Posts on ‘January 30th, 2009’

The main allegations against embattled lawyer Marc Dreier came out of the bag last month, but there are a few noteworthy details in the grand jury indictment against him that was unsealed on Thursday. Among others, Dreier’s alleged scam to sell bogus securities to investment fund clients apparently dates to 2004, not 2006, and his personal asset list includes a high-definition Robert Wilson art video of actress Salma Hayek.

Deborah M. House, vice president and deputy general counsel of the Association of Corporate Counsel, has done her share of job hunting and hiring. She estimates she has pursued and been offered 10 jobs in her career — she has been rejected for three — and has hired 50 people from hundreds of candidates. So House feels she is in a strong position to offer advice to in-house lawyers who’ve been laid off or downsized in the current economic calamity and are looking for work.

The quest to examine all ESI and pursue discovery sanctions often leads to runaway litigation costs. A lawsuit’s true merits don’t justify engaging in every EDD process available, says Morris Manning litigation partner Larry H. Kunin. Three scenarios illustrate his point.

Atlanta’s King & Spalding has expanded its Middle East property practice with the deployment of two senior lawyers to its Abu Dhabi office. The move brings the number of King & Spalding lawyers and legal assistants in the Middle East to 27. Partner W. Clay Gibson and senior counsel Timothy N. Tucker have relocated from Atlanta to Abu Dhabi, where Gibson will head the real estate practice in the region.

Clifford Chance is targeting a 20 percent reduction in lawyer head count in its Moscow office over the current financial year, with the firm’s Middle East offices also set for a potential drop in numbers. In Moscow, Clifford Chance has laid off around six lawyers through individual consultations, with the office losing another 24 lawyers through natural attrition, taking the total lawyer numbers down to about 150 in the office.

Think the Fashion Police are an urban legend? Think again. Attorney Tracey I. Batt describes her harrowing experience during a “full-scale intervention” at her former law firm, which came after she apparently failed to follow the firm’s multipage, full-color brochure on appropriate “business casual” attire. The good news is that Batt, now director of a nonprofit legal services organization, currently works from home — although demands for “business casual” may lurk just around the corner.

Famed trial lawyer Martin Garbus — whose notable clients have included Lenny Bruce and Don Imus — has filed a derivative suit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on behalf of four shareholders of Stan Lee Media Inc., against legendary comic book creator Stan Lee, Marvel Entertainment and other individuals. In the suit, Garbus claims the defendants violated his clients’ copyrights and improperly pocketed $750 million in proceeds from Marvel-owned franchises like Spider-Man, Iron Man and the X-Men.

A federal judge has awarded liquidated damages, effectively doubling a jury’s verdict in a Family and Medical Leave Act case after finding that an in-house lawyer’s failure to research whether a pregnant worker was covered by the FMLA was evidence of the company’s lack of good faith. The company lawyer testified at trial that he had determined it was “OK” to terminate the worker because she was a “brand new employee.” The judge said the lawyer’s “cursory determination” on the issue was “inadequate.”

As so many law firms either pared their ranks or dissolved completely in recent months, it’s clear that not all the newcomers to the lateral market intended to be there. Call them accidental laterals. With so many lawyers job-hunting, the tenor of their experience was markedly different than that of the typical lateral itching to find a new home. The equation changed for law firms looking for fresh talent, too. What can firms and tomorrow’s accidental laterals learn from this past year? On the recruiting side, the advice boils down to a maddening bromide: Move quickly — but not too quickly!