Mr. Thomas is in Bass, Berry & Sims' Environmental and Intellectual Property and Technology Practice Areas. He graduated from The University of Alabama in Huntsville in 1979, with high honors and from Washington and Lee University School of Law in 1982, magna cum laude and Order of the Coif. He joined Bass, Berry & Sims in 1982 and is listed in The Best Lawyers in America®.
Environmental
Mr. Thomas has practiced environmental law for eighteen years and is an editor of the Tennessee Environmental Law Letter. He has served on the board of directors for the Environmental Section of the Tennessee Bar Association and has been active on various environmental committees/subcommittees of the Nashville Bar Association and the Tennessee Association of Business. He has lectured extensively on a broad range of environmental law issues. His experience includes the following:
- Served as lead counsel and chair of the Steering Committee of several different PRP Groups with respect to superfund sites.
- Successfully represented numerous clients in cost recovery actions under the federal superfund laws.
- Successfully negotiated numerous enforcement and remediation orders with U.S. EPA, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and other environmental agencies.
- Successfully negotiated numerous permit conditions and permit appeals with the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and other agencies.
- Successfully negotiated the first comfort letters' issued by Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation for prospective purchasers of superfund and leaking UST sites.
- Successfully coordinated real estate client's large retail development of a "brownfield" site with state remediation program to prevent costly delays and avoid expensive cleanup of historical contamination.
- Successfully obtained a delisting of a superfund site by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and previously obtained a partial delisting of the same site to relieve uncontaminated portion of site from superfund lien.
- Successfully drafted and lobbied changes in environmental regulations and legislation, including:
• State superfund laws to enhance the voluntary cleanup program, to improve bases for equitable allocation of responsibility and protect current landowners from superfund lien;
• State underground storage tank laws to bring uniformity to petroleum cleanup standards;
• State drycleaners environmental response act to protect landlords and impacted third parties; and
• State underground storage tank regulations to preserve coverage of third party claims by reimbursement fund.
Intellectual Property and Technology
Mr. Thomas' experience in technology has been developed through practice in the many areas within the firm, including commercial, environmental, information technology, and e-commerce. His technology experience includes the following:
- Successfully drafted and negotiated a master software pricing agreement between a large hospital management company and a hospital management software company, with an estimated value of over six hundred million dollars. The agreement established pricing for the acquisition and installation of management software packages at over 200 hospitals.
- Represented a major e-commerce B2B provider in drafting and negotiation of numerous types of licensing agreements, including web hosting agreements, development agreements, object and source code license agreements, e-supplier and e-buyer agreements, and content agreements.
- Drafted and negotiated application service provider and value added reseller agreements from three different points of view: software manufacturers, the providers/distributors, and the end-users/customers.
- Advised numerous clients on issues of software licensing and e-commerce, such as scope of a license, liabilities, indemnities, the installation and implementation of enterprise software systems, or how to protect and/or determine rights in intellectual property.
- Advised numerous clients on responding to software licensing audit requests from Microsoft, Business Software Alliance (BSA) and the Software Information and Industry Association (SIIA).
Mr. Thomas has represented numerous clients in the negotiation of numerous types of contracts related to the use of software products:
- Software licensing agreements
- Value added reseller agreements
- Applications service provider agreements
- Distribution agreements
- Consultant/development agreements
- Service and maintenance agreements
- Remote computing or services agreements
- Source code escrow agreements
Mr. Thomas has assisted numerous clients with all aspects of e-commerce business and transactions:
- Service and/or performance level standards
- Web hosting
- Web site development
- Content and/or database subscription
- Escrow agreements
- PKI, encryption, security, policies on privacy and use of data
- Compliance with applicable national and international laws
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