Posts on ‘July 29th, 2009’

In his last article, EDD Special Master Craig Ball responded to new judicial standards for keyword searches with the first four of 10 steps to fashion more effective, efficient and defensible queries. Here are the next six steps to wring more quality and trim the fat from text retrieval.

Armed with news clippings and press releases, small business owners and entrepreneurs are financially and emotionally drained, and are ready to take advantage of the U.S. government’s promises of fiscal assistance. But corporate lawyers need to be ready to separate the facts from the feel-good messages and to objectively advise clients regarding the positive and negative implications of the U.S. government’s Financial Stability Plan, says attorney Amy E. D’Agostino.

The Obama administration and a group of law professors and former federal judges are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reject Mohawk Industries’ plea for a change in the way many appellate courts deal with questions of attorney-client privilege. The group, which includes U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan, former Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr and legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky, argues that a Mohawk win would undermine district court judges’ ability to control the discovery process.

The Public Employees’ Retirement System of Mississippi has filed a federal suit against Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch, claiming the agencies misled investors by giving high ratings to subprime mortgage-backed investment entities. Unlike a California Public Employees’ Retirement System case, which was filed in state court and focuses on only the pension fund’s losses, the Mississippi action purports to represent “all persons or entities who purchased mortgage pass-through certificates” sold by J.P. Morgan Acceptance.

At least four law firms have been left hanging for millions of dollars in legal fees from a home restoration company whose former chairman pleaded guilty to fraud involving another corporation. The latest firm left waiting for payment by Home Solutions of America is Riker Danzig. Ironically, the firm was defending the company in a suit brought by Morgan, Lewis & Bockius over $2.5 million in unpaid fees. Unpaid fees have also driven two Texas-based firms to try to withdraw from defending the company in a class action.

New York federal Judge Richard Sullivan on Monday dismissed a $186 billion class action that was filed against Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Charles Schwab and Wachovia. Plaintiffs claimed that the brokerages’ disclosures about their cash sweep programs were inaccurate and that the brokerages owed customers a fiduciary duty to place their extra cash in highest interest-bearing accounts. The judge rejected all of the plaintiffs’ claims, citing 2nd Circuit precedent on brokers’ duties to customers.

The Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009 provides government agencies with increased funding and more stringent legislation to combat financial and mortgage fraud. It also sends a message that Congress and the Obama administration want increased fraud enforcement in the financial arena. Businesses will be well served by understanding how the new areas of emphasis may apply to them, and by marshaling compliance and defense resources accordingly, say attorneys C. Shawn Cleveland and Emily Coleman McCall.

Corporations are using fewer law firms because short-staffed corporate legal departments have little time to manage outside firms, not just because consolidating work is cheaper, according to a new law firm survey by BTI Consulting Group. Also, companies’ increasing demands for flexibility in billing, staffing and communicating create opportunities for smaller firms, and BTI research shows the same companies making a marked migration to smaller firms.