Posts on ‘July 7th, 2009’

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer released its 2008-09 financials on Friday, reporting a 9 percent increase in revenues and a slight increase in profits per equity partner. Revenues for the fiscal year were 1.287 billion pounds ($2.387 billion), up from 1.178 billion pounds ($2.359 billion) in the previous year. Notably, Freshfields’ revenues eclipsed those of Clifford Chance which, in recent years, has been a constant fixture at the top of the Global 100.

Fewer employers will descend on Texas law schools this year for on-campus interviews, say career services officials at seven of Texas’ nine American Bar Association-accredited law schools. And it looks like the prospects may be even tougher for third-year students than for 2Ls. Arturo Errisuriz, Texas Wesleyan University School of Law’s assistant dean for career services, says his office has been warning students that employment may not be immediate. “We have to teach our students to be a little patient,” he said.

Kentucky federal prosecutors don’t just want to put Joseph Robert Leitner in prison for years — they want his house. Leitner pleaded guilty last week to charges that he possessed more than 30,000 images of child pornography, and agreed to give up his home, which he used “as a protective shield to allow his criminal activity to go undetected,” said a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office. It’s the first time that prosecutors in the Eastern District of Kentucky have seized a home in a child pornography investigation.

When alumni learned the dean of Pennsylvania’s Villanova Law School was resigning, they reacted with surprise but had only positive things to say about Mark Sargent’s 12-year tenure. However, over the holiday weekend, a new picture emerged of Sargent’s decision to step down, as newspaper reports described him as a one-time customer of an alleged prostitution house who was cooperating with police in a case against the owner of the house and two alleged prostitutes. Sargent has not been charged with any crime.

As the political buzz continues over the significance of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s surprise resignation announcement this past weekend, the Am Law Daily takes a closer look at John Coale, the noted trial lawyer and Washington, D.C., plaintiffs firm name partner who set up Palin’s political action committee.

A top lawyer in Mayer Brown’s global finance practice is leaving the firm to join Dewey & LeBoeuf. Marshall Stoddard, who served as co-chair of Mayer Brown’s global finance practice and was the relationship partner to Bank of America, will become the U.S. head of bank and institutional finance at Dewey, resident in the New York and Los Angeles offices. Stoddard, who is leaving Mayer Brown following a high-profile management shake-up, says he was attracted by Dewey’s more stable leadership team.

U.S. and British investigators have joined Austrian prosecutors in examining possible ties between a Vienna fund manager and disgraced financier Bernard Madoff, whose multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme wiped out thousands of investors and charities worldwide, an official said Monday. Also Monday, the French prosecutor’s office said it has opened a preliminary inquiry into losses the Credit Industriel and Commercial bank says it suffered due to dealings with Madoff, who was sentenced on June 29 to 150 years in prison.

Two Texas law firms opened a new front Thursday in the legal battles over Stanford Financial Group, the company R. Allen Stanford allegedly used to chisel billions of dollars from unwitting investors. In a federal class action filed in Dallas on behalf of Mexican investors, the lawyers accused U.K. insurance giant Willis Group Holdings and smaller Texas insurance broker Bowen, Miclette & Britt of aiding Stanford’s alleged fraud by vouching for his investments. This is the first case to target Stanford’s insurers.

The tangled bankruptcy mess created by former boy band impresario Lou Pearlman — currently in prison after admitting he ran a $300 million Ponzi scheme — has left a trail of out-of-pocket investors looking to recoup their losses. In August 2008 the trustee in Pearlman’s ongoing Chapter 11 case sued MTV Networks over its role in a joint venture with Pearlman’s television production company. Last week, MTV canned its litigation counsel at K&L Gates in favor of new counsel at Paul Weiss and Holland & Knight.

Weil, Gotshal & Manges has dropped the starting salary of newly qualified lawyers in its London arm by 5.5 percent to 85,000 pounds ($137,500). Despite the drop, Weil remains one of the most generous firms in the London market, offering its newly qualified lawyers 25,000 pounds ($40,400) more than the current benchmark rate for top London firms of around 60,000 pounds ($97,000). Salaries for all associates will be frozen.