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Underscoring the adverse effect custody fights have on children, a Connecticut judge stars in a 30-minute video delivering the same speech she gives in the courtroom, encouraging settlement rather than protracted battles. The video is downloadable from the Judicial Branch Web site.
Cincinnati-based Dinsmore & Shohl reported mixed results for 2008, with gross revenue solidly up but profits per partner showing a double-digit decrease. Gross revenue rose 10.7 percent to $132.8 million. Firm profits were down 4 percent to $44 million; profits per partner declined almost 16 percent to $385,000. Managing partner George Vincent says the acquisition of two 20-plus lawyer groups helped the firm's gross revenue but hurt its bottom line. He says both corporate and litigation work were off last year.
The Federal Circuit's decision rewrote the boundaries of business method patents, and attorney Michael Jakes is fighting back. On behalf of Equitable Resources Inc., the Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner partner this week filed a writ of certiorari asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the ruling. He spoke with about the reasons why is invalid, the impact of the decision and the usefulness of business method patents.
In a post about Solicitor General-designate Elena Kagan, we invoked the oft-repeated chestnut that the solicitor general is the only position whose occupant is required by statute to be "learned in the law." Well, not quite. A careful reader alerted us to 2 U.S.C. Sec. 288(a)(2), which states that the counsel and deputy counsel of the U.S. Senate also "shall be learned in the law." But did former Solicitor General Seth Waxman once make the same mistake we did?
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.
Atlanta-based labor and employment firm Fisher & Phillips is on an expansion drive. Last week, the firm announced it would open an office in Louisville, Ky., with five attorneys it hired from a local firm. Now comes the news that Fisher & Phillips is merging with Portland, Maine-based labor and employment boutique Moss Shapiro. The merger will give Fisher & Philips its first New England location, bringing its total number of offices to 21 in the United States. The firm has about 200 attorneys.
President Barack Obama is quickly filling the ranks of the White House Counsel's Office, announcing on Wednesday the appointments of 22 new White House lawyers. For principal deputy White House counsel to the president and deputy assistant to the president, Obama chose Daniel Meltzer, currently a Harvard law professor. Other picks: a former Zuckerman Spaeder partner and two veterans of the Clinton administration.
In a 17-2 vote, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted overwhelmingly Wednesday in favor of Eric Holder Jr.'s nomination to be attorney general, sending his name to the full Senate for a confirmation vote as soon as today. Holder's nomination has been among the most contentious picks of President Barack Obama because of his involvement in President Bill Clinton's 2001 pardon of fugitive commodities trader Marc Rich and other Clinton-era controversies.
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