Posts on ‘January 21st, 2009’

Eli Lilly has taken quite a beating lately, most recently in its decision to fork over $1.4 billion in fines to settle charges that it illegally marketed the anti-psychotic drug Zyprexa for off-label use. But there’s another, more complicated suit before the 2nd Circuit, this one involving insurance companies and other third-party providers who claim they overpaid for Zyprexa prescriptions written by doctors swayed by Lilly’s false marketing of the drug.

Dewey & LeBoeuf’s efforts to build a sought-after bankruptcy practice took a significant step Tuesday with the hire of Weil Gotshal partner Michael Kessler, who joins the business solutions and governance practice in New York. Kessler has played a role on a string of high-profile Chapter 11 filings, including Lehman Brothers. He says he was drawn to the opportunity to help build a restructuring practice and to work again with practice head Martin Bienenstock, who made the same move more than a year ago.

A judge has ordered mediation talks in February for Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman in its dispute with the trustee of the SonicBlue bankruptcy case over the firm’s failure to disclose a conflict of interest. The trustee wants Pillsbury to return $4.2 million in fees and pay compensatory damages of $11 million, alleging malpractice and breach of fiduciary duty. Pillsbury failed to disclose a pre-bankruptcy promise to creditors, which firm attorneys later described as a “scrivener’s error.”

The market meltdown saw 22 banks outright fail, but through it all, several major banks stood tall, and perhaps none taller than BNY Mellon. The bank ended the third quarter of 2008 with a profit of more than $300 million, despite a write-off of more than twice that sum — while other financial institutions posted huge losses. In its modest way, the legal department takes some of the credit. How did the in-house team help keep the bank afloat when others were flailing and failing?

Surprisingly, many IT pros and attorneys don’t understand the power of computer forensics, which can dig up deleted files. But the practice goes further, focusing on the analysis of computer data with the specific purpose of being able to testify as to what the data means.

Now that 2008 firm financials are becoming clearer, legal recruiters and consultants say lateral partner moves are bound to heat up just as they do at the start of every new fiscal year. But this time around, they say the added pressures of a tanking economy and firm layoffs will flood the market with even more partners looking for new homes, or for quick escape routes off sinking ships. And in D.C., recruiters and consultants see a handful of well-positioned firms as particularly desirable places to land.

President Barack Obama’s request to suspend all war crimes trials at Guantanamo was promptly accepted by military judges Wednesday in what may be the beginning of the end for the Bush administration’s system of trying alleged terrorists. The judges agreed to the 120-day halt the cases of five men charged in the Sept. 11 attacks and a Canadian accused of killing an American soldier in Afghanistan. Similar orders are expected in other pending cases before the Guantanamo military commission.

President Barack Obama in his inaugural address Tuesday rejected what he called a “false choice” between “our safety and our ideals,” signaling a change of course on the interplay between national security and individual rights. Obama’s 21-minute speech only nicked the subject of law, but his words foreshadowed an end to some of the most controversial policies of the Bush administration, particularly those related to the treatment of terrorism suspects.

The generation that lived through the Great Depression might now have an advantage when it comes to managing a budget for a corporate law department — or anything else, for that matter — according to Susan Hackett, general counsel and senior vice president for the Association of Corporate Counsel. The GCs’ GC offers a few frugality tips for consideration. At the top of the list: Don’t ask outside counsel for a discounted rate or a freeze on fees.