Posts on ‘June 25th, 2009’

Bernard Madoff will not be ordered to pay restitution at his sentencing next week, a federal judge said Wednesday, citing the complexity of the multibillion-dollar fraud. Judge Denny Chin granted prosecutors’ request for a three-month delay in deciding whether to order restitution or to order victim compensation through forfeiture laws and other regulations. Madoff faces up to 150 years in prison after admitting he ran a fraudulent investment service for decades, squandering billions of dollars for thousands of investors.

A blogger and Internet radio host was arrested by the FBI on Wednesday after urging the killing of three 7th Circuit judges who declined in a court ruling this month to overturn laws banning handguns. In a Web posting on the same day of the ruling, blogger Hal Turner called the decision an “outrage” and said the judges “deserve to be killed.” The complaint charged Turner with threatening to assault and murder the judges in retaliation for performing their official duties.

Limited resources can inspire corporate legal departments to think creatively and invest in programs that save money, effectively utilize in-house counsel and improve customer service. Alternative dispute resolution, as opposed to litigation, is one way that a corporation can save money, says Chaton T. Turner, an assistant counsel in the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s corporate legal department, which uses mediation to resolve certain disputes and grievances that patients have with the system.

High costs and lost documents have given e-discovery — or e-disclosure as it’s known in the U.K. — negative press at times. But is EDD as bad as it’s made out to be? Vince Neicho, litigation support manager at Allen & Overy, looks at trans-Atlantic differences and changes to come.

After settling with consumers and banks that alleged the company’s lax computer security enabled a massive data breach, discount retailer TJX has agreed to pony up $9.75 million to 41 states whose attorneys general claimed the company failed to protect customers’ financial data.

AIG has no doubt been a boon to the coffers of the law firms advising the company throughout its divesture efforts. But how big of a boon has never come to light — until now. In a Tuesday filing related to possible conflicts of interest in the GM bankruptcy, Weil, Gotshal & Manges disclosed that 3 percent of its revenue during the last 12 months came from AIG. Exactly what dollar amount that equals is unclear. But back-of-the-envelope math suggests the fees are at least $25 million to $36 million, if not more.

DLA Piper expects to keep scaling back the size of its associate classes and to make more use of staff attorneys as it revamps its associate program in the face of client demands and the need for cost-cutting, according to the firm’s leaders. The largest law firm in the United States, DLA hopes by year’s end to have a new associate compensation, training and promotion structure that discards the traditional “lockstep” system of paying associates based on years of service.