Trust the Leaders

Issue 9 / Fall 2004

• Complying with the New Overtime Rules: An Employer Perspective Final overtime regulations are expected to go into effect on August 23, 2004. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) recently issued these revised rules in an attempt to simplify and update current overtime exemption requirements. Although these revised rules have been met with mixed reviews, congressional efforts to block the rules have thus far been unsuccessful, and experts believe that the rules will most likely go into effect as intended on August 23, 2004.
• Asset Dispositions in a Bankruptcy Case: Guidelines for the Successful Stalking Horse This article is intended to familiarize you generally with the landscape of an otherwise fairly complicated process involving the sale of assets of a debtor in bankruptcy. It also highlights some of the more important and easily misunderstood issues faced by potential purchasers of such assets.
• Discovery in the Electronic Era The notion of “electronic discovery” in litigation conjures up images of computer forensic technicians plumbing the depths of servers for fractions of messages and bits of data long thought deleted, or at least forgotten, but quietly slumbering between partially overwritten clusters of memory, waiting to be found. Electronic discovery certainly can mean that. But an electronic discovery case can also be completely mundane from a technological perspective. In either circumstance, the content of electronic files and the process of collecting them for litigation often carry huge implications for the scope—and burden—of discovery, as well as the ultimate outcome of the case.
• Georgia State Bar Real Property Law Section: 2004 Legislative Initiative Throughout the firm’s history, Smith, Gambrell & Russell lawyers have held leadership positions in national, state and local bar associations. I am a member of the Executive Committee of the State Bar of Georgia Real Property Law Section and was named the Section’s Legislative Chairman in May 2003. In this capacity, I recently led a successful effort to enact legislation in Georgia that should facilitate real estate closings for both commercial and residential sellers.
• Georgia’s Beautiful and Historic Courthouses It began years ago with a big new office and an empty wall. I told my wife Tracy, “I will need to buy some prints.” “Why buy prints when you could have [friend and artist] Pat Magers paint something?” she said. But paint what?
• You Name It, Jacksonville Has It Bold New City of the South, City on the Move, Gateway to Florida, the First Coast, the River City—whatever the nickname, Jacksonville is the place to be. In the early days, the sharp bend where the wide expanse of the north-flowing St. Johns River abruptly changes its course easterly to the Atlantic Ocean was simply called “Cowford,” the narrowest part of the river that would allow cattle to cross on the way to market.