John R. Ackermann is Law Vice President and Chief Counsel of the Worldwide Customer Services Law Group at NCR Corporation in Dayton, Ohio. He is admitted to practice in Wisconsin and Ohio.
In his role as WCS Chief Counsel, Mr. Ackermann is responsible for all the legal affairs of NCR’s $2 billion service business.
Mr. Ackermann has practiced in the various disciplines known as "computer law" since 1985. He has a particular interest in software licensing and other copyright-related issues, and the emerging law of the Internet. An adjunct professor at the University of Dayton School of Law, he teaches a course on “Licensing Intellectual Property.” He has also been an instructor at the University’s "Computer and Cyberspace Law" program on several occasions and has been a member of the Steering Committee for that program since 1992. He is a member of the International Technology Law Association, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the American Civil Liberties Union. He also has a strong background in general commercial contracting and in a former life was a litigator specializing in media and First Amendment law.
In addition to his professional involvement with computer law, Mr. Ackermann has a strong hands-on interest in technology. He maintains a Linux-based computer network (presently with more than a dozen machines) at his home. His servers host the web sites of several non-profit organizations, as well as his personal web site, and several mailing lists. He does not claim to be a proficient programmer, but knows how to create syntax errors in C, Perl, Python and, long ago, in Pascal and BASIC. He is an avid ham radio operator and is past president of an international amateur radio organization that is dedicated to research and development of advanced communications techniques. He is a frequent presenter about these technologies at amateur radio conferences both in the United States and abroad.
Todd B. Carver an attorney in the legal department of the NCR Corporation for more than 12 years, Todd Carver is currently the Deputy General Counsel for Teradata Corporation. He is responsible for all legal aspects of the Teradata $1.6 billion-a-year computer systems business. He has also been a senior legal counsel in the telecommunications industry for USWEST, Inc. in Denver and senior litigation counsel for NCR and AT&T.
Mr. Carver primarily practices in computer and technology law, but he also practices in alternative dispute resolution, litigation, negotiation, and transactions, and intellectual property licensing. He lectures throughout the United States on alternative dispute resolution, and his articles on the subject have been published in the Harvard Business Review and the Dispute Resolution Journal. He also serves on the American Arbitration Association’s national Large-Complex Case Advisory Council and as an arbitrator in commercial and technology-related cases.
In addition to his legal activities, Mr. Carver is an executive board member for the Boy Scouts of America, Miami Valley Council, and has been president of Preservation Dayton and the St. Anne's Hill Historical Society. He has been an adjunct professor since 1994 and serves on the School of Law Advisory Council.
Kirk Johnsen is an assistant law vice president in the legal department of the NCR Corporation. Employed at the corporation since he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1987, Mr. Johnsen has also served as a senior attorney for NCR’s Systems and Services Group and as an attorney in the Business Law, Intellectual Property and Corporate Law Sections.
Fluent in French, Mr. Johnsen studied for one year in the D.E.A. program for public and private international law at the Université de Nice in Nice, France.
Thomas Kraemer is a partner at Faruki Ireland & Cox, PLL, where he specializes in business litigation. He has represented clients in intellectual property, employment, environmental, and white collar criminal matters in federal and state courts, and has handled arbitration proceedings before the National Association of Securities Dealers.
Before attending law school, Mr. Kraemer worked for the Shizuoka Perfecture, Japan, Board of Election and as Grants/Research Director for Refugees International-Japan. After graduating magna cum laude from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, he clerked for The Honorable Walter H. Rice, United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, for two years before joining Faruki Ireland & Cox in 1992.
Mr. Kraemer has been an adjunct professor at UDSL since 2000.
Mark Levy is a partner and group leader at the law firm of Thompson Hine LLP, where he specializes in intellectual property and patent law. A UDSL adjunct professor since 2000, Mr. Levy is a member of the Dayton Intellectual Property Law Association, of which he is a past president, the American Intellectual Property Law Association, and the American Bar Association. He is also a member of the commercialization advisory board for EMTEC and has served as a delegate to the National Council of Intellectual Property Law Association.
John McCann is an associate at Thompson Hine, practicing in Corporate Transactions & Securities. He focuses his practice on mergers and acquisitions; private placements of securities; securities offerings for publicly held companies; corporate organization and governance; state and securities laws and joint ventures.
Mr. McCann's practice also includes counseling investment companies and investment advisers on issues related to the creation, offering and ongoing maintenance of investment products and services. He has experience in the development and implementation of compliance programs, the organization of domestic investment vehicles and the merger and acquisition of investment companies and investment advisers.
Mr. McCann is admitted to practice in Ohio and the District of Columbia.
Before joining Thompson Hine, Mr. McCann served as the General Counsel for Transamerica Investment Management, LLC and as an associate with the Washington, D.C. firm of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart LLP. He began teaching at UDSL in 2004.