Join the Social Media Club of New Orleans that as we open the floor to discuss copyrights, creative licensing, libel, slander, and how brick and mortar legal definitions are being interpreted online.
The wonderful Cochon will be providing appetizers to nosh on, and as always, there will be giveaways and prizes. We hope to see you there!

Panelists will include:
Ray Areaux, Chair of IP Practice at Carver Darden:
Raymond G. Areaux is a founding member in the law firm of Carver, Darden, Koretzky, Tessier, Finn, Blossman & Areaux, LLC where he chairs the firms intellectual property practice group. His practice is devoted to obtaining, licensing and enforcing all manner of intellectual property rights. His primary practice areas are computers and software, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, media law, copyright, unfair competition and franchises. He is a registered patent attorney with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and is a frequent lecturer on intellectual property topics.

Mr. Areaux's experience includes:

* prosecuting patents in the electronic arts, software arts, web-based delivery arts, biotech arts, and mechanical arts;
* negotiating many and varied types of licensing agreements and franchising agreements:
* prosecuting and maintaining hundreds of trademarks, service marks and brands;
* litigating patent, trade secret, trademark, copyright and licensing disputes, including patent claims against the Federal Government; and,
* arbitrating computer software and other commercial transaction disputes.

Mr. Areaux obtained his J.D. from Loyola University where he was a member of the Law Review and published his commentary "Computer Software Protection: >From Infancy to Adolescence."

Mr. Areaux holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering as well as a B.S. in Computer and Information Systems, both from Tulane University.

Prior to starting his law practice in 1985, Mr. Areaux was a product development engineer with IBM at its lab in Austin, Texas and then later a systems engineer with Conoco in New Orleans

Ernest Svenson
http://www.ernietheattorney.net
Darwin observed that "it is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change." The legal system, long bound by tradition, now struggles to adapt to increasing societal change. Today, lawyers can use technology in novel ways to improve communication and increase efficiency in gathering information. We need to be more adept at handling digital information to fully represent our clients.

Clients increasingly need lawyers who look at things in fresh ways, who seek hidden advantages, and who properly assess risk instead of reflexively avoiding it. "Zealous representation," to me, is less about swash-buckling and more about thoughtfulness and strategic planning.

Specialties: Business disputes, Franchise litigation. Speaking on E-Discovery, and legal technology issues.

Brian Oberkirch
Veteran online media planner, http://www.brianoberkirch.com/
I’m a marketing consultant focused on social media and product/service development. Like It Matters is my personal blog where I write about social media, community-based marketing and technologies that revolve around relevance.

I do social media consulting and projects for companies and marketing agencies of all sizes, helping them use these new tools to have better conversations with those who matter to their business. I also do quite a bit of speaking and training on social media and other topics.

In my past lives, I was a marketing consultant and writer for hire, managed national brand accounts at large and small advertising and PR shops, started a social media consultancy called Weblogs Work and helped build a suite of applications for those clients, taught literature and creative writing, wrote newspaper articles, did the morning news at a radio station, and many other things.