Posts on ‘June 3rd, 2009’

An appellate court has handed a partial victory to the widow of prominent Florida litigator Robert Montgomery in a dispute with her late husband’s former law partner, reversing a trial court order that would have required Montgomery’s estate to pay more than $100,000. Montgomery and Christopher Larmoyeux had a contentious breakup in 2000 after Montgomery won $200 million in fees in a pioneering product liability case against the tobacco industry that resulted in a settlement between the companies and the state of Florida.

An attorney with the New York City Law Department who had a gambling problem was arrested Tuesday for mortgage fraud that involved inventing a lawsuit and forging the signature of a bankruptcy judge. Hugh Zuber, an assistant corporation counsel who works in the special federal litigation division, allegedly used the Corporation Counsel’s office for a meeting with one of his victims in one of two schemes to defraud property sellers of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

You would think that the recent explosion of DOJ investigations of corporate bribery would be good news for plaintiffs lawyers. But in an early test of how Foreign Corrupt Practices Act charges will play in a derivative suit, they’ve bombed. Last week, a federal district court judge adopted a magistrate’s recommendation to dismiss a derivative suit against current and former officers and directors of Baker Hughes, which settled allegations of FCPA violations in 2007 for what was then a record $44 million.

The mean proportion of women at large firms remains close to one-third, and while the ranks of female partners have grown steadily, women still account, on average, for fewer than one in five big-firm partners, with the greatest numbers of female lawyers remaining concentrated at the associate level. Those are among the findings of The American Lawyer’s first Women in Law Firms study. The results show clear progress in gender diversity — though not as much as one might hope for.

After bleeding partners for several years, Morgan & Finnegan dissolved in February and filed for bankruptcy in March. Its collapse supports the thinking among some that IP boutiques are an endangered species in a market that tends to favor scale and one-stop shopping. Specialty shops can survive, through a proper combination of growth in size, retaining their talent and bringing in a critical mass of patent litigation. Former partners of Morgan & Finnegan say the boutique largely failed on all three fronts.

With only $8 million in its coffers and hundreds of hungry creditors, the Heller Ehrman estate may have to come up with $1.8 million to pay all the lawyers and other professionals working on its six-month-old bankruptcy. Lawyers last week filed their first fee requests, which total more than $1 million for those representing the bankrupt estate. And it’s clear the estate will be racking up more legal fees in the months to come: More than 1,000 creditors have filed claims adding up to over $376 million.

The New Jersey Supreme Court has disciplined a lawyer who allegedly told an opposing party, “I’m going to cut you up into bits and pieces, put you into a box and send you to India and your parents won’t recognize you.” The court said the solo violated rules requiring courtesy to participants in the legal process and prohibiting conduct detrimental to the administration of justice. The incident occurred while the lawyer was representing a client in a domestic violence, custody and support case against the man’s wife.

A California appeal court brewed up a controversy Tuesday by ruling that Starbucks’ tip-pooling policies don’t violate state law because gratuities are gathered collectively and shared equally. The decision negates $86 million in restitution that a San Diego, Calif., judge awarded last year to a class of baristas who had sued the coffee giant. Plaintiffs lawyer David Lowe immediately vowed to either file for a rehearing — to clear up alleged factual errors in the ruling — or seek review by the California Supreme Court.

Two lawyers for a convicted child sex abuser who jumped bail were turned away in a novel attempt to have the bail forfeiture reversed so they could be paid. Though both argued that allowing them to recoup their fees from the bail funds served the purpose of providing criminal defense counsel at private expense, a New Jersey appeals court said setting aside the forfeiture would undercut bail’s intent. Their client, whose case was featured on “America’s Most Wanted,” absconded between the jury charge and deliberations.