Posts on ‘September 4th, 2009’

New partner promotions across the U.K.’s top 50 law firms plunged by a third between 2008 and 2009, with the downturn impacting lawyers’ opportunities to make partner. Taking into account promotions at firms such as Clifford Chance and Simmons & Simmons, which pushed their decisions back until the summer, there were 399 promotions across the U.K.’s 50 biggest firms by revenue in 2009, compared with 598 in 2008.

In a down economy, lawyers need every edge they can get, notes Kasia Benson, an Andrews Kurth associate and founder of a wardrobe consulting service for professionals. Don’t let that dowdy suit or those out-of-control eyebrows ruin a good first impression, she writes. While not everyone can look like a supermodel, all attorneys can rock the runways of their lives — without breaking the bank. Benson discusses five wardrobe areas where a little effort can produce a lot of style.

As a senior associate at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, employment lawyer Troy Valdez felt he was losing potential clients to smaller firms or boutiques. “When it came time for clients to pick a litigator, that was a rate-driven decision, and a lot of times we were excluded from that,” Valdez says. This summer, he and two former colleagues, including one who was laid off in January, started their own San Francisco firm focused on employment litigation and counseling — at rates up to 40 percent lower.

Lawsuit-plagued clean-tech darling Tesla Motors has hired a new general counsel. Jonathan Sobel, the one-time Yahoo GC, will take the reins from Craig Harding later this month, Tesla announced Tuesday. The move comes as the electric carmaker continues to gain prominence. It also comes as Tesla has suffered legal setbacks and is facing a number of lawsuits, including a bitter spat between headstrong CEO Elon Musk and ousted co-founder Martin Eberhard.

A Montana police officer has resigned after writing on his Facebook page that there should be a law allowing police to take people to jail for being “stupid.” The posting came to light after a man sued the city of Bozeman, Mont., Cody Anderson and other police for wrongful arrest. The lawsuit alleges that entries from Anderson’s Facebook profile show he has a lack of respect for citizens’ rights and a willingness to abuse his authority.

The Florida attorney general’s office is suing to shut down the Writer’s Literary Guild, which, along with owner Robert Fletcher, operated more than 20 Web sites and related companies to collect funds from would-be authors but allegedly misled them about fees, costs and promised results. The state received more than 175 complaints from around the world about the company.

The judge in Heller Ehrman’s bankruptcy has ordered mediation between the firm’s creditors and its former shareholders, the first sign that shareholders might come to the table to iron out an ending to the nine-month-old bankruptcy. The talks are slated to take place on Oct. 30 and Nov. 16. The judge also ordered each side to file settlement conference statements confidentially with the moderator by later this month.

Legendary Washington defense lawyer Robert Bennett is joining Hogan & Hartson, leaving Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, where he spent two decades. Bennett is known for his long list of high-profile clients, including President Bill Clinton, Sen. John McCain, New York Times reporter Judith Miller and former World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz. Carl Rauh, another prominent defense lawyer and a former U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia who often works with Bennett, is going with him to Hogan.