Posts on ‘May 18th, 2009’

Houston-based manufacturer FMC Technologies is looking to update its roster of outside counsel and hire firms that embrace innovation, technology and, especially, alternative billing arrangements. But its general counsel, Jeffrey Carr, isn’t holding an auction or putting out a request for proposals to find them. He’s using Legal OnRamp, a social networking site for lawyers. Says Carr, “We like doing things differently. Some people call us grenade throwers. Some people call us crazy. But it works.”

When outsourcing, an organization should contract with a service provider to maintain its own security standards. Equifax outsourcing transaction counsel W. Carter Santos considers SAS 70, PCI data security and ISO 27001 as tools to gauge the effectiveness of a provider’s security.

In a year that ended dismally for many law firms, one subsection of intellectual property litigation continued to provide steady — and profitable — work: the patent disputes heard by the International Trade Commission known as 337 investigations. An annual survey by IP Law & Business found that 36 cases were filed in 2008 — a slight drop from 2007, but 12.5 percent more than in 2006. Law firms, eager to tout their expertise in this area to potential clients, are beefing up their ITC practices.

As law firms across the U.S. begin to roll back associate salaries and move toward a merit-based compensation model, firm leaders speaking at a conference this month pointed to sea changes occurring in the legal industry. With increased capital needs, changes in billing practices and an excess of attorneys, “meganumbers in terms of compensation are just going to disappear,” says one recruiter. “We’re now a business like every other American business,” said one firm chairman.

It doesn’t take much to derail, or at least significantly distract, a U.S. Supreme Court nomination. Remember Samuel Alito Jr.’s long-ago membership in a group that wanted Princeton University to remain all-male? Or John Roberts Jr.’s ruling upholding the arrest of a 12-year-old girl for eating a single french fry in a subway station? Even David Souter had his trial by innuendo, with scattered rumors that the lifelong bachelor was gay. What will be the Achilles’ heel for President Barack Obama’s nominee?

The imminent demise of the billable hour has been predicted for years, maybe now more than ever. And yet, like Rasputin, no matter whether one tries to stab it, shoot it or poison it, the billable hour somehow survives. But is it really as bad as clients think? Trial lawyer Press Millen argues that clients may be misguided if they make firm retention decisions mainly based on hourly rates. Millen gives five reasons why looking only at hourly rates doesn’t tell the full story when it comes to the bottom line.

Nobody’s ever said Ted Stevens’ defense team would come cheap. Stevens paid his lawyers at Williams & Connolly between $1 million and $5 million, according to a financial disclosure report the former Alaska senator filed with the Senate Ethics Committee. In the filing, Stevens brings up the disputed value of work done at his Alaska home, which prosecutors alleged he failed to report, stating “my alleged knowledge of who did what and the extent to which I believed they were paid for were contested at trial.”