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McAfee & Taft’s annual Corporate Counsel Seminar brought together hundreds of general counsel and in-house lawyers from across the state and region to discuss some of the top trending topics affecting business.

Held December 4th at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa and December 5th at Embassy Suites Downtown in Oklahoma City, this year’s line-up of speakers included Tony Mastin, a McAfee & Taft tax attorney who previously served as the executive director of the Oklahoma Tax Commission, and cyber liability specialists from HUB International.

The last session, a one-hour ethics presentation titled “Ethical and Professional Issues Inside and Outside the Courtroom,” featured distinguished guests from the state and federal judiciary — Judge Gregory Frizzell of the Northern District of Oklahoma,  Tulsa County Judge Rebecca Nightingale, and Chief Judge Tim DeGiusti, Judge Scott Palk and Judge Patrick Wyrick of the Western District of Oklahoma.  Also, The Honorable Thad Balkman was the special guest speaker during lunch at the Oklahoma City seminar with a 20-minute presentation titled “Effective trial techniques and practices — A view from the bench.”

Other topics included the latest updates in employment law, compensation incentives for businesses, hot and emerging state and local tax issues, cybersecurity and data protection, cyber liability insurance policies and coverage, best practices for drafting confidentiality agreements for use in the workplace, managing disclosure risk in M&A transactions, identifying material issues in commercial real estate leases, and key issues in commercial lending transactions. The full-day seminar offered CLE credit from the Oklahoma Bar Association, State Bar of Texas and Arkansas Bar Association.