Blog

November 20, 2014 – Meeting Roundup – Business Ethics

Is it the truth?
Is it fair to all concerned?
Will it build goodwill and better friendship?
Will it be beneficial to all concerned?

The 4-Way Test pretty much sums up ethics in the workplace as well as the rest of one’s life. However, we will have Walter Jones expand on theses ethics this week. The following is from our very own Martinsburg Rotary web site.

Walter M. Jones, III is the Managing Shareholder at Martin & Seibert, L.C. He practices primarily in the area of civil litigation defense with an emphasis on insurance and class action defense. He has earned an AV® certification by Martindale-Hubbell which is a significant rating accomplishment – a testament to the fact that the lawyer’s peers rank him at the highest level of professional excellence.

Mr. Jones has litigated a number of noteworthy matters of first impression before both state and federal courts. He has been an expert witness on insurance extra-contractual claims, has served as lead counsel on insurance-related class actions and has consulted on regional and national class action cases. He has successfully defended the only known class action that withstood appellate review where no damages were awarded after class certification. He has successfully negotiated and settled individual class actions involving aggregate payments in excess of $100M. He has settled and secured appellate approval of combined monetary and equitable relief providing educational benefits to class members at West Virginia schools of secondary education. Mr. Jones has successfully litigated and defeated class certification of a number of actions in state and federal courts. Using his background in the computer and technological sciences, Mr. Jones has been very active in current issues regarding document retrieval and storage, e-discovery and relational database management. Mr. Jones has directed national class action discovery involving millions of records, and has often consulted with offices of general counsel on internal document management and control. Mr. Jones also serves as Discovery Coordinating Counsel and Consulting Technical Counsel for a national, multi-line insurance carrier.

Mr. Jones is also a frequent lecturer in the insurance industry, speaking predominantly on topics such as coverage, insurance claims practices (bad faith), claims management, catastrophic damage control, and class action litigation management. He has served as an Arbitrator for the American Arbitration Association and is also an active member of many highly-regarded legal affiliations such as the International Association of Defense Counsel, American Bar Association standing committees, Defense Research Institute, Commercial Law League of America, Defense Trial Counsel of West Virginia and several other practice-oriented institutes, bars and associations. Mr. Jones has spoken at national seminars with the most recent presentation titled ACI’s 12th National Conference on Consumer Finance Class Actions & Litigation. Mr. Jones has been selected for inclusion in Super Lawyers each year since 2007 through 2013, a recognition only available for the top 5% of the lawyers in the state. The attorneys and staff of Martin & Seibert, L.C. were honored as a “Go-To” law firm for the nation’s “Leading Financial Services Companies in 2007.”

Mr. Jones has also proven himself to be very community-minded as well, serving in various positions and holding numerous offices on behalf of the American Red Cross, the United Way, and The American Cancer Society. His hours of dedication have also led to involvement in dozens of fundraising and membership drives. Mr. Jones also served for many years as chair of the West Virginia Public Defenders Corporation, Berkeley County.

Affordable Care Act

Fellow Rotarian Sara Koontz gave an excellent program on Obama Care. She gave us the positives of the act and statistics on how many West Virginians have signed up and benefited from the act. We also heard some of the negatives.

I have never used the act for health care, so it was nice to hear what all the hoopla is about.

Tom Keys (1940-2014)

Tom Keys joined our club in 1996 and was forever known as the “Flag Man” due to his owning Ambassador Flags on Raleigh St. Every time you see a Rotary shirt or sweatshirt, you can thank Tom as he started the shirt program. Tom was generous with his time and his contributions to the club and Rotary. He became a Paul Harris Fellow in 1998. The club has lost a valuable member.

Cogwheels

Answer to last week’s question:

Richard Whiting was the only other member of our club to serve as district governor, having done so in 1992-93.

This week’s question:

What is The Rotary Foundation month?