James G. DeJong, a 1973 Carroll graduate and president of the Milwaukee law firm O’Neil, Cannon, Hollman, DeJong and Laing, will be inducted into the Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society during a ceremony at Carroll University in April. Founded in 1897, this highly selective honors society was created to recognize and promote academic excellence in all fields of higher education and to engage the community of scholars in service to others.

A Mequon, Wis., resident, DeJong joined Carroll’s Board of Trustees in May 2008. He has served on the Board’s Executive and Institutional Advancement committees and was elected Board Chair in 2013. He is serving a three-year term.

Downtown Milwaukee office building put in receivership

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – February 24, 2014

A court-appointed receiver has been named to oversee the operations of a financially troubled downtown Milwaukee office building.

The eight-story building, at 211-219 W. Wisconsin Ave., adjacent to the Shops of Grand Avenue, is owned by 30 separate investment groups, all based outside Wisconsin, according to court records.

Those groups are insolvent. Their debtor is a Bank of America commercial mortgage fund, with U.S. Bank serving as its trustee.

Milwaukee Attorney Seth Dizard was appointed as receiver for the 105,000-square-foot building, which is leased mainly to the Internal Revenue Service.

The IRS moved its regional office there in 2006, the same year the property was sold by Wispark LLC to Chicago-based TSG Real Estate LLC for $20 million. Wispark bought the building in 2004 for $3 million, and remodeled it to accommodate the IRS.

Later in 2006, the building was sold to its current owners. It is now valued at $13 million, according to city assessment records.

Attorney Jason Scoby of O’Neil Cannon was recently reappointed to serve as Chair of the Corporate, Banking and Business Section of the Milwaukee Bar Association (“MBA”) for the fourth consecutive year. In this role, Attorney Scoby focuses on providing continuing legal education presentations and resources, as well as networking opportunities for attorneys and other professionals in the corporate, banking, and business field.

Some of the topics previously addressed and to be addressed in upcoming presentations include:

• Mergers and Acquisitions and Important Considerations when Buying or Selling a Business
• Issues in Commercial Loan Transactions
• Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (commonly referred to as “Obamacare”)
• Choice of Business Entity and the Associated Business and Tax Implications
• Drafting Enforceable Non-Compete Agreements
• Antitrust Impact on Businesses
• Contract Drafting

If you would like further information regarding an upcoming MBA event, or if you are interested in making a presentation for the MBA’s Corporate, Banking and Business Section, please contact Jason at jason.scoby@wilaw.com.  He can also be reached directly at 414-291-4714.

Attorney Scoby assists clients on corporate and business-related issues.  He focuses primarily on mergers and acquisitions, commercial loan transactions, and general corporate law (e.g. contract review, preparation and negotiation, and general business and legal advice to closely held businesses).

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. We also assist business owners with their personal legal needs including tax and estate planning, family law, and litigation-including personal injury litigation.

On October 10, 2013, O’Neil, Cannon, Hollman, DeJong and Laing held its annual Continuing Legal Education seminar in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on a number of legal ethics issues of interest to in-house counsel.

Chad Baruch of Texas, a recognized national speaker on legal issues, presented a lecture entitled “Back to the Beginning:  Marberry v. Madison and the Roots of Judicial Review” and made a presentation on the ethics of legal writing.

Pete Faust, Chair of O’Neil, Cannon, Hollman, DeJong and Laing’s Corporate Practice Group, moderated a panel discussion between professional journalists and attorneys entitled “Legal Ethics Issues Relating to the Media and Dealing with the Media.”  The panel was comprised of two media representatives, Mike Gousha, a television broadcaster and Distinguished Fellow in Law and Public Policy at Marquette University Law School, and Cary Spivak, an investigative reporter with the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, and O’Neil, Cannon, Hollman, DeJong and Laing attorneys Dean Laing and Steve Slawinski.

Grant Killoran, Chair of O’Neil, Cannon, Hollman, DeJong and Laing’s Litigation Practice Group, presented a lecture entitled “Ethical (and Practical) Considerations for Managing E-Discovery and Electronically Stored Information” focusing on legal ethics issues relating to electronic data.

O’Neil, Cannon, Hollman, DeJong and Laing will hold this seminar again in the Fall of 2014.  If you would like copies of the materials from our recent seminar, or if you would like to attend the 2014 seminar, please contact O’Neil, Cannon, Hollman, DeJong and Laing at 414.276.5000.  This seminar is limited to in-house counsel.

The Employment Law Practice Group at O’Neil Cannon recently published an employment law blog in an effort to provide employers with the latest developments and meaningful insight into the ever-changing employment law landscape.

Employment law is one of the most rapidly changing and developing areas of the law, which can make it difficult for employers to navigate through even the most seemingly simple and everyday personnel matters. It is our hope that you will find the articles and resources on the Employment LawScene™ to be an asset in your day-to-day human resources management.

In addition to practicing real estate, banking and transactional law for more than 27 years with O’Neil, Cannon, Hollman, DeJong and Laing, Claude Krawczyk has also volunteered hundreds of hours each year to various community organizations and efforts. Over the past several years, Claude has led two successful community projects, the restoration of the Kosciuszko monument on 9th and Lincoln in Milwaukee and the purchase, improvement and move by the Milwaukee Christian Center to a new building at 14th and National in Milwaukee.  Claude is now being honored by two different organizations for his work on both of these projects. On September 23, 2013, the South Side Business Club will name Claude its “Person of the Year” and on November 3, 2013, Claude will be honored by the Polish American Congress-Wisconsin, which has named Claude the 2013 recipient of the Congressman Clement J. Zablocki Civic Achievement Award.

Congratulations Claude!

To learn more about  the Kosciuszko monument project, see: http://www.rkmmilwaukee.org/ and to find out more about the Milwaukee Christian Center, see: http://www.mccwi.org/.

Twelve attorneys from the law firm of O’Neil Cannon were selected for inclusion in the 2013 edition of The Best Lawyers in America®. Nearly 1/3 of the firm’s attorneys were listed in 16 distinct practice areas to include:

• James G. DeJong – Corporate Law; Mergers and Acquisitions Law; Securities/Capital Markets Law
• Seth E. Dizard – Bankruptcy and Creditor Debtor Rights; Insolvency and Reorganization Law; Litigation–Bankruptcy
• Peter J. Faust – Corporate Law; Mergers and Acquisitions Law
• John G. Gehringer – Commercial Litigation; Construction Law; Corporate Law; Real Estate Law
• Dennis W. Hollman – Corporate Law; Trusts and Estates
• Dean P. Laing – Commercial Litigation; Personal Injury Litigation–Plaintiffs; Product Liability Litigation–Defendants
• Gregory W. Lyons – Commercial Litigation
• Thomas A. Merkle – Family Law
• Steven J. Slawinski – Construction Law

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 39,000 leading attorneys cast almost 3.1 million votes on the legal abilities of other lawyers in their practice areas, and because lawyers are not required or allowed to pay a fee to be listed, inclusion in Best Lawyers is considered a prestigious honor. Corporate Counsel magazine has called Best Lawyers “the most respected referral list of attorneys in practice.”

(Copyright 2013 by Woodward/White, Inc., of Aiken, S.C.)

Grant Killoran, Chair of O’Neil, Cannon, Hollman, DeJong and Laing’s Litigation Practice Group, recently was named a Fellow of the Wisconsin Law Foundation.

The Fellows organization was created in 1999 to honor members of the State Bar of Wisconsin who have achieved significant accomplishments in their careers and contributed leadership and service to their communities.  Membership in the Fellows is limited to 2.5% of the State Bar of Wisconsin’s members.

The Fellows aims to energize its members to continue their efforts in the promotion of justice, advancement of the legal profession and improvement of legal education.  For more information on the Fellows click here.

At its Annual Meeting on June 11, 2013, the Milwaukee Bar Association collectively honored as its 2013 “Attorneys of the Year” those area attorneys, including the attorneys of O’Neil, Cannon, Hollman, DeJong and Laing S.C., who serve as volunteers at the Milwaukee Justice Center.

The MBA, in conjunction with the Marquette University Law School, the Milwaukee County Circuit Courts and other organizations, established the Milwaukee Justice Center in 2009.  The Milwaukee Justice Center is a free limited legal advice clinic held at the Milwaukee County Courthouse.  It uses transformative collaborative partnerships to provide free legal assistance to Milwaukee County’s unrepresented litigants through court-based self help desks and legal resources.

Recognizing the importance of this project, O’Neil, Cannon, Hollman, DeJong and Laing became a founding member of the consortium of area law firms that agreed to provide attorney volunteers to the staff the Milwaukee Justice Center.  O’Neil, Cannon, Hollman, DeJong and Laing’s attorneys have been volunteering at the Milwaukee Justice Center since the inception of its formal program in 2009. Grant Killoran, the Chair of O’Neil, Cannon, Hollman, DeJong and Laing’s Litigation Practice Group, also serves as a member of the MBA Steering Committee overseeing the Milwaukee Justice Center program.

Judge clears way for Falls Radisson sale

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – August 26, 2013

The eventual sale of the publicly financed Menomonee Falls Radisson Hotel took an initial step forward Monday. Waukesha County Circuit Judge James Kieffer granted a request by the Village of Menomonee Falls to expand the powers of a court-appointed …

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For Sale: The Menomonee Falls Radisson Hotel

Menomonee Falls Patch – August 26, 2013

A Waukesha County Circuit court judge on Monday granted a receivership attorney expanded powers to market and sell the Radisson Hotel property, which has been in foreclosure. Receivership attorney Seth Dizard has overseen operations at the hotel …