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LegalTech New York felt like a user conference this year, says Sean Doherty, Law.com's technology editor. Although the messages sent from vendors were mixed, a number of threads appeared that set the tone for the show and marked a direction for tech in the new year: full speed ahead.
Federal prosecutors have been stepping up their Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement efforts in recent months, and on Friday they landed a big catch they'd been targeting for some time. BAE Systems, the largest military contractor in Europe, has agreed to pay nearly $450 million as part of a global settlement with the U.S. Justice Department and the U.K.'s Serious Fraud Office that will resolve longstanding allegations of foreign corruption.
Who's getting hired? What practice areas are showing particular strength? Are law firms picking up partners who've been laid off? These were just some of the issues on the agenda during a roundtable discussion involving the chairs of three top firms -- J. Warren Gorrell of Hogan & Hartson, R. Bruce McLean of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld and Thomas Milch of Arnold & Porter -- and prominent legal recruiter Lynn Mestel, who noted that the lateral partner market "is the most robust it's been in 22 years."
Sadly for fans of consumer litigation, the great diet-plan advertising war has ended almost as quickly as it started. On Friday, Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig announced a settlement to a false advertising action that Weight Watchers had filed against Jenny Craig in late January. At issue: a Jenny Craig ad in which the company claimed that clinical trials showed Jenny Craig users lost twice as much weight as customers using "the largest weight-loss program."
A 9th Circuit panel has slapped the state of California with sanctions after the attorney general filed a fifth meritless appeal in ongoing prison conditions litigation. The $13,500 in sanctions is minuscule compared to the millions of dollars the state has paid to defend class actions brought by inmates over medical and mental health care. But it's also indicative of state leaders' almost automatic inclination to challenge many of the prison-related orders handed down by federal courts and court-appointed receivers.
Lawyers and litigants are counting days to determine how many dollars are at stake in the case of the music promoters who hijacked the name of The Drifters. A judge set a 90-day deadline Thursday for entrepreneur Larry Marshak and his associates to supply an accounting of their profits from bands with The Drifters name in the title in violation of an injunction obtained by trademark owner Faye Treadwell. Courts have ruled Treadwell is entitled to those profits, which could be in the vicinity of $10 million.
Pictures made of "Amy" -- as she's known in court papers -- when she was 8 or 9 are among the most widely circulated child pornography images online. A decade later, the woman is taking aim at anyone who would view the images and seeking restitution in hundreds of criminal cases. Her requests and those from other child pornography victims are forcing judges to grapple with tough questions: Is someone who possesses an abusive image responsible for the harm suffered by a particular child? And how much should that person pay?
Winston & Strawn has expanded its restructuring practice by hiring a three-lawyer team from Dewey & LeBoeuf: partners Lawrence A. Larose, who acted as lead counsel for MBIA Insurance in its restructuring effort last year, and Samuel S. Kohn, who was counsel at Dewey. Associate Sarah Trum also made the move. In addition, Winston has hired a former M&A partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher as senior counsel. The hires come as Winston & Strawn looks to grow its New York office to 300 attorneys from nearly 200.
Three litigation partners have signed on to join King & Spalding's Washington, D.C., and New York offices. The team, which is joining the firm from Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, includes Diana Weiss, James Capra Jr. and James Cusick. Weiss will be based in Washington, and Capra and Cusick will work from King & Spalding's New York office. Weiss said the opportunity to work alongside former Solicitor General Paul Clement, who leads King & Spalding's appellate practice, was a plus for the group.
A California appeals court came down on a Superior Court judge in a strongly worded opinion, criticizing the way the trial court handled the contempt case of an elderly, cash-strapped attorney who failed to pay $10,000 in discovery sanctions and was ordered to serve five days in jail on three occasions. The appeals court wrote that judges need to know the due process rights associated with different types of contempt, and that the court's actions "did not measure up to that law, not by a long shot."
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