Posts on ‘February 3rd, 2009’

The federal judge overseeing the bankruptcy of Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers has been arrested on charges of slapping his wife. Judge James Peck was arraigned Sunday in Manhattan Criminal Court and released without bail. Chief Judge Stuart M. Bernstein had no comment on whether Peck’s own legal difficulties would affect the Lehman case or any others, according to Bernstein’s law clerk.

The Florida Bar is coming out in a big way — for gay adoption. The Bar’s board of governors voted unanimously to file an amicus brief supporting a Miami-Dade judge’s ruling that declared unconstitutional a state ban on gay adoptions. About five years ago, the Bar’s family section requested permission to approach the state Legislature in opposition to the ban, but the Bar’s board of governors denied permission. “This is different … Now we have a judicial decision that we’re trying to defend,” said one section member.

Flamboyant astrologer Walter Mercado’s stars were aligned when a federal jury found that he broke a contract with his former management companies but did not owe a penny of the millions of dollars sought for lost profits and damages. Mercado’s attorney, Carlos A. Velasquez, said he never had a jury find a client broke contractual obligations but owed nothing. A fixture on Univision’s “Primer Impacto,” Mercado is known as much for his ostentatious, Liberace-like style as his reading of the stars.

The New Jersey Supreme Court has ordered the disbarment of former Superior Court Judge Stephen Thompson based on his conviction of exploitation of a minor. The court adopted a disciplinary board’s recommendation that disbarment was the only appropriate sanction for Thompson’s conduct, which included downloading child pornography in his chambers and going to Russia for sex with an underage boy. At his criminal trial, Thompson’s main defense was that traumatic injuries suffered during combat caused his pedophiliac tendencies.

Keker & Van Nest is the gold standard for litigation boutiques. But on Monday, the firm lost a little bit of its luster as Daralyn Durie and Ragesh Tangri set out with Stanford patent law professor Mark Lemley and Keker partners Clement Roberts and Ryan Kent to form their own firm. In 2006, Durie won a huge patent infringement trial for Comcast, saving them from Caritas Technologies’ $2.2 billion demand. Word of the new firm traveled fast, with a recruiter calling the move “a big deal.”

Jon W. Dudas, former undersecretary of commerce for intellectual property and director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, has joined the Washington office of Foley & Lardner as a partner in its intellectual property counseling and public affairs practices. Chosen for the position by President George W. Bush in 2004, Dudas previously served as acting undersecretary and director, and deputy undersecretary and deputy director of the PTO, from 2002 to 2004.

The Bernard Madoff scandal alone could keep securities litigators in high demand for months or years to come. Add a sinking economy and a changing regulatory environment to the equation and it’s easy to see why the practice has heated up. That fact has certainly not gone unnoticed by securities litigators themselves, many of whom have taken the opportunity to jump ship to much larger firms.