Reprinted from Briefings: News From and About the People of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP

Atlanta attorneys Jeff Allred, Rusty Pickering, Brian Galison, Paul Cox, Donna Lewis, and Hemant Dutta represented the newly formed Sharecare, Inc., a consumer Web site developed by WebMD founder Jeff Arnold, which also counts among its founders Dr. Mehmet Oz (“Dr. Oz”), Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Productions, Discovery Communications, and Sony Pictures Television.

The social Q&A platform, set to launch in 2010, offers a venue for consumers to ask, learn, and act on health questions. In addition to Dr. Oz, the initial list of content contributors answering the questions of health include the Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins, and other leading hospitals, best-selling health and wellness authors, prestigious health professional associations, individual healthcare professionals, online healthcare resources, not for profits, and individual consumers. In addition to answering healthcare questions, Sharecare will incorporate cutting edge e-social media tools to allow consumers to connect to healthcare providers and each other, and e-commerce tools to allow consumers to purchase books and chapters from books related to their healthcare questions.

Mr. Allred has known Mr. Arnold for more than 10 years and had a relationship with him at his previous firm, Premiere Global Services Inc., where Mr. Allred was president and chief operating officer. Mr. Allred’s company had invested in WebMD at its inception. Mr. Arnold turned to Mr. Allred to help negotiate and document the transactions required to bring these media groups together to form Sharecare.  Nelson Mullins also represented Mr. Arnold when he initially formed WebMD.

Nelson Mullins attorneys handled licensing, tax and other issues involved in linking the companies. “Jeff Arnold’s brilliance was in bringing all of these companies together to execute a shared vision of what a consumer health site could be,” Mr. Pickering said. 

HSW International developed and launched Sharecare’s initial Q&A content located at http://ask.doctoroz.com, which features a subset of the initial questions and answers from Sharecare and its content partners. The comprehensive Sharecare platform is planned for launch at www.Sharecare.com in 2010. 

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