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Trial lawyers are preparing for a fight in Congress, testing whether they can translate their newfound political capital into legislative victories. They have a wish list that includes expanded opportunities for state litigation, a ban on mandatory arbitration for consumer contracts, and a new way to exempt early litigation costs from taxes. The proposals have been overshadowed by the economy, but the start of hearings as soon as today signals that lawmakers are starting to shift their attention.
Call it what you like -- historic, unprecedented, apocalyptic -- 2008 was a year that few Am Law 100 lawyers will forget. It was a lousy year all along, and then it got a whole lot worse. 's Corporate Scorecard shows just how bad it was, and which firms got hit the hardest, in nine major practice areas.
Former Stanford Financial CIO Laura Pendergest-Holt may not have money to pay her lawyers, but she's getting a lot of legal help. Lawyer Anthony Buzbee filed a suit for Pendergest-Holt on Friday, accusing Proskauer Rose and partner Thomas Sjoblom of legal malpractice, professional negligence and breach of fiduciary duty. The suit alleges a conflict of interest and claims that before and during her Feb. 17 meeting with SEC investigators, Pendergest-Holt believed that Sjoblom was acting as her attorney.
Carolyn Plump, who chairs the labor and employment practice at Mitts Milavec, said the lawyer in her can't sit by and watch AIG get trashed for actions it may have legally been required to take. She discusses the AIG bonus scandal, Congress' response and, in her opinion, the legal profession's duty to preserve the sanctity of the contract. True, the bonuses are offensive and maddening to the taxpayer bailing out a corporate giant, but there may have been legally binding contracts at issue, Plump says.
Nobody expected the proposed $565 million acquisition of natural foods grocer Wild Oats by its rival Whole Foods Market to spark a food fight of epic proportions. But on March 6 -- after two years, $28 million in legal fees and expenses, and dozens of lawyers -- Whole Foods cut a deal to end the battle. The most important result of the battle may be a controversial D.C. Circuit opinion that some fear will make it too easy for the FTC to block future mergers.
The "hot news" tort arises out of the misappropriation and use for commercial gain of facts gathered by a competitor. But when the courts apply it, especially in new media contexts such as the Internet, they must be particularly careful of any possible unintended consequences.
Think of a place where employees are fired without an ounce of risk to the company. That's the China K. Lesli Ligorner landed in when she launched Paul Hastings' employment practice there in May 2006. Only three years later, things are much different. A trio of new Chinese laws launched in 2008 have delivered a lot more work around employment issues for law firms practicing in China, and Ligorner's group has never been busier.
While so many law firms are making the news due to layoffs, a number of plaintiffs firms with securities class action practices are actually hiring associates. And not surprisingly, a good number of resumes they're seeing come from big defense firms. "What I keep hearing from associates at large defense firms is that they would rather play offense than defense," said Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann partner Blair Nicholas, whose 60-lawyer firm has added eight associates and four counsel since mid-2008.
The Web is buzzing about a mistrial in which jurors admitted to using Google or other online sources to research their jury assignment. Instead of taking jurors to task for ignoring instructions, Web sites and bloggers chided the legal system for being slow to deal with the modern world
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