About the Authors

• Pages: 581-588

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About the Authors

Victoria Black well

Victoria Blackwell is Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary of

Papa Murphy’s International, LLC, franchisor of the Papa Murphy’s Take ‘N’ Bake

Pizza stores since 2001. As General Counsel, Ms. Blackwell handles all legal mat-

ters for the company including litigation, franchising, corporate compliance,

intellectual property, franchise compliance, and contract negotiation. Papa Mur-

phy’s recently completed a merger acquisition with private equity investors, the

second such event since 2004. Prior to joining Papa Murphy’s, Ms. Blackwell was

Associate Attorney with KinderCare Learning Centers, Inc. focusing on real estate

transactions. In addition, Ms. Blackwell has been in private practice and started

her career as a public defender after graduating from Northwestern School of Law

at Lewis and Clark College. Ms. Blackwell is a past speaker at the Franchise

Forum and IFA Legal Symposium.

Brian H. Cole

Brian Cole has been practicing law for over 30 years. He is currently a sole prac-

titioner from the Los Angeles, California, area, after having spent almost 15 years

in-house with Pizza Hut, Inc. (a subsidiary first of PepsiCo and then of the com-

pany now known as Yum! Brands) and almost as many years with three different

law firms. Mr. Cole attended law school at the University of Texas at Austin, and

completed his undergraduate education at Rice University in Houston, Texas. He

is admitted to the bars in Colorado (currently on inactive status), California, and

Hawaii.

Mr. Cole focuses his practice on franchise and distribution law, an area in

which he has been named a Certified Legal Specialist by the State Bar of Califor-

nia Board of Legal Specialization. Mr. Cole has over 20 years’ experience repre-

senting franchisors and franchisees in transactional and regulatory matters. He

has spoken over 10 times to bar-related groups and authored or coauthored more

than a dozen articles or papers on a wide variety of franchise-related topics. Mr.

Cole is in his second term on the Franchise Law Committee of the State Bar of

California; during his first term, he served as Committee Chair during 2006 to

2007, as a Vice-Chair during 2005 to 2006, and as Secretary during 2004 to 2005.

Leslie D. Curran

Leslie Curran is a partner in the law firm Plave Koch PLC in Reston, Virginia. She

has practiced in the field of franchise law for over 10 years. Ms. Curran represents

a broad range of clients in domestic and international franchising, licensing, and

distribution matters, across diverse industries, including restaurants and food

service, dry cleaners, waste disposal, hotels, retail, health care, business services,

and product distribution. She has extensive experience in structuring franchise

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