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Revenue at Quinn Emanuel was $441.9 million in 2008, up 15 percent from the prior year. Profits jumped 10 percent, to $260 million. Profits per partner -- already near the top of the Am Law 100 in 2007 -- rose 11 percent to $3.3 million. According to managing partner John Quinn, lawyers racked up an average of 200 hours a month during a peak period. A major case for the firm in 2008 was the Bratz copyright trial, in which Quinn Emanuel successfully represented Mattel against MGA Entertainment, maker of a competing doll.
Richard Fuld, ex-chairman of Lehman Brothers Holdings, "sold" his oceanfront Jupiter Island, Fla., mansion to his wife for $10. But he may have made himself vulnerable to more trouble as the investment bank's massive bankruptcy case unfolds. Under Florida's Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act, prospective creditors could contend the transfer was intended to avoid repaying them, say bankruptcy attorneys. In March 2004, the couple paid $13.75 million for the property, which is now assessed at $13.3 million.
Boston-based Ropes & Gray cut 106 staff positions, or 10 percent of its
non-lawyer staff, on Thursday, announcing the news in a firmwide memo
sent by Chairman Brad Malt, who stated that the firm's clients and
marketplace "have been seriously affected by the continuing global
economic downturn." Intellectual property firm Fish & Richardson also
conducted a non-lawyer staff layoff on Thursday, letting go 30 employees
across eight U.S. offices.
The legal divorce between Joe Francis of "Girls Gone Wild" fame and his soon-to-be-former lawyers from The Bernhoft Law Firm might soon be appropriately nicknamed Lawyers Gone Wild. Faced with a March trial on federal tax evasion charges, Francis all but accused The Bernhoft Firm's two main partners of malpractice. But in a three-page declaration filed on Thursday before a district court judge in Los Angeles, one of the partners hit back at the client he can't seem to get rid of fast enough.
A military judge at Guantanamo rejected on Thursday a White House request to suspend a hearing for the alleged mastermind of the USS Cole bombing, creating an unexpected challenge for the administration as it reviews how America puts suspected terrorists on trial. The judge, Army Col. James Pohl, said his decision was difficult but necessary to protect "the public interest in a speedy trial." The ruling came in the case against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. The bombing killed 17 U.S. sailors.
The former New York judge who appointed Steven T. Rondos to oversee at least seven of the guardianship accounts that Rondos is charged with fleecing expressed dismay at the news in a phone interview Thursday. "I am disappointed -- I just thought he was really one of the good guys," said former Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Leonard Scholnick. A spokesman for the Office of Court Administration acknowledged on Thursday some "flaws" in the system for overseeing guardians' work but said those flaws were now corrected.
Partners at Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis and Chicago's Bell Boyd & Lloyd are scheduled to vote Friday on whether to merge the firms. The firms disclosed their talks in December. If approved, the merger would boost K&L Gates' head count to 1,950 lawyers and expand its footprint to the Chicago market. It would also strengthen the Pittsburgh-based giant's intellectual property and investment management practices.
Fenwick & West laid off 36 staff on Thursday, and said it was freezing associate salaries for the upcoming year. But unlike every other major San Francisco Bay Area law firm, including Cooley Godward Kronish and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, it did not cut attorneys. Gordon Davidson, chairman of the nearly 300-lawyer Mountain View, Calif., firm, said Fenwick didn't cut attorneys because of the lessons of the dot-com boom, during which the firm doubled its hiring and then was forced to cut associates in 2001.
Federal criminal corruption charges lodged against former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich have highlighted a gray area in the state's laws concerning whether the state's top executive can use campaign contributions for his legal defense fees. Illinois State Board of Elections officials say there's no state law that bars spending the funds on legal fees because it's not in a list of prohibited personal uses. Still, the board has never taken a stance on the issue.
The main allegations against embattled lawyer Marc Dreier came out of the bag last month, but there are a few noteworthy details in the grand jury indictment against him that was unsealed on Thursday. Among others, Dreier's alleged scam to sell bogus securities to investment fund clients apparently dates to 2004, not 2006, and his personal asset list includes a high-definition Robert Wilson art video of actress Salma Hayek.
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