Posts on ‘June 8th, 2009’

Rock stars don’t just make teenage girls scream — they can also make judges go a little pun crazy. That was the case last week when a federal judge saw that rocker Jon Bon Jovi — who also happens to be one of the owners of the Philadelphia Soul arena football team — was one of the parties in a pending copyright and trademark suit. In the opening paragraphs of his 29-page opinion, the judge managed to squeeze four Bon Jovi song references and three football terms into his outline of the court battle.

The insolvency administrator for German aviation company Thielert AG has sued Mayer Brown in Texas state court, alleging the firm was grossly negligent when it failed to properly file some financing documents related to an $8 million loan the company purchased from a bank. As a result of the firm’s negligence, the insolvency administrator alleges, the company may not be able to recover all of the loan proceeds from the debtor. He seeks a minimum of $10 million in damages from Mayer Brown.

GlaxoSmithKline and inventor Triantafyllos Tafas have each petitioned the Federal Circuit for an en banc rehearing of a decision that upheld the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s authority to issue three of four controversial patent rules. The Tafas v. Doll opinion upheld rules that require a more cumbersome process for requesting continuing patent applications and other rules that restrict the number of patent claims on an application unless the applicant files examination support documents.

A three-judge panel of the 2nd Circuit added its blessing Friday to the sale of Chrysler’s best assets to a “New Chrysler” led by Italy’s Fiat company, affirming a federal bankruptcy judge’s June 1 order authorizing the sale and echoing his finding that the only alternative to the sale was liquidation. The circuit extended a stay blocking the deal until 4 p.m. Monday to give parties challenging the plan — a group of Indiana pension funds — a chance to seek review by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The latest courthouse showdown in one of the biggest business disputes of the decade kicks off this month as Huntsman Corp. seeks as much as $4.65 billion in damages from two banks that backed out on financing a merger between Huntsman and Hexion Specialty Chemicals in 2008. Huntsman is alleging fraud and tortious interference by Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank Securities, the banks that committed to put up $15.5 billion to finance the merger of the two chemical companies.

According to annual financial disclosures released Friday, Justice Clarence Thomas took in more than $300,000 in royalties last year for his autobiography — far more than he earned as a member of the Supreme Court. In all, Thomas has made about $1.5 million from “My Grandfather’s Son,” the 2007 book that traces his rise to the Court from his roots in rural Georgia. Justice Antonin Scalia received nearly $100,000 last year for “Making Your Case,” a book he recently co-authored on legal advocacy.

A dispute over the allocation of attorney fees in the settlement of claims against Libya for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, is headed back to the district court. The 2nd Circuit found that three “significant” errors plagued a judge’s decision ordering Emery Celli to pay from its contingency fees $1.44 million to a plaintiffs’ committee. In refusing to pay the fee, the firm argued that it had performed a key role in lobbying Congress to change the law to permit suits against Libya to go forward.

At a conference organized by DuPont aimed at helping outside counsel increase referrals — to each other and to firms outside their network — in-house counsel said what they want these days, maybe even more than alternative billing arrangements, is predictability from their outside counsel. Discouraging surprises wasn’t the only piece of advice. Other tips included: Don’t be a stranger. Be budget-friendly. Find early settlement and early dispute-resolution opportunities. And “don’t get fat and happy.”

The Semantic Web, an extension of the current www, promises to make documents meaningful to people and computers by changing how legal knowledge is represented and managed. Dr. Adam Z. Wyner explains how legal ontologies will help complete the new Web’s design.

Law departments certainly aren’t immune to systemic changes the economy has forced upon their law firm counterparts, but when outside counsel fees are a department’s biggest cost, GCs expect the biggest changes to come from the firms that serve them. Now more than ever, law departments are pushing firms to embrace innovation, technology and alternative fee options. Every change in law departments today stems from cost control, and many of the changes are fundamental and long-lasting, says Altman Weil’s Daniel DiLucchio Jr.