Karen Elliot, a Sands Anderson attorney specializing in employment law, recently published the following article addressing new rules prohibiting commercial motor vehicle drivers from using hand-held mobile devices while driving.  We thought this article would be of particular interest to our Risk Manager readers: In a continued effort to reduce accidents from distracted driving, the federal [...]

Successfully Defending a Lawsuit By Henry Spalding, Esq. Anyone who has been a defendant in a lawsuit will tell you that the process is expensive, time consuming and stressful. I have spent the past twenty years defending businesses and individuals in courts throughout Virginia and can attest to the emotional and financial toll which a [...]

The Virginia State Bar’s Standing Committee in Legal Ethics recently issued a legal ethics opinion declaring it unethical for plaintiff’s lawyers to agree to indemnify a defendant and/or his insurer for any third party lien claim against settlement proceeds received by the plaintiff. The Standing Committee has opined that it is likewise unethical for the [...]

Here is a recent article written by Henry Spalding, a Sands Anderson litigation attorney, for the Home Builders Association of Richmond newsletter. As a lawyer representing homebuilders and general contractors, I am sometimes asked to assist them in responding to complaints filed against them by dissatisfied homeowners with the Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation [...]

The Voice, the house organ of the Defense Research Institute (DRI), the national organization for members of the defense Bar, put out a nice writeup of Chip Delano’s ERISA case of Mullins v. AT&T Corp.. You can download the whole article right here. We’re pleased both for Chip’s results for our client and that he was [...]

We’re very proud that our own Jayne A. Pemberton was named an Influential Woman of Virginia by Lawyers Media on Thursday, May 19. She’s in a class of many remarkable women this year, the third of this recognition coordinated by Virginia Lawyers Weekly. Jayne was recognized for, among other things, her work in the Metropolitan [...]

The leader of our Life and Health team, Robert B. “Chip” Delano, Jr., writes: Regardless of how carefully plaintiff’s counsel may attempt to disguise claims for severance in state law clothing, employers should remember that claims of entitlement to severance benefits by former employees under a plan established by the employer for the purpose of [...]

THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN OUR WEB SITE DESCRIBES LEGAL MATTERS HANDLED IN THE PAST BY OUR ATTORNEYS. OF COURSE, THE RESULTS WE HAVE ACHIEVED DEPEND UPON A VARIETY OF FACTORS UNIQUE TO EACH MATTER. BECAUSE EACH MATTER IS DIFFERENT, OUR PAST RESULTS CANNOT PREDICT OR GUARANTEE A SIMILAR RESULT IN THE FUTURE. As we move [...]

Chip Delano, one of the shareholders of our firm and a senior member of the Risk Management team, keeps a keen eye on the insurance laws of Virginia. Annually, he updates his publication “Overview of Insurance Law in Virginia”, an expert summary of the prevailing Virginia Code and regulatory requirements, along with some important and [...]

[Editor's note: This article is the work of Andrew H. Wilson of our Risk Management team] On November 5, 2009 , Kellermann v. McDonough, Record No. 081718 (Va. filed November 5, 2009), the Supreme Court of Virginia expressly held for the first time that “when a parent relinquishes the supervision and care of a child [...]