around their customer and business data.
Cosponsored by The Internet of Things Collaborative
Details TBA
A distinguished panel of judges will preside over and comment on a mock appellate argument involving the following issues:
