Posts on ‘January 12th, 2009’

A tanking economy and crippled credit market posed a double blow for San Francisco Bay Area-based Am Law 100 firms in 2008. Firms battled rising costs and declining demand for legal services, which combined to deliver shrinking profit margins across the board. Firms with the least exposure to New York’s financial sector fared better. But rising costs dragged down profits, and revenue growth slowed to single digits for most firms.

Verdict Systems’ Verdical attempts to increase the functionality of trial presentation software beyond the presentation of evidence — and transcript and database support — by including more robust data management features. Consultant Peter Phaneuf gauges Verdical’s success.

Would nervous associates work reduced hours at reduced pay if it meant their law firms would forgo layoffs? Officials with the Project for Attorney Retention and several legal consultants are recommending that law firms implement reduced-hours programs as a way to manage the flagging economy. It remains to be seen if the idea will catch on with firms, but the most resistance comes from the associates themselves, due to a perception that working less than a full schedule is a career killer.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics released its highly anticipated job report on Friday, and the legal services industry didn’t escape unscathed. The legal services industry in the United States shed some 7,000 jobs between December 2007 and December 2008 — that includes not just lawyers on payroll, but paralegals, public relations specialists, secretaries and other positions. But while the legal market contracted in 2008, December did provide somewhat of a silver lining.

Two months of preparation will reach a climax Thursday when Eric Holder Jr. enters his confirmation hearing to be attorney general. His opponents will look for opportunities to question his judgment — and perhaps score political points. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has “guaranteed” that the Senate will confirm Holder. But Republicans, led by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., are promising a prickly hearing. Here are 11 things you’re likely to see this week, and maybe one to hope for.

As law firms downsize, attorneys unable to find jobs have been turning to an option they may never have imagined at law school: becoming contract attorneys — hired guns for $35 an hour. Yet in the past couple of months, even that field appears to be showing signs of a slowdown.

For years, environmental and shareholder activists have pushed companies that generate greenhouse gases to disclose how climate change could affect their financial outlook. Now, two operators of coal-burning power plants have agreed to provide this information in their 10-K filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It was New York’s attorney general, not the SEC, that demanded the information, and experts say the agreements could create a new standard for environmental risk reporting.