Posts on ‘November 11th, 2008’

Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll name partner Michael Hausfeld will be striking out on his own. The reasons for his departure were unclear, but on Friday he sent a brief e-mail to attorneys he had been working with indicating that he had been “expelled” from the firm. “In the meantime, I will be launching a new firm, Hausfeld LLP,” Hausfeld wrote in the e-mail.

What has been a slow and steady call by many corporations, in-house counsel and legal think tanks to law firms to abandon the billable hour in favor of alternative fee arrangements has turned into a loud drumbeat as the economy heads south. Many law firms are now offering clients an array of alternative fee arrangements, including flat fees, success fees, contingency fees and retainers. Even some large law firms are bowing to pressure from economically challenged clients and agreeing to other types of fees.

Sometimes the cutting remark from IT support can blunt its cutting-edge technology. Every year law firms spend millions of dollars on hardware and software, but the size, organization, responsiveness and attitude of the help desk was often the make-or-break factor for associates.

With Barack Obama headed to the White House, government and public interest law jobs are suddenly looking like good options for more law students. David Stern, executive director of Equal Justice Works, said the Obama administration might follow the pattern established by John F. Kennedy, when “people looked at public service as a noble calling.” Law school administrators and public interest law advocates are also hopeful that an Obama presidency will mean added financial aid for those who take such jobs.

Plaintiffs who claim a conspiracy by American Express to cover up an antitrust plot with other major credit card companies on foreign currency transactions won a victory as a federal appeals court said they cannot be compelled to arbitrate. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the plaintiffs could not be forced into arbitration because American Express was not a signatory to the MasterCard, Visa and Diners Club credit card agreements that included the arbitration clauses.

Two years ago, Heller Ehrman’s Silicon Valley office was filled with hope as workers put the finishing touches on a fancy remodel. With news Monday that the collapsed law firm negotiated a settlement to get out of the expensive lease, the office is offering a new kind of hope — that Heller might avoid bankruptcy. The new tenant is Chicago-based McDermott, Will & Emery, which announced on Monday that it had signed a new 10-year lease.

Conventional wisdom, accelerated by Barack Obama’s Nov. 4 victory, has Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John Paul Stevens and David Souter, all on the moderate-liberal wing of the Court, heading for the exits during Obama’s first term. As the theory goes, all three justices would be happier being replaced under a Democrat. But justices don’t always follow political timetables for their departures. And Ginsburg, for one, has put the word out in no uncertain terms that she isn’t looking to leave.

On Oct. 16, the New York Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions of former Tyco executives Dennis Kozlowski and Mark Swartz, who may now theoretically challenge their convictions in federal court by seeking habeas review. Regardless of the fate of these two individuals, the opinion may have created more issues than it resolved. Its construction of a civil procedure discovery statute in the context of a criminal prosecution may well have opened up a Sixth Amendment Pandora’s box.