Posts on ‘June 17th, 2009’

Leading Finnish law firm Hannes Snellman is in the process of closing its Beijing and Shanghai offices, making it the first foreign firm to pull out of China in the wake of the global economic slowdown. Tomas Holmberg, a Helsinki partner heavily involved with Hannes Snellman’s China practice, said the weakening economy had led the 250-lawyer law firm to narrow its international strategy and focus more on the Scandinavia and Russia markets.

It’s a bleak time for many attorneys, as business in some practice areas remains sluggish and firms continue to cut staff. What options do out-of-work lawyers have? The good news is that for those who feel lost professionally, like they’re being forced to start from scratch, there are programs out there for lawyers to turn to for help. For instance, in Pennsylvania, the state and local bar associations, as well as some law schools, are stepping up to assist lawyers who are looking for work in this recession.

Greg Bachand was burned out after selling life insurance for 35 years, but his daughter Tanya had a solution. She had just taken over a busy personal injury practice and Greg, who passed the bar exam but never practiced law, had the business acumen she needed. Now he’s working as a first-year associate with his partner-level daughter at Bachand DiScala. He feels some pressure as the young associate: “I make sure I come in on time every day, right at 7:30.” Tanya’s retort: “And I usually come in around 10:30.”

Suing spammers has always been something of a publicity stunt because they never show up in court or pay civil judgments, and it does little to actually prevent your inbox from getting stuffed. But on Friday, a Perkins Coie lawyer representing Facebook got the “spam king” himself, Sanford Wallace, to show up in a California federal court. What did the trick? The threat of criminal charges against Wallace.

A lot of unexpected things can happen during a trial. but getting a new judge usually isn’t one of them. Yet, that’s what happened to Mayer Brown partner Joseph Collins, who is facing criminal charges that he was an accomplice to the massive fraud that destroyed brokerage firm Refco. On Monday, five weeks into the trial, federal Judge Robert Patterson certified that he was ready to step in and replace Judge Leonard Sand, who had recently become ill and was unable to continue presiding over the case.

A federal appeals court has refused to reconsider the obscenity convictions of a Virginia man who discussed his fantasies about child sexual conduct in e-mails. The 4th Circuit denied Dwight Whorley’s rehearing in a 10-1 decision Monday. Currently serving 20 years in prison on pornography and obscenity counts, Whorley was the first person in the U.S. to be convicted under a 2003 law against cartoons depicting child sex.

A Miami judge has found that Belgium-based BDO International is not liable for $352 million in punitive damages sought by Portuguese bank Espirito Santo in an accounting negligence suit. The punitive award, the largest ever against a U.S. accounting firm, was part of a $522 million verdict against Chicago-based BDO Seidman for its audits of a fraudulent Miami business co-owned by the bank. A jury must still decide whether BDO International should share liability with BDO Seidman for $170 million in compensatory damages.

The receiver for Sunwest Management, which developed a now-ailing empire of senior living facilities, is seeking more than $400 million in damages in a suit against Davis Wright & Tremaine. The receiver alleges that the Seattle-based law firm helped the once rapidly expanding company engage in a Ponzi scheme by playing “a critical role in creating, sustaining and propping up the Sunwest Enterprise” and helping to “design and implement” its overall business plan.

A federal judge has rejected a shooting victim’s attempt to blame Craigslist for posting the ads of a gun dealer who sold the weapon that injured him. Calvin Gibson claimed Craigslist breached a duty of care to ensure that “inherently hazardous objects, such as handguns” do not come into the hands of people like the man who shot Gibson in 2008. But the judge found that Craigslist is entitled to immunity under the Communications Decency Act of 1996. Gibson had sought $10 million in compensatory damages.