Posts on ‘February 26th, 2009’

As most IT professionals know, audio files are fully discoverable. They can paint a complete picture of an information exchange where, for example, a person is having a phone dialogue with a client and, at the same time, sending e-mails to another based on the telephone conversation.

Trowers & Hamlins has made a second round of layoffs this week, with four jobs in the firm’s U.K. offices affected. The cuts are expected to come in the firm’s real estate team, with three jobs likely to go in the Manchester plot sales team, while one job will be cut in Exeter. London is currently unaffected by the cutbacks. The news comes after the firm revealed it was to scale back its headcount in the Middle East, with seven lawyers set to lose their jobs.

The Supreme Court issued two unanimous rulings on Wednesday, solidifying recent trends in both First Amendment and antitrust law. The Court ruled that placement of a memorial on public land is a form of government speech, not the kind of private speech in a public forum that invites First Amendment scrutiny. A second decision weakened the “price squeeze” antitrust doctrine, continuing a line of recent cases that have made it harder for plaintiff companies to succeed in antitrust suits against competitors.

Several leading law schools are retooling their grading policies, with some making major revisions and others merely tweaking their systems. Harvard Law School and Stanford Law School, for example, are switching from the traditional grade and letter policies to pass/fail systems. And New York University School of Law now allows professors to give more A’s. Some institutions, such as Columbia Law School, are reviewing their grading systems to see whether they need updating. What’s prompting the changes?

The Bail Reform Act is getting a real workout during the latest spat of white-collar criminal prosecutions in the Southern District of New York. The government won the most recent round Wednesday when Judge Denise Cote set virtually unreachable bail conditions for Arthur Nadel, a disbarred lawyer turned hedge fund adviser accused of swindling investors out of tens of millions of dollars. The names of Bernard Madoff and Marc S. Dreier, who are both out on bail, were invoked during the hearing before Cote.

Yolanda Young, a former Covington & Burling staff attorney who wrote a controversial column for the Huffington Post on racial segregation at large law firms, filed a discrimination suit on Tuesday that names the firm, two litigation partners, a former associate and two former staff attorneys as defendants. Young, an African American, alleges that after she complained in 2006 about being subjected to months of ethnic and racial slurs by white staff attorneys, Covington management began a campaign to discredit her.

As the country faces an economic downturn, law firms and corporations are forced to take actions such as downsizing and mass layoffs as cost-cutting solutions. As a result, employers and employees are struggling with a multitude of challenges, and a proactive solution is needed immediately. The key is strategic planning, says lawyer and business development professional Melanie A. Klinghoffer. She outlines a three-part plan designed to focus on an organization’s most valuable asset: people.