Posts on ‘January 16th, 2009’

A clearer picture is emerging of the new Justice Department’s higher ranks, as Attorney General nominee Eric Holder Jr.’s confirmation hearings begin. Among the front-runners for top DOJ slots: lawyers from Morrison & Foerster and Mayer Brown and the law professor who successfully argued the landmark detainee rights case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

A federal district judge has ordered that copies of documents related to the 2006 firings of nine U.S. Attorneys must be stored at the White House for use by the Obama administration and for ongoing litigation over former White House counsel Harriet Miers’ refusal to appear before an investigating committee. Last year, U.S. District Judge John Bates rejected the Bush administration’s claim of absolute privilege as a defense to the Judiciary Committee lawsuit seeking to compel Miers’ testimony.

A nutrition advocacy group, the Washington-based Center for Science in the Public Interest, on Thursday sued the Coca-Cola Co., the biggest beverage maker in the world, for what a class action calls “deceptive” health claims about VitaminWater. The group accuses Coke of selling what it says is basically sugar water through claims that the product has vitamins that boost immunity and reduce the risk of disease. A Coca-Cola spokeswoman called the lawsuit a “cheap, opportunistic publicity stunt.”

It’s not all doom and gloom on Wall Street. Based on Am Law Daily’s reporting, it appears that Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton last year saw both revenue and profits per partner rise. Gross revenue is up roughly 8 percent, while profits per partner increased about 12 percent. Revenue per lawyer, however, was basically flat. Cleary has benefited from its global diversification. Nearly half the firm’s lawyers are overseas, helping to cushion the blow from the dramatic slowdown in the United States.

L.A. lawyers Stanton Stein and Robert Kahan are going their separate ways after 33 years. The partners have been searching for a home for their group of 30-plus lawyers since the recent disintegration of the Santa Monica, Calif.-based Dreier affiliate. Prosecutors charged its sole owner, New York-based Marc Dreier, with securities fraud in December, and its business litigation piece recently returned to being its own boutique. Stein and Kahan are joining two different Southern California firms as name partners.

Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll laid off secretarial and administrative staff this week, in a second round of staff cuts at the firm since the summer. A firm spokeswoman would not comment on the number of layoffs or whether attorneys were affected. The decision is the latest in a series of layoffs in the Philadelphia legal market, as the faltering economy continues to be felt well beyond the largest markets. Mid-Atlantic firm Saul Ewing reduced its administrative staff by about 4 percent this month.

A Washington, D.C., grand jury has returned a three-count superseding indictment charging conspiracy, obstruction of justice and evidence tampering against the three men previously facing a single charge stemming from the 2006 murder of Robert Wone. Arent Fox partner Joseph Price, his domestic partner Victor Zaborsky, and their friend Dylan Ward deny any involvement in the death of Wone, who police say was restrained, sexually assaulted and stabbed in Price and Zaborsky’s Washington home.