WILL HILL TANKERSLEY is a Partner in the firm's Birmingham office.  He has a background in a broad-ranging business litigation practice.  Additionally, his practice focuses on Intellectual Property, business litigation and other disputes involving Information Technology. These disputes often involve emergency court-ordered relief. Mr. Tankersley has had a great deal of experience seeking and defending against such expedited relief as well as seeking and defending against monetary relief. He has had a broad-ranging practice that has included, among other things, the following:

• Actions involving departing employees who allegedly have taken proprietary information or who may have started working for a competitor allegedly in violation of an employment contract
• Actions involving "cyber-squatters" who adopt confusingly similar domain names or make unauthorized use of trademarks on internet web sites
• Actions involving: trademark, copyright and patent infringement, trade secret misappropriation, theft of industrial technology or information, wrongful use of information on Internet websites, unauthorized suggestion of affiliation or sponsorship, product counterfeiting, art counterfeiting, false advertising, invasion of privacy
• Actions involving software license disputes
• Actions involving functionality representations as to computer hardware and software
• Actions involving government release and creation of information under the Freedom of Information Act and the Federal Advisory Committee Act
• Assisting with investigations of hacking and data destruction thereby implicating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

Mr. Tankersley speaks and writes on a variety of intellectual property and information technology issues.  Prior to joining Balch & Bingham, Mr. Tankersley served as Law Clerk for Honorable M. Truman Hobbs, United States District Judge, Middle District of Alabama.  After college and before law school, Mr. Tankersley served as a Regular Army Commissioned Officer in the Infantry and Special Forces.

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

• International Trademark Association, Model State Trademark Bill Subcommittee
  
• Alabama State Bar, Founder and Past President of Intellectual Property Section; Business Torts and Antitrust Section
• Listed in Alabama Super Lawyers, 2008
• American Bar Association
• WIPO Arbitrator for Internet Domain Name Disputes
• Deputy Attorney General for State of Alabama on Intellectual Property Matters
• Military Service: Major, United States Army. (Took Inactive Status in 1994) Eleven Years in the United States Army as a Regular Army, National Guard and Reserve Officer in the Infantry, Special Forces, Armor and Training Units.
• Partial List of Military Qualifications: Ranger, Senior Parachutist, Pathfinder, German Army Parachutist, Special Forces Officers Course.
  

Prior Employment

1989-Present: Balch & Bingham LLP: Partner

1988-1989: LLM at New York University School of Law

1987-1988: Capell Howard Knobe & Cobbs: Associate

1986-1987: Clerk for the Honorable Truman Hobbs, Chief Judge for the Middle District of Alabama

1983-1986: Law School at University of Alabama School of Law

1979-1983: Regular Army: Infantry Officer (US & West Germany)

NEWS

RECENT PUBLICATIONS