Practices

• Business & Commercial Litigation

Biography

Vivian is a commercial litigation partner in the Firm’s Charleston, WV office. She is an experienced commercial litigator and trial attorney whose practice focuses on the financial services, construction, energy, and media industries.

Vivian specializes in commercial contract disputes and business torts. She has represented business clients as both plaintiffs and defendants in disputes involving breach of contract, fraud, civil RICO, unfair competition, antitrust, statutory violations, class actions, condemnation actions, claims under the Uniform Commercial Code, and other business torts. For more than a decade, she has authored the West Virginia chapter in Business Torts; A Fifty-State Guide, a treatise published by Wolters Kluwer.

Her financial services litigation work includes representing banks and financial institutions in breach-of-contract disputes, such as bank participation agreements, and claims involving business torts and statutory violations. Further, in working on behalf of such institutions, she has successfully defended claims filed by both consumers and the Office of the Attorney General under the West Virginia Consumer Credit and Protection Act. Vivian has co-authored the “West Virginia Commercial Lending Law” chapter, published by the American Bar Association.

Vivian’s construction work includes representing owners, architects, engineers, land surveyors, and contractors. She has handled mechanics’ lien work on private projects and surety bond claims on public projects. She handles claims in the state and federal courts of West Virginia, the West Virginia Court of Claims, and before the West Virginia Boards for professional architects, engineers, and contractors. Vivian has prepared the West Virginia chapter in the State-by-State Guide to Architect, Engineer, and Contractor Licensing, published by Aspen Law & Business. In addition, she has authored the West Virginia chapter in the 50-State Construction Lien and Bond Law publication by Aspen Law & Business. She has also prepared the “Construction Laws and Customs: West Virginia” chapter published by Thompson Reuters.

With regard to her First Amendment practice, Vivian has represented the West Virginia Broadcasters’ Association and media clients—including newspapers, radio and television stations, reporters, and publishers—in defamation, privacy rights, copyright, trademark, false advertising, and commercial appropriation disputes. For nearly 15 years, Ms. Basdekis has co-authored Keeping It Legal: A Guide for Broadcasters published by the West Virginia Broadcasters’ Association as the pre-eminent guide for its media members. During this time, she has presented at the West Virginia Broadcasters’ Association annual meetings. She has also authored the “West Virginia Right of Publicity Laws” chapter published by Practical Law, the “Survey of West Virginia Libel Law” chapter found in the Media Law Resource Center (MLRC) 50-State Survey, the “Trademark Laws: West Virginia State Q&A” published by Practical Law Intellectual Property & Technology, and the “Intellectual Property: West Virginia” chapter, published by Lex Mundi.

Moreover, she has an active practice representing clients in alcohol licensing with the West Virginia Alcohol Beverage Control Commission (“WVABC”) and representing clients for video lottery licensing with the West Virginia Lottery. Her clients have included restaurants, hotels, resorts, farm wineries, beer wholesalers, distilleries, and other business.

Vivian has performed hundreds of interstate and West Virginia adoptions. She also practices surrogacy law, representing intended parents and gestational carriers in the negotiation and drafting of gestational surrogacy agreements. She frequently represents national and international clients in West Virginia court proceedings to obtain pre-birth, post-birth, and parentage orders.

Vivian is a member of Leadership West Virginia and a “Forty-Under-40” honoree. She is the recipient of the Diversity Law Institute’s “2018 Diversity Award,” and has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America® for “Litigation–Banking and Finance” and the West Virginia Super Lawyers® Rising Stars for Business Litigation. Vivian is a graduate of The George Washington University School of Law, where she served as an Editor on The American Intellectual Property Law Association Quarterly Journal (AIPLA QJ) and advanced to the North American Finals of the ABA Alternative Dispute Resolution Negotiations Competition. Vivian is also active in her local community, having served as President of the Judge John A. Field, Jr. American Inn of Court, and as Vice President and member of the Board of Directors of the Kanawha Pastoral Counseling Center (KPCC).