Stites & Harbison, PLLC

Thad Barnes is a seasoned trial attorney with approximately 40 bench and jury trials to his credit. He is the leader of the Louisville Business Litigation group and chair of the firm's eDiscovery & Document Management subgroup. His practice focuses on civil litigation with emphasis on business and complex commercial litigation, intellectual property litigation, and health care litigation. Mr. Barnes also has extensive experience in cases involving complex electronic discovery issues and advises clients as to the requirements to retain electronically stored information (ESI) under federal and state law.

Recent Assignments

• Lead counsel in successful international arbitration trial involving pro audio music speaker manufacturer and foreign distributor for 40 countries
• Lead counsel in representation of global flavor manufacturer in intellectual property and tort case responsible for the following reported decisions:
  • V. Mane Fils S.A. v. Int'l Flavors & Fragrances, Inc., 249 F.R.D. 152, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16380 (D.N.J. 2008)
  • V. Mane Fils S.A. v. Int'l Flavors & Fragrances, Inc., 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 49578 (D.N.J. June 23, 2008)
  • V. Mane Fils S.A. v. Int'l Flavors & Fragrances, Inc., 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 63619 (D.N.J. Aug. 19, 2008)
  • V. Mane Fils S.A. v. Int'l Flavors & Fragrances, Inc., 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 82540 (D.N.J. Oct. 15, 2008)
  • V. Mane Fils S.A. v. Int'l Flavors & Fragrances, Inc., 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 56462 (D.N.J. July 1, 2009)
  • V. Mane Fils S.A. v. Int'l Flavors & Fragrances, Inc., 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 45645 (D.N.J. May 6, 2010)
• Successfully defended a second request hospital merger challenge by Federal Trade Commission
• Co-counsel in multi-million dollar environmental remediation and allocation dispute involving international corporations.  Westlake Vinyls, Inc. v. Goodrich Corp., 518 F.Supp 2d 902 (W.D. Ky. 2007) and Westlake Vinyls, Inc. v. Goodrich Corp., 518 F.Supp. 2d 918 (W.D. Ky. 2007)
• Developed numerous document retention/ESI policies for large U.S. corporations
• Litigated a trademark infringement action involving two U.S. restaurant corporations
• Successfully defended a complex business case involving a dispute over the sale of power generating equipment. The case involved over 150 witnesses, 2 million paper documents and in excess of three terabytes of electronic data.
• Represented a technology company in a complex business case involving breach of contract claims.
• Successfully defended several hospitals in medical malpractice cases.
• Successfully defended a manufacturer in an anti-trust case. The case involved an assessment of several terabytes of electronic information by a team of Stites lawyers.

Recent Speaking Engagements and Publications

• "eDiscovery and Electronic Health Records," KHIMA Annual Meeting, June 2008
• "Should I Keep EVERY Email and Document, Just in Case?," co-author with Ronald J. Stay, TechLINKS, Sept. 17, 2007
• "Protection of Intellectual Property Rights in Litigation," AOPA National Convention, Miami, Florida, October 2004

Before Stites & Harbison

Mr. Barnes was Vice President and General Counsel of Triangle Seafood Inc. where he handled the company's litigation, federal compliance work, and general corporate affairs. Prior to that he was associated with Brown, Todd, & Heyburn (now Frost Brown Todd). Mr. Barnes began his career working for the law firm of Baker, Donelson, Bearman, and Caldwell in Memphis, Tenn.

Besides Stites & Harbison

Thad and his wife, Laura, stay busy attending the sporting events for their five children.