OCTOBER NEWSLETTER

Charlie Faruki and Jeff Ireland were voted by their peers as two of the top lawyers in the Dayton region, and appeared in a special publication that is an insert in the October 15 issue of the Dayton Business Journal. The Dayton Business Journal started a new program called Best of the Bar; it asked lawyers to tell the Dayton Business Journal who they think are the best lawyers in the region. Of the approximately 1,500 members of the Bar in this area, the Dayton Business Journal picked 70, including Charlie and Jeff.

In a consolidated mass tort class action, FI&C defeated an effort by Plaintiffs to block discovery pertaining to the issue of whether or not to certify a class in the case. The case arises out of an explosion in 2003 at the plant of a client. Plaintiffs argued that the Court's evaluation of Ohio's class certification standards could be conducted on the pleadings, without evidentiary material. The trial court's written ruling rejected Plaintiffs' arguments, adopted FI&C's position, and instead ordered that discovery on class certification issues was appropriate. Mary Wiseman and Martin Foos work on this FI&C matter which previously also had a motion to dismiss granted that eliminated the intentional tort claims pled in the case.

To help to provide our firm's associates with courtroom and jury trial experience and responsibility, FI&C and the Montgomery County Public Defender's Office have established an externship program for trial practice. The goal of the externship program is to provide selected associates with the trial experience necessary for professional growth and development, despite the fact that civil jury trial experience is more difficult to get than it was years ago. The firm selects one or two associates to work at the Public Defender's Office for a period of some months, initially gaining experience handling matters such as preliminary hearings and motions to suppress evidence, and subsequently participating in one or more felony jury trials. Recently the American Bar Association issued its report on The Vanishing Trial, exploring the causes and effects of the phenomenon in both state and federal courts that there have been fewer and fewer federal civil jury trials each year. The firm developed this externship program to help to deal with the fact that obtaining jury trial experience is difficult for associates in litigation firms. The externship program fulfills a community need for representation of indigent criminal defendants, and furthers the firm's longstanding commitment to pro bono publico representation.

Jeff Ireland is once again a featured presenter at the Ohio State Bar Association's annual antitrust law meeting. Jeff's October 29 presentation focuses on false advertising and Lanham Act issues. Jeff and Charlie Faruki are both long-time members of the OSBA Antitrust Section and serve on its Board of Governors.

Ian Taronji has been named as the 2004-2005 Chairman of the Dayton Bar Association's Diversity Committee, and also is a new member of the Associate Board of the Dayton Area Red Cross.

One of FI&C's newest attorneys, Holt Hedrick, was recently notified and congratulated on receiving a perfect score on the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam. Also known as the MPRE, the exam is a nationwide ethics examination administered as an adjunct to individual state bar examinations, and must be passed before an attorney is admitted to practice. Holt joined FI&C in August 2004 following his graduation with honors from Indiana University Law School. Congratulations, Holt, on the perfect score!

John Stinneford, a part-time associate with FI&C and an Assistant Professor at the University of Dayton School of Law, gave a presentation on October 8 at Villanova Law School's Conference on Catholic Social Thought and the Law, entitled: "Subsidiarity and the Federalization of Street Crime."