Posts on ‘March 11th, 2009’

The economic downturn is pushing corporate legal departments to a new level of frugality, particularly when it comes to the cost of outside counsel, according to a group of in-house lawyers who spoke at the Leadership Institute for Women of Color Attorneys in Law & Business. “When we get letters from law firms saying how much they are going to increase their fees in 2009, everybody breaks out in laughter, because that is not happening,” said Sandra Mulrain, division counsel for Georgia-Pacific.

Connecticut, Massachusetts and Nevada enacted laws requiring businesses to institute compliance to secure personal data from identity theft. Nick Akerman and Melissa J. Krasnow, partners at Dorsey & Whitney, discuss the new laws and their significance for businesses and law firms.

On March 31, after 30 years of impunity, senior members of the bloody Khmer Rouge regime will face their first trial before a United Nations-backed tribunal in Cambodia. Richard Rogers, the British-born lawyer coordinating the defense team for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, tells Law.com how he made the move from London barrister to Coudert Brothers patent litigator to international war crimes specialist.

Litigation activity in China is growing at a rapid pace, according to a report issued Tuesday by the nation’s top judge. Chinese courts handled 10.7 million cases of various types in 2008, up 11 percent from the year before. Cases that saw an increase ranged from fraud, which grew 13 percent, to labor disputes, which jumped a whopping 94 percent.

Even in the best of times, it’s not a good idea to wait until the fourth quarter to begin addressing bill collection issues. Consultant Jake Krocheski notes that in these more challenging times, it is vital to be proactive, to have a good management system in place at the beginning of the year, and to follow through vigilantly all year long. Krocheski suggests that law firms take several steps, both internally and with clients, to get a handle on the bill collection process before things get out of control.

Pillsbury has reached a $10 million settlement in a malpractice dispute with bankrupt client SonicBlue, a court filing Tuesday shows. The firm will pay $7.6 million and forgo $2.4 million in outstanding fees to SonicBlue’s estate, according to the filing, which awaits approval by a bankruptcy judge at a hearing slated for March 31. SonicBlue’s estate had sued Pillsbury for malpractice and breach of fiduciary duty, demanding the firm return $4.2 million in fees and pay $11 million in damages.

Robert Bork once said serving on the Supreme Court would be “an intellectual feast.” By contrast, Justice David Souter said at an event Monday night that he undergoes a “sort of annual intellectual lobotomy” when the Supreme Court term begins in October, a condition that he said lasts until the end of the term. The offhand remark opens an interesting window into his thinking about his job — and why conventional wisdom has it that he is considering leaving the Court soon to repair to his New Hampshire home.

Unless he changes his mind, Bernard L. Madoff will plead guilty Thursday
to 11 counts in the largest Ponzi scheme in history. Assistant U.S.
Attorney Marc Litt told New York federal Judge Denny Chin Tuesday that
Madoff, 70, faces as much as 150 years behind bars. Should the judge
accept the plea, he will then confront the controversial issue of
whether to order Madoff imprisoned immediately. Sentencing in the case,
the judge said, is months away.

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s reinvigorated enforcement focus in the new presidential administration and under the leadership of new Chairwoman Mary Schapiro increases prosecution risks for public company directors. Schapiro has also instituted SEC policy changes to increase the commission’s enforcement powers. Michael Dockterman, a litigation partner at Chicago’s Wildman, Harrold, Allen & Dixon, discusses why boards need to boost compliance, even amid corporate budget cutbacks.

Public corporations across all industries are reacting to the government’s scrutiny of banking compensation practices and a revenue crunch caused by the economic crisis by calling on lawyers to restructure executive bonuses and salaries and employee stock-options plans. “Any time you experience this kind of political dynamic and ensuing regulatory change, it’s going to create work for counsel and create work for counsel pretty quickly,” said Pepper Hamilton’s David Kaplan.