Posts on ‘June 15th, 2009’

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom has recruited Hong Kong corporate partner Julie Gao from Latham & Watkins. Gao, who joined Latham straight out of law school in 1998 and was promoted to partner in 2006, was regarded as an up-and-comer in Latham’s Asia practice, focusing on M&A and capital markets transactions. Gao’s appointment will be regarded as further bolstering Skadden’s top-tier Asia practice in public listings and corporate.

The year 2009 will be remembered in the annals of legal history as the great balancing act for summer associates. Summer associates “are going to have to strike a balance between being an eager associate willing to be flexible and a second-year law student desperate for an offer,” says Brian Dalton, managing editor at Vault. Consultant Ari L. Kaplan notes that opportunity is the key, and provides some strategies that summer hires can incorporate to maximize their chances of gaining experience and securing an offer.

Throughout the economy’s rapid descent, the plaintiffs practice has often been described as being “recession-proof.” But while the recession apparently hasn’t affected the number of suits being brought, has it had any effect on the results of those cases? Plaintiffs attorneys are so far not reporting a monumental shift in the value of cases, but some say they’ve noticed some differences, such as in the effect on smaller cases, or in how much sympathy a jury has demonstrated toward the auto industry.

No one expected the stock option backdating scandal to generate a flood of class actions, but the success of the ones that were filed has been surprising, lawyers say. Marvell Technology Group added to the tally, announcing last week that it would settle a backdating class action for $72 million. That makes 18 backdating class actions that have settled for an average of $34.7 million, excluding the gargantuan $895 million settlement paid by UnitedHealth Group, according to a report by RiskMetrics Group.

A Delaware judge has questioned the viability of at least 700 product liability cases alleging that AstraZeneca’s anti-psychotic drug Seroquel caused patients to develop Type II diabetes. The judge threw out one such suit in May on the ground that a medical expert did not sufficiently establish a link between Seroquel and the plaintiff’s diabetes diagnosis. This month, in a written opinion elaborating on that decision, the judge noted that the case was the third Seroquel suit to be tossed due to the medical evidence.

The publication by a Thai tabloid of grisly crime scene photos of actor David Carradine has set off a furor, with Carradine’s family hiring lawyer-to-the-stars Mark Geragos to threaten a civil suit against anyone publishing the photos in the U.S. It’s raised plenty of questions about privacy issues, which The Am Law Daily presented to law school professor Jon Mills. Mills advised the families of Gianni Versace and Dale Earnhardt in their attempts to keep graphic photos private in the aftermaths of their deaths.

The Eastern District of Texas is a magnet for patent cases because its juries have been known to grant eye-popping monetary judgments for plaintiffs. It’s also considered a rocket docket because cases move through it quickly. Now, intellectual property lawyers are reporting an upswing in motions to transfer patent infringement cases out of the plaintiff-friendly court in the wake of two Federal Circuit decisions that chastised the Texas federal court for not transferring cases.

A former Heller shareholder has forced nine corporations that made up Heller Ehrman LLP into bankruptcy, including Heller Ehrman Hong Kong, Heller Ehrman Europe and corporations in states that technically employed Heller partners. These corporations were also the target of a class action by former Heller employees that was dismissed last week and that will now be folded into a suit that is already under the jurisdiction of the bankruptcy court, according to the law firm representing the former employees.

A key weapon in the arsenal of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and his prosecutors in Chicago has been a section of the federal anti-fraud statute that makes it a crime to deprive citizens or corporate shareholders of “honest services.” It’s been used to convict dozens of state and local government officials as well as newspaper magnate Conrad Black. But the U.S. Supreme Court’s May decision to review Black’s 2007 conviction may put the brakes on the honest services provision.

A federal appeals court has upheld a $372,000 sanction against a Crowell & Moring partner and affirmed his five-year suspension from practice in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida. A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit found that Peter R. Ginsberg’s attempts to have a bankruptcy judge recuse himself from a Chapter 11 case were in bad faith. The panel found that Ginsberg’s conduct was “egregious” and included overzealous litigation tactics and factual inaccuracies.