Plaintiffs asked for an award of attorneys’ fees in Vanguard Pai Lung, LLC v. Moody, 2022 NCBC 48. They had been awarded $3 million in compensatory and punitive and thjeir lawyers sought $2.5 million in fees. The motion for fees was not successful, for a number of reasons, but what sticks out in

Mack Sperling
I’m a business litigator in North Carolina, with Brooks Pierce McLendon Humphrey & Leonard, LLP.
I grew up in New York, went to college there (at Union College in Schenectady), and then came to North Carolina to law school at UNC-Chapel Hill. I clerked for United States District Judge Frank Bullock of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina after graduating, and then joined Brooks Pierce.
Is The NC Business Court “Going To The Dogs?”
The parties in Leonard v. Ast, 2022 NCBC 35, decided by the NC Business Court last week, were collaborators in a business venture they named Barks and Recreation. Barks was a dog training business which the Defendants felt would funnel business to their already existing dog grooming business, “Just Dog People.”
As anyone interested in…
Part 2 of __ of the Business Court’s Orders Of Significance: Attorney-Client Privilege
NC Business Court Orders of Significance: Designating A Case To The NC Business Court (Part 1 of __)
This is the first of several intended posts on the so far unexamined “Orders of Significance” handed down by the NC Business Court. This one focuses on several Orders from Chief Judge Bledsoe on whether a case was properly designated to the Court. It is embarrassingly long, sorry.
Intellectual Property Cases
A handful of these…
NC Business Court Adds More Than One Hundred New Orders On Its Website
If you ever look at the Business Court’s website, you’ve noticed that the Court added late last year a new category of rulings, which it has dubbed “Orders of Significance.” There are 118 of these Orders, stretching back ten years, to 2010.
The Court is statutorily mandated to publicly post a number of its rulings,…
The NC Business Court Deals With The Apex Doctrine (Again)

I know that you haven’t heard from me in a while. I’m sorry, and I feel guilty. You’ve undoubtedly noticed that a gaggle of ten lawyers at Fox Rothschild have started a competing Business Court blog, called It’s Just Business…
NC Business Court: Something For Antitrust Lawyers
State law antitrust claims in North Carolina seem to go together with unfair and deceptive trade practices claims (Chapter 75 claims) like peanut butter and jelly. Section 75-2 of the General Statutes says that “any act, contract, combination in the form of trust, or conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce which violates the…
NC Business Court Steps Into Uncharted Territory On Advancement And Indemnification For Corporate Officers
Judge Robinson boldly went where no North Carolina Judge writing published Opinions had gone before last month in the case of Wheeler v. Wheeler, 2018NCBC117. The subject was a corporate officer’s right to the advancement of legal fees incurred in defending against a lawsuit.
Judge Robinson noted that there was only “one case…
NC Business Court: Attorney-Client Privilege For Corporations
The NC Business Court delivered a full Opinion last week on attorney-client privilege in Technetics Group Daytona, Inc. v. N2 Biomedical, LLC, 2018 NCBC 115. It’s on the subject of the scope of attorney-client privilege accorded to corporate clients.
That a corporation is entitled to the protection of the attorney-client privilege is “generally…
NC Business Court Deals With “Unclean Hands”

The Business Court Opinion last month in Shaw v. Gee, 2018 NCBC 108, deals with two interesting trial procedure issues: how to preserve all your arguments for making motions for judgment not withstanding the verdict and for a new trial.
Shaw had won at…