Posts on ‘March 19th, 2009’

A small-town accountant Wednesday became the first person to join Bernard L. Madoff in facing criminal charges in connection with Madoff’s vast Ponzi scheme. Federal prosecutors accused David G. Friehling of securities fraud and other offenses for failing to conduct audits and for deceiving investors as he provided audit services to Madoff’s investment services business. He is not charged with knowledge of Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. Friehling and his firm were retained by Madoff from 1991 to 2008.

While mass layoffs at big law firms have grabbed headlines in recent months, in-house attorneys also have had their jobs taken away. Relatively few lawyers are being let go as part of mass corporate layoffs, in part because legal departments aren’t that big to start with and because the bigger cost often isn’t a company’s own lawyers, but the ones it hires from law firms. Out-of-work in-house lawyers are better off on the hopelessly unemployed scale than their law firm counterparts, recruiters say.

With more disputes required by contract to be resolved through international arbitrations, parties must pursue creative avenues to obtain written discovery and witnesses’ testimony. One such avenue is through 28 U.S.C. §1782. Currently, the courts are split over whether an international private arbitration constitutes a “tribunal” entitled to judicial assistance under §1782. Attorneys Sofia E. Biller and Howard S. Suskin examine the implications of that split on the availability of relief under §1782.

Creating a table of authorities for pleadings is often a last-minute, cumbersome task that takes hours to complete. Steptoe and Johnson’s senior legal editor, Karen Tucker, explains why the firm chose Levit & James’ Best Authority to order their authorities and meet the firm’s needs.

China has moved quickly to put a merger-control regime in place since its Anti-Monopoly Law went into effect on Aug. 1, 2008. Chinese authorities issued both formal filing guidelines and draft filing rules that set forth the basic procedures of the Chinese merger-filing regime and provide practitioners and businesses with guidance on how proposed transactions will be analyzed under the regime. Hogan & Hartson partners Jun Wei and Janet McDavid explain the new law and its effects so far.

Like the economy in general, things are not pretty in Big Law land, notes The Snark. Recently more than 700 legal jobs were eliminated in a single day, and there have been many more layoffs since then. What can we do to stop the pain? The Snark considers a couple of nifty solutions — spend money and think positive! The Snark also suggests some affirming mantras we can silently chant, and provides other helpful tips, such as using more exclamation points and smiley faces in e-mails.

Offering a broad interpretation of the protection afforded law firms by the Supreme Court’s ruling in , a New York federal judge on Tuesday dismissed claims against Mayer Brown and partner Joseph Collins, who represented Refco before and during its 2005 IPO. Judge Gerard Lynch concluded that even if Mayer Brown and Collins engaged in fraudulent activity on Refco’s behalf, they were not liable to shareholders unless they made misstatements directly to them.

A Manhattan judge ruled Wednesday that Bank of America must turn over to
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo a list of employees who received
bonuses paid out by Merrill Lynch on the eve of the financially strained
brokerage house’s merger with the bank. Cuomo called the decision a
“victory for taxpayers” that would “lift the shroud of secrecy
surrounding the $3.6 billion in premature bonuses Merrill Lynch rushed
out in early December.” The bank had claimed the bonus information
amounted to a trade secret.

As manager of law department operations for Aon Corp., David Cambria spends time and energy — possibly too much — translating “techie” for his firm’s attorneys who are, effectively, his clients. Here’s what Cambria hates about technology, in terms any lawyer should understand.