Posts on ‘May 22nd, 2009’

Headlines heralding shrinking first-year associate classes, law firm downsizings and reduced lateral opportunities have attorneys thinking about other career options, including a possible role in law firm management. But landing a position within the firm managerial structure is neither easy, nor is it sure to be the anticipated panacea, warns management consultant Maureen M. Reid. Much of the nature of management work conflicts with the very things that make practicing law so appealing, Reid says.

Lawyers from larger firms are increasingly striking out on their own — both by necessity and by choice. Legal consultant Edward Poll says the numbers of inquiries he has received about lawyers starting new firms has more than tripled in the last year, and statistics from Martindale-Hubbell on the growth in number of firms over the past year back up Poll’s experience. Financing a new firm is particularly tricky in a tight credit market, but economics can also work in favor of small firms and their clients.

In a case of first impression in New Jersey, an appeals court held that defense counsel cannot ask the plaintiffs about their immigration status during discovery in a putative class action suit alleging an employer cheated workers out of just compensation and overtime pay. Nor can the plaintiffs be asked whether they lied to their employer or made false statements, unless the defense can show those statements have a direct impact on their credibility in determining eligibility for back pay and overtime.

After five years of legal wrangling and a three-month trial in 2008, the toy war that pitted Mattel against the maker of the popular Bratz dolls may be headed for a detente. At a hearing Monday, Pierre-Richard Prosper, a former war crimes ambassador who has been trying to negotiate a deal between the parties, told U.S. District Judge Stephen G. Larson that the two sides were closer to a deal than ever before, according to several blog posts. In a statement to Am Law Daily, Prosper stands by the statement but qualifies it.

Should judges have a representative in the Cabinet? Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer seems to think so. He launched into an extended monologue on the idea during a panel discussion, prompted by an audience member who asked the panel about judicial pay raises. Breyer argued that despite concerns about separation of powers, there should be “a person with political responsibility” in the Cabinet to express the judiciary’s viewpoint directly to the president. And Breyer hinted at who might play that role.

The trial of the first Guantanamo detainee to be held in a U.S. court will be in New York’s Southern District, AG Eric Holder said Thursday. The decision to hear the case in New York comes eight years after four of Ahmed Ghailani’s co-defendants were convicted in the Southern District for their roles in a plot resulting in the destruction of two U.S. embassies in Africa. The trial comes amid controversy about where to send detainees held at Guantanamo, which President Barack Obama has promised to close by 2010.

President Barack Obama gave plaintiffs lawyers a reason to celebrate Wednesday, issuing a memorandum advising department and agency heads that federal pre-emption will be the exception, not the rule, in his administration. The memo draws a clear distinction between Obama’s stance on the issue and that of the George W. Bush administration, calling into question previous actions taken to overrule state law. While trial lawyers are praising the action, the National Association of Manufacturers isn’t so happy.

Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal next month will cut associate salaries as part of a broader effort to revamp its compensation, staffing, training and mentoring programs for junior lawyers. The law firm will cut associate pay on June 1, reducing pay for first-year associates in big cities to $145,000 annually, down from $160,000, and next year will more broadly revamp associate compensation toward a performance-based system, Chairman Elliott Portnoy said in a Thursday memo to all associates.

Forty-one percent of companies expect to file fewer U.S. patent applications this year than last year, according to a new Intellectual Property Owners Association patent filings survey, but lawyers say foreign filings have dropped more steeply. The findings, based on responses from 85 companies, indicate that a sizable minority, or 29 percent of responding companies, expect to file more U.S. patent applications this year than in 2008.

A venue battle has broken out in the mounting litigation over Ticketmaster’s alleged practice of redirecting online shoppers to the Web site of a subsidiary, TicketsNow, that sells them at a big markup. In recent months, 10 class action suits have been filed in federal courts in six states. Three are in New Jersey, where the plaintiffs’ lawyers are asking to transfer the other seven. But Ticketmaster, based in California, has moved to dismiss the New Jersey cases or transfer them to Los Angeles.