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The
instructors for this course are Mark E. Hunt and Patrick M. Thomas.
 Mark
Hunt is the partner in charge of King & Ballow's Circulation/Distribution
Section. He received his undergraduate degree from Louisiana State
University, where he graduated with honors, and his law degree from
the University of Tennessee College of Law, with honors.
Mr. Hunt has focused his practice almost exclusively on legal issues
which confront newspaper companies. He has provided consultation
and litigation services to many of the over 300 newspapers King
& Ballow has represented. Over the years, he has dealt with the
broad range of legal problems confronting newspaper publishers and
has authored numerous publications which address those legal issues.
He is a frequent speaker at legal seminars and circulation trade
association meetings.
Patrick Thomas is a senior associate in the Circulation/Distribution
section of King & Ballow. He graduated from Stanford University
and received his law degree from the Vanderbilt University School
of Law. While attending Vanderbilt, he served on the editorial staff
of the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law. Mr. Thomas is admitted
to the bar in Tennessee and the District Court for the Middle and
Eastern Districts of Tennessee.
Mr. Thomas practices in state and federal court in the areas of
business litigation, communications law, employment law, construction
law, tax law, and antitrust. He is the author of numerous articles
about legal issues related to the distribution of newspapers and
other publications, and he has spoken many times on related subjects
at publishing industry seminars and conferences.
Determining whether a worker is an independent contractor or an
employee of the company can be difficult. This difficulty arises
partly because courts and legislatures have not settled upon a universally
applicable standard for ascertaining "employee" v. "independent
contractor" status. In fact, individual laws may provide somewhat
divergent criteria for analyzing the issue. This inconsistency is
explainable, at least in part, by the fact that individual laws
are created for specific purposes. A legislature may design the
test for determining a worker's status in a manner that advances
the purpose of a particular law. Thus, as the purposes underlying
legislation differ, the test for determining if a worker is an independent
contractor or an employee likewise may differ. This course analyzes
these differences and poses "employee" v. "independent
contractor" to determine the advantages and disadvantages of
both.
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Welcome