Posts on ‘October 20th, 2008’

Willkie Farr & Gallagher has recruited a finance partner from Shearman & Sterling. Michael Zinder, who represented the lead banks providing financing in the $9.5 billion acquisition of PeopleSoft by Oracle in 2004, will join Willkie as co-chair of its banking and debt finance practice.

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement manual, released publicly for the first time, directs SEC staff not to ask a party to waive the attorney-client or work-product privileges in securities law investigations, but to refer all potential waiver issues to supervisory staff. Stephanie Martz, director of the white-collar crime project of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said the manual language appears to be a “hybrid” of recent approaches by the Department of Justice.

A former partner at the Albany, N.Y., law firm at the center of New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo’s probe of lawyers improperly enrolled in public pension systems has agreed to give back $250,000 to the state and its Common Retirement Fund. Cuomo said last week that E. Michael Ruberti improperly earned pension credits while listed as a school district employee, when in fact he was employed at the firm now known as Girvin & Ferlazzo and was working as an independent contractor for the district.

Jury selection is set before U.S. District Judge William Alsup in a trial pitting a class of retired NFL players against their union. The plaintiffs signed licensing deals to allow the union to market their images, and the retirees allege they should have shared equally in the revenue. Many older players received nothing, plaintiffs claim. Defendants, meanwhile, say every player whose likeness was used received royalties, and that the retirees were never entitled to an equal share.

Katten Muchin Rosenman and Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal have laid off attorneys as they try to adapt to the ailing economy’s decline in demand for legal services. Katten last week eliminated 21 associates and counsel “across multiple offices and practices,” according to a firm spokeswoman, who said no adjustments are being made to the first-year associate class. Sonnenschein, which in May cut 37 lawyers, has now laid off another 25 attorneys and a larger number of support staff.

During jury selection, Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens and his lawyers heard prospective jurors say, over and over, that criminal defendants should testify. “Of course,” one woman said. “Everyone should.” Not surprisingly, those who voiced this conviction loudest were bounced from the jury pool. And yet Stevens, confident and at times agitated, took the stand last week to defend himself against charges that he lied on his Senate financial disclosure forms to conceal more than $250,000 in gifts and home renovations.

Nearly 44,000 law students nationwide will graduate next year with an average of about $73,000 in loan debt. And while most realize that only a small fraction of new law graduates will start their careers with a big-firm salary, the past few weeks of economic chaos have caused many to wonder if any kind of attorney work is in their near future. Aware of the dismay, law school career services professionals say they are working to bolster morale among students and to keep the job outlook realistic.

On Friday, 78-year-old Lloyd Cantrell died when he bombed a Dalton, Ga., law office that represented his son in a bitter family land dispute. Bruce Cantrell had grown fearful of his father and hired a lawyer at McCamy, Phillips, Tuggle & Fordham to file a lawsuit to keep his dad off the property. The blast killed Cantrell and injured four others at the firm — and left residents struggling to reconcile how it could happen in their blue-collar town of 30,000.

Federal prosecutors have subpoenaed 12 Lehman Brothers executives, including CEO Richard Fuld, in connection with three grand jury investigations into the investment bank’s fall. Also included in the subpoenas: Former Lehman CFO Erin Callan, who landed at Credit Suisse after being booted from Lehman for hedge fund short selling. Feted less than a year ago as one of Wall Street’s most powerful women, Callan will be turning to Proskauer partner Robert Cleary for help.

Drug maker Pfizer Inc. has reached an $894 million deal to settle most of the lawsuits over its withdrawn pain reliever Bextra, following the lead of rival Merck & Co., which is spending five times as much to settle Vioxx suits. The agreement also would end lawsuits over Pfizer’s Celebrex, the only one of the three anti-inflammatory drugs still on the market. All three products have been linked to elevated risk of heart attacks and strokes.