James (Jim) Kalyvas is a partner and transactional lawyer with Foley & Lardner LLP. Jim advises companies, public entities, and associations on all matters involving the use of information technology, including structuring technology initiatives (e.g., outsourcing, ERP, CRM), vendor selection (RFP strategies, development and response review), negotiation, technology implementation (professional service agreements, SOWs, and SLAs), and enterprise management of technology assets. Jim has extensive experience in structuring and negotiating outsourcing transactions, Enterprise Resource Planning initiatives, and unique business partnering relationships. He has incorporated his experience in handling billions of dollars of technology transactions into the development of several proprietary tools relating to the effective management of the technology selection, negotiation, implementation, and management processes. He is a member of the firm’s national Management Committee. He is the firm’s chief strategy officer, chair of the firm’s Technology Transactions, Cybersecurity, and Privacy Practice, co-chair of the Privacy, Security & Information Management Practice, and a member of the Technology Industry Team.

Technology acquisition issues that Jim counsels clients on include: vendor representations on system performance and integration; cloud computing; ownership issues relating to custom programming and other intellectual property rights; acceptance testing; vendor accountability; and remedies for varying degrees of breach of warranty or system failure. Implementation issues include service level and statement of work development, system response time and downtime protection, data security and privacy, and disaster avoidance and recovery.

In addition, Jim assists clients in developing “pay for performance” technology relationships that tie compensation to the achievement of meaningful and measurable business objectives. These strategies have been successfully applied in outsourcing; ERPs; and clinical, financial, CRM, manufacturing, and other critical system transactions.