In this day and age, news travels fast, and news of crises travels even faster.  Take, as an example, the forcible removal of Dr. David Dao from a United Airlines flight by officers last year.  The action, in which Dr. Dao was violently dragged off a plane after being seated in order to make room for a United employee, was videoed on a passenger’s cell phone and widely distributed—resulting in a public-relations mess for United. Managing publicity around a crisis requires ...

Michele Stephen and Miles Yanick will be attending the IR Global Annual Event in London on October 13 – 16, 2018.  The focus of this event is “Communication Matters”.  Simply  put,  effective  business  communication  is  the  lifeblood  of  any  organization.  It  helps  you  convey  your  ideas;  lead,  guide,  and motivate  your  employees;  and  resolve  conflicts  and  issues.  To  tackle  this  subject,  we  will  share  experiences  and  hear  from  a  variety  of  experts  including  world  renowned top  ...

Mr. David Bruce presented on the topic of Class Certification at the Seminar Group's 21st Annual Labor & Employment Law Conference on August 24th, 2018. In his presentation titled "Class Certification: The End or Just The Beginning", Mr. Bruce discussed how wage and hour class actions present issues of CR 23 commonality and predominance, highlighted in U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Wal-Mart Stores v. Dukes. These issues are often prominent in litigating certification, and many class actions settle if and after a ...

Washington’s Public Records Act (“PRA”) mandates the broad disclosure of public records in furtherance of the public policy of government transparency.[1]  Under the PRA, the media and ordinary citizens can request and obtain government records to stay informed about how their government is serving the public’s interest.  Government agencies must respond to these requests by conducting reasonable searches for responsive records, communicating with requestors, and providing the records for inspection and copying unless they are exempt from disclosure ...

We are pleased to announce that Ms. Rena Chng has joined Savitt Bruce & Willey LLP. Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Chng was a partner at Mayer Brown LLP, and an associate at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC, in Palo Alto, CA.  Ms. Chng has represented clients in the technology, telecommunications, financial, insurance, and agriculture industries.  She is a 2000 graduate of Vanderbilt University Law School. Welcome, Rena!

All documents filed in a court proceeding in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington (and most places) are available to the public—unless filed under seal. In the Western District, a party can file a document under seal only: (a) where a statute, rule, or prior court order expressly authorizes it or (b) if the party filing the document under seal files a motion to seal (which the court may or may not grant) either before or ...

Five lawyers from Savitt Bruce & Willey have been selected as “Best Lawyers” for the 24th edition of Best Lawyers in America. Recognition in Best Lawyers is based entirely on peer review, through a confidential evaluation and voting process. Duncan Manville joins Dave Bruce, Miles Yanick, Steve Willey and Jim Savitt in recognition of their outstanding work in Commercial Litigation, Litigation – Intellectual Property, Litigation ...

A previous post addressed the situation where individuals other than the deponent, court reporter, and counsel attend a deposition at the invitation of one party and without notice to the other side. In short, while the best practice is to provide advance notice to opposing counsel, there are no clear prohibitions. But that situation assumed that those invited to the deposition would be physically present, and thus their attendance known. With the increasing use of live-stream technology in depositions, ...

We try to be modest (at least as modest as trial lawyers can be). But we can’t help but mention this: all five of our firm’s partners were named as Washington SuperLawyers for 2017 (Dave Bruce, Jim Savitt, Michele Stephen, Steve Willey and Miles Yanick), and four made the list of the Top 100 lawyers in Washington. See 2017 Washington Superlawyers Top 100 list. ...

Landslide defense attorney David N. Bruce, co-founding partner of the law firm Savitt Bruce & Willey and former Senior Assistant Attorney for the City of Seattle, recently discussed the interests of government when communicating and acting in the wake of a landslide or natural disaster. His remarks, made at "Landslide Law and Science", a conference held March 2-3, 2017 in Seattle, with supporting photos and exhibits follow. Introduction My thesis is that the government has at least two interests ...