Posts on ‘November 18th, 2008’

The owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban, was charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission with insider trading Monday. The SEC alleges that in June of 2004 Cuban told his broker to sell all 600,000 of his shares of stock in Mamma.com, an Internet search engine company, after he allegedly knew the stock price would become diluted before the company announced it was issuing more shares. The agency estimates Cuban avoided more than $750,000 in losses.

A mortgage lawyer was slain during a botched ambush robbery set up by the man’s business partner, who allegedly paid a stripper and her boyfriend to commit the holdup, police said Monday. James DiMartino was shot and killed Oct. 21, after he arrived for what he believed would be a business meeting in a restaurant parking lot in eastern Long Island. The three suspects have pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder.

In upholding a district judge’s below-guideline sentence in a tax fraud case, Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the D.C. Circuit has offered a critique — and a solution — to an advisory regime he says “inevitably will lead to sentencing disparities and inequities.” To the extent that the sentencing system “becomes a roll of the dice that depends too much on the sentencing judge — those concerns must be addressed by Congress and the president, who have the authority to produce new legislation,” Kavanaugh wrote.

President-elect Barack Obama has picked Williams & Connolly partner Gregory Craig as White House counsel, filling the first major legal position in his administration with a top Washington lawyer who represented President Bill Clinton during his impeachment. Craig was a close adviser to Obama throughout the campaign and among the first lawyers to back his presidential bid. The selection has only fueled speculation about who Obama will tap as attorney general.

U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie, whose prosecutions sent scores of corrupt politicians to prison, announced on Monday he would resign on Dec. 1, reigniting speculation that he would seek New Jersey’s governorship next year. Attorney General Michael Mukasey did not immediately name a successor — but an official close to Christie says the office has recommended that the job go to First Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Marra Jr., at least until the Obama administration looks for a new U.S. Attorney.

The federal bailout plan reminds the Am Law Daily of the classic kid’s board game Hungry Hungry Hippos, with financial services firms playing the role of the colorful hippos lunging to gobble up their share of government cash. Hartford and three other insurance companies with no history of banking have joined the parade, scrambling to buy small savings-and-loans, which allows the insurers to qualify as banks and become eligible for the bailout billions. Not everyone thinks the maneuver is kosher.

In a pair of en banc arguments on Wednesday, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will tackle questions that could have a broad impact on how appellate courts review criminal sentences and on the scope of the federal courts’ powers in granting relief in habeas corpus petitions. Criminal defense lawyers will be watching both cases, not only for their direct impacts, but for how the 3rd Circuit’s newer judges vote.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown urged the state Supreme Court on Monday to offer an immediate and thorough review of three cases challenging Proposition 8 — a move that cheered the measure’s opponents and upset its proponents. Although Brown is obliged to defend Prop 8, opponents of the Nov. 4 initiative that eliminated same-sex marriage called the AG’s push for review a significant step and noted that Brown could have asked that the cases be dismissed out of hand.

For GCs, an important strategy for getting their work done within their corporate legal department budgets is to be able to pick and choose from a variety of sizes and types of law firms, from boutiques to giants. So, they’re watching law firm merger developments with cautious concern. Many in-house lawyers fear that mergers, like the recent one between Powell Goldstein and Bryan Cave, will place increased pressures on hourly rates and minimum requirements at the new, larger firms.

There may be no client relationship management project quite as challenging as data migration and de-duplication. Three law firms tackled these issues and learned valuable lessons while rolling out CRM software ContactEase: Data quality isn’t a task — it’s an ongoing project.