O’Neil Cannon is pleased to announce that Attorney Joseph M. Maier has joined the firm. Joe assists businesses, their owners and investors with employee benefit design and ERISA issues and executive compensation planning, income tax planning surrounding the creation, operation and liquidation of business entities and the creation, formation, merger and acquisition of businesses. He also assists business owners and families with multi-generational succession planning and estate planning to include wealth management.

Joe graduated #1 in his class from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is the editor of the UW Law Review. He is a member of the Society of Financial Services Professionals and the Wisconsin State Bar.

OCHD is a full-service legal practice with offices in Milwaukee and Port Washington. Founded in 1973, the firm focuses its practice on corporate law, tax, estate and succession planning, real estate and construction, municipal and civil litigation.

Today’s workplace is becoming significantly more diverse. It is predicted by 2020, the number of African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asians in the U.S. labor force will increase by 42 million while at the same time the number of Caucasians will only increase by 10 million. This demographic change in the U.S. labor force will create interesting challenges for employers especially as to how your company defines and addresses diversity in the workplace.

Oftentimes, employers confuse the concepts of affirmative action and diversity. These concepts are not same. Diversity is a business management concept under which an employer promotes an inclusive workplace by recognizing that employees bring to the workplace unique perspectives that provide a competitive advantage in an increasingly global economy. The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that the benefits of diversity “are not theoretical but real, as major American businesses have made clear that the skills needed in today’s increasingly global marketplace can only be developed through exposure to widely diverse people, cultures, ideas and viewpoints.”

However, in trying to achieve diversity, there are many traps for the unwary. The EEOC will continue to focus its enforcement resources more closely on how employers’ policies and practices affect the hiring and advancement of individuals within protected demographic groups. Given the EEOC’s enforcement initiatives, employers must take a closer look at its hiring and advancement policies and practices to make sure that they are achieving their diversity objectives and have not created unintended barriers to individuals based upon any protected characteristic.
The Illinois Chamber of Commerce together with O’Neil Cannon will present this important webinar regarding workplace diversity and what employers need to understand about diversity to achieve competitive success.

LEARN:

• About the Changing Demographics of the U.S. Labor Force
• About the Difference between Affirmative Action and Diversity
• A New Understanding for Diversity
• About the EEOC’s E-RACE Initiative
• What is Cultural Competence
• Best Practices for Achieving Workplace Diversity

Register Here

In today’s fast-paced world, e-mails and instant messaging are the most common way we communicate in the workplace. And unlike a spoken word, which might still be reverberating someplace in space and time but no longer can be replayed, the e-mail, if not already copied, is at least usually recorded, stored, and available for future discovery. Although we believe that our e-mail will soon be forgotten after we send it, our failure as employers to manage this electronic data can create risks of unanticipated magnitude if the subject matter of the e-mail becomes the subject matter of our next employee-initiated lawsuit.

With recent changes to the federal rules of civil procedure, it is no longer an option for employers to have a plan to manage its electronic data. Learn what you need to know as an employer in today’s litigious world about what steps you can take now to manage your electronic data and avoid the hidden liabilities that such data creates for every employer. Well drafted policies that are uniformly enforced and understood by your employees can reduce the fear of expensive litigation and provide your company a framework in which to effectively manage its electronic information.

This webinar is designed to provide practical information for HR management, in-house counsel, and IT professionals.

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The Illinois Chamber of Commerce and the law firm of O’Neil Cannon have developed an all-day seminar to educate and prepare your supervisors for challenges from complying with confusing laws to effectively managing a diverse workforce. Many supervisors have been promoted to their roles with no formal training or experience in supervising. we can educate business leaders on how to manage individuals of wide-ranging abilities, skill sets, personalities and cultures. We can help supervisors develop the skills and tools they need to handle all HR challenges of the job so they can achieve the desired performance from their employees.

This program would be equally valuable for new supervisors and owners or managers who must ensure their supervisors are properly trained.

Register Here

The Milwaukee law firm of O’Neil Cannon recently expanded its litigation practice group to include Grant C. Killoran. Grant, formerly with Michael Best and Friedrich LLP, brings with him significant litigation experience representing clients in Wisconsin and nationwide.

Grant concentrates his practice on complex business and health care disputes and devotes a portion of his practice to arts and entertainment law. He serves as one of the State Bar of Wisconsin’s five Delegates to the American Bar Association’s House of Delegates and as Co-Chair of the ABA Section of Litigation Health Law Litigation Committee. He also is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, membership of which is limited to one-third of a percent of the lawyers in America.

OCHD is a full-service legal practice with offices in Milwaukee and Port Washington. Founded in 1973, the firm focuses its practice on corporate law, tax, estate and succession planning, real estate and construction and civil litigation.

Seth E. Dizard has been named a shareholder with the Milwaukee law office of O’Neil Cannon He will continue to represent financial institutions, corporate or individual creditors and financially troubled corporations in both state and federal courts. As a Marquette University graduate, Seth has extensive experience guiding business owners with structuring financial transactions, acquisitions and dispositions in insolvency proceedings and complex post-judgment collection matters.

O’Neil Cannon, founded in Milwaukee in 1973, is a full-service legal practice that primarily focuses on providing business law and civil litigation services to closely-held businesses and their owners. The firm represents corporations, institutions and partnerships at all stages of the business life cycle, helping them start, grow and transition from one generation to the next. OCHD also assists business owners with their personal legal needs including tax and estate planning, family law and litigation – including personal injury litigation.

Milwaukee, WI (December) – Peter J. Walsh joins the Tax, Estate and Succession Planning practice group of OCHD. He will assist clients with estate and business planning, trust and probate administration, taxation and elder law issues. With a masters of law degree in taxation, he has litigated tax and non-tax issues for clients in Federal and State courts.

Peter is licensed to practice law in Wisconsin, Illinois and Florida and has prepared and implemented estate plans for over 500 distinct clients. In addition, he has represented taxpayers in multi-million dollar Income, Estate and Gift Tax Audits at the Federal and the State level, involving various legal issues and valuation disputes.

OCHD is a full-service legal practice with offices in Milwaukee and Port Washington. Founded in 1973, the firm focuses its practice on corporate law, tax, estate and succession planning, real estate and construction, municipal and civil litigation.

Milwaukee, WI (November) – Several attorneys from the law firm of O’Neil Cannon have been selected for inclusion in the 2008 Wisconsin Super Lawyers and Rising Stars lists. Attorneys recognized by Law and Politics include Jim DeJong, Dean Laing, Peter Faust, Patrick McBride and Randy Nash. Rising Star honors go to Seth Dizard, Chad Richter, John Schreiber and Bob Tess.

Only 5 percent of the licensed active attorneys in each state are named to the Super Lawyers list. In states where Rising Stars is published, no more than 2.5 percent are named. As part of the rigorous multi-step selection process, each candidate is evaluated based on 12 indicators of peer recognition and professional achievement. The objective of the Super Lawyers selection process is to create a credible, comprehensive and diverse listing of outstanding attorneys that can be used as a resource to assist attorneys and sophisticated consumers in the search for legal counsel.

Milwaukee, WI (September) – Dean Laing, Tom Merkle and John Gehringer from the law firm of O’Neil Cannon have been selected by their peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America® 2009 (Copyright 2008 by Woodward/White, Inc., of Aiken, S.C.).

Since its inception in 1983, Best Lawyers has become universally regarded as the definitive guide to legal excellence. Because Best Lawyers is based on an exhaustive peer-review survey in which more than 25,000 leading attorneys cast almost two million votes on the legal abilities of other lawyers in their specialties, and because lawyers are not required or allowed to pay a fee to be listed, inclusion in Best Lawyers is considered a singular honor. Corporate Counsel magazine has called Best Lawyers “the most respected referral list of attorneys in practice.”

Dean Laing leads the litigation practice and has been with the firm for 24 years. He’s one of the very few attorneys who have successfully practiced both business litigation and personal injury litigation. Attorney Laing has been selected by members of the Wisconsin Bar and judiciary as one of the top trial attorneys in Wisconsin. Law and Politics recognized him as one of the Top 50 Super Lawyers and as one of the Top 100 Trial Lawyers in Wisconsin.

Tom Merkle has been honored for a second year in a row and is one of the founding members of OCHD. He counsels his clients with general corporate and business law matters, including transactions such as acquisitions, sales, contracts, and financing. He also litigates cases involving shareholder disputes as well as family law cases involving closely-held businesses, partnerships, and professional associations.

John Gehringer received recognition in the 2008 Wisconsin Law Journal’s Construction Law edition. He counsels his clients in all areas of real estate development, construction law, commercial and construction financing. Attorney Gehringer provides both preventive and remedial legal counsel to financial institutions, real estate developers, REITS, architects, engineers, hotel owners, construction companies, design builders, commercial lessors and tenants, and title insurance companies.

O’Neil Cannon is a full-service legal practice with offices in Milwaukee, Port Washington and Sheboygan. Founded in 1973, the firm focuses its practice on corporate law, tax, estate and succession planning, real estate and construction, municipal and civil litigation.

T.J. Estabrook, an attorney and certified public accountant, recently joined the Milwaukee law firm of O’Neil Cannon T.J. works with clients on the tax and corporate law aspects of mergers and acquisitions. His experience includes representation of clients in connection with tax-free reorganizations, taxable stock and asset sales and divestiture transactions. Prior to joining OCHD, T.J. was with the mergers and acquisitions practice group of Ernst and Young, LLP where he worked extensively with private equity and Fortune 500 companies.

OCHD is a full-service legal practice with offices in Milwaukee, Port Washington and Sheboygan. Founded in 1973, the firm focuses its practice on corporate law, tax, estate and succession planning, real estate and construction, municipal and civil litigation.