Posts on ‘December 12th, 2008’

Given the current economic climate, this isn’t a great hiring climate, to say the least. 1Ls applying for jobs beginning on their Dec. 1 kickoff date face severely diminished summer job possibilities. So what to do? First, don’t despair, writes Lynne Traverse, Bryan Cave’s recruiting and professional development manager. Employers won’t expect to see a lot of premium 1L summer jobs when they look at resumes next fall, so anything that allows you to gain some worthwhile experience will make you look good.

Dykema Gossett, a Detroit-based firm with 10 offices across the United States, is expanding its Chicago office to create room for the 90 attorneys who joined the firm when it merged with Chicago-based Schwartz Cooper this year. Dykema expects to ultimately have between 150 and 200 lawyers in the Chicago office, according to Chairman Rex Schlaybaugh.

Citigroup and UBS AG agreed on Dec. 11 to buy back a total of nearly $30 billion in risky auction-rate securities that regulators said the banks marketed to customers as safe. Tens of thousands of the banks’ customers bought the auction-rate securities before the $330 billion market for them froze in mid-February, the SEC said in announcing the final accords. The new settlements are the largest return of customer money in the agency’s history, according to SEC Chairman Christopher Cox.

Seyfarth Shaw has laid off about 30 lawyers and staff employees firmwide, according to the firm’s Atlanta managing partner, Paul P. Mattingly. He declined to say which practices were shedding lawyers, but did say the cuts were in practices most affected by the economic downturn. “Since layoffs have become so pervasive, clarifying that they were not for performance reasons, but because of market conditions, seemed like the fair thing to do,” said Mattingly.

Peter Tourison, a New Jersey municipal judge who drove while intoxicated, told an ethics committee at a hearing Wednesday that the proper quantum of discipline is a reprimand, nothing more. But comments by members of the state Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct suggest that he may draw a stiffer sanction if his antics while waiting to take a breath test are put into the equation. Tourison’s lawyer told the panel at the hearing that the case will be “forever remembered as the penny in the mouth case.”

Many among the Duquesne Law School community and the larger legal community were scratching their heads Thursday over the reasons for the abrupt removal of the school’s dean, although others pointed to tension between the dean and the university administration. A university spokeswoman said Donald J. Guter was repeatedly warned about unmet performance expectations, though she said she couldn’t specify what those expectations were. Guter will take a faculty position with the school.

A Texas appeals court has vacated its May decision that tossed out a $7.75 million judgment in a case in which Felicia Garza alleged that taking the prescription drug Vioxx caused her 71-year-old husband, Leonel Garza, to suffer a fatal heart attack. The court remanded the case for a new trial because of “juror misconduct” involving loans received from Felicia Garza. The court also reversed its holding that Leonel Garza’s pre-existing heart problems could not be ruled out as the cause of his death.

She is the daughter of the powerful Illinois House speaker, the state’s first female attorney general and a rising star in the Democratic party. Lisa Madigan had a high profile long before Gov. Rod Blagojevich became engulfed in scandal, but the ongoing political soap opera has only elevated her status. Madigan is threatening to file a lawsuit asking the state Supreme Court to declare Blagojevich unfit to hold office if he doesn’t resign or get impeached.

If they want their share of $37 million in attorney fees in the nationwide lumber price-fixing litigation, Michael Hausfeld and his erstwhile partners at Cohen Milstein are going to have to put aside their differences for long enough to help devise a plan to allocate the fees. In an unusual Dec. 9 order, Philadelphia federal District Court Judge Paul Diamond ruled that Hausfeld, his old partners and lead plaintiffs counsel Jeffrey Corrigan must submit a proposal for court approval.