Browse >
Home / Archive: January 2009
Rejecting employer arguments that retaliation would become an "easy charge" for certain employees, the U.S. Supreme Court this week unanimously held that an employee who speaks out about discrimination by answering questions in an employer's internal investigation is protected against retaliation under the nation's major job bias law. Management lawyers say the decision is likely to lead to an increase in worker retaliation claims and greater caution by employers as to which workers should be interviewed.
How do you make a roomful of risk-averse lawyers squirm? Tell them they can't buy their malpractice insurance. That's exactly what U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali did on Wednesday when he denied defunct Heller Ehrman's request to purchase three years of malpractice insurance, agreeing with the creditors committee that the risks did not outweigh the estimated $10.2 million price tag. "The committee gets to say how they want their money spent at the moment," Montali said.
Disclosure statements filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics show that some of the key lawyers picked by President Barack Obama for his administration reaped the profits of being Am Law 100 partners. Among them: Eric Holder Jr., Obama's nominee for attorney general, who made $3.3 million at Covington & Burling last year, a number that includes deferred compensation. The AG-to-be (barring an unexpected senatorial rejection) stands to earn between $1 million and $5 million from Covington as part of a separation agreement with the firm.
Brooklyn lawyer Steven T. Rondos has been charged with stealing more
than $4 million from guardianship bank accounts he supervised for
incapacitated elderly people and children. A court spokesman
acknowledged that some of the thefts "should have been caught earlier"
and reported that "a handful" of examiners assigned to monitor
guardians' accounts had been asked to resign. The DA's office says
Rondos used a large part of the money for a home mortgage and
improvements, including kitchen renovations and a home theater.
Boston Scientific Corp. and Medtronic Inc. have announced settlement of two patent infringement lawsuits and put three others on hold in federal courts in Texas and California. The agreement stops all current litigation between the two companies. One of the five suits includes a Marshall, Texas, case in which a federal jury ordered Boston Scientific, the world's largest maker of heart stents, to pay $250 million to Medtronic over patents on balloons that inflate heart arteries.
At least eight lawyers from ailing Dreier, Stein, Kahan, Browne, Woods, George are joining Snell & Wilmer to open the firm's first Los Angeles office. The move is the latest involving the Santa Monica, Calif.-based former affiliate of Dreier LLP, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month after its founder and managing partner, Marc Dreier, was charged with investment fraud.
Intellectual property firm Fish & Richardson laid off 30 staff members across eight U.S. offices and joined a growing list of firms cutting staff in lieu of lawyers as economic conditions deteriorate. In a statement, Fish cited the economic climate as the reason for the cuts. The roughly 500-lawyer firm, which is also known for litigation and corporate matters, opened its 11th U.S. office in Houston in October.
One pie-in-the-sky ideal for budgets from outside counsel is that law firms will submit accurate projections of their costs on all matters, extending out for a year, and that in-house managers will review the budgets critically and analyze and act on that information. But law firms and law departments fall far short of such exemplary practices. Consultant Rees Morrison and business professor Paul Morrison look at five elements of budgeting and propose some new-ish ideas that can actually be put into effect.
In part three of a five-part series, video marketing guru Gerry Oginski presents his million-dollar tip: Include what 99 percent of attorneys do not include in their videos: Information! The more info you give a viewer, the greater chance you'll be seen as an expert in your field.
Just days before their law firms respectively announced an alliance with a top London firm and took on the assignment of advising the company that has been dubbed "India's Enron," AZB & Partners managing partner Zia Mody and Amarchand & Mangaldas & Suresh A Shroff & Co managing partner Cyril Shroff appeared together on the Indian edition of CNBC. Their wide-ranging discussion covered the year past and what lies ahead for the Indian business and legal communities.
« Previous Page — Next Page »
