Posts on ‘September 16th, 2009’

Moscow is known as a city that can be tough to recruit in, but even so, Dechert’s attempt to open in the Russian capital with a five-partner team from Chadbourne & Parke has unraveled spectacularly quickly. Dechert originally announced on May 8 that five partners would be joining from its U.S. rival, only to see two of them decide to remain at Chadbourne. On Monday Konstantin Konstantinov, a corporate and finance specialist who was part of the group that joined Dechert in May, rejoined Chadbourne.

You’ll be too busy to network. Your billable hours will suffer. Your firm is so well-established that you don’t need to worry about getting clients. First-year associate Eric D. Frank writes that like many others, he had these thoughts, but now realizes that developing marketing skills early on makes you a better lawyer. He discusses how even first-year associates can benefit from a business development plan, which can include simple steps like meeting with law school friends for a drink.

On Tuesday, Apple said that its top lawyer, Daniel Cooperman, is retiring after two years on the job. At the same time, the company announced that it’s hired D. Bruce Sewell, who stepped down as Intel GC on Monday. Sewell will have his hands full. The company is under scrutiny for its public disclosures of CEO Steve Jobs’ ailing health. Apple is also facing an FCC inquiry into why the company rejected a Google software application for the iPhone that allows users to make cheap calls over the Internet.

Albritton v. Cisco Systems, also known as the Patent Troll Tracker case, got under way Monday, with one lawyer telling jurors the case is about a big company bullying a small-town lawyer trying to provide for his family. “Cisco believes it can push people around and spread lies about lawyers … without being accountable,” said James Holmes, one of three attorneys representing Eric Albritton. Jurors should consider punitive damages, Holmes said, “to punish Cisco and make sure this type of conduct doesn’t happen again.”

C. Calvin Warriner III accomplished the seemingly impossible when he got a tobacco company to settle with an injured smoker. But the settlement with Liggett Group is worth just $100,000. The amount accepted by Roslyn Marrazzo is peanuts compared with the Broward Circuit Court jury awards starting at $1.2 million in five lawsuits tried since February. The cases stem from the Florida Supreme Court decision tossing a $145 billion class action verdict while allowing smokers to sue individually for damages.

U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg’s family foundation can proceed with a securities fraud suit against Peter Madoff, brother of convicted Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff, a federal judge says. U.S. District Judge Stanley Chesler declined to dismiss a claim that Peter Madoff violated the Securities Exchange Act by failing to disclose to investors that his brother’s company was engaged in a fraud and a claim based on his status as a controlling person under Section 20(a) of the act.

The month after Barbara Ann Stanislav and William J. Papp Jr. met on the Internet dating site Match.com in 2005, the two horse lovers set a date at a stable. According to Stanislav, whose equestrian skills were a bit rusty, Papp had assured her a gentle, safe horse to ride. But Stanislav was seriously injured when her horse “Teddy” lunged forward, causing her to fall and hit her head. Two years later, Stanislav sued Papp. But last week, a New York judge held that Papp was not responsible for his date’s injuries.

The New Jersey Supreme Court on Monday announced a reprimand for a judge who imposed a 180-day jail penalty for contempt without a hearing when a defendant gave him the finger, a raspberry and backtalk. “I’m a street guy,” the judge says on an audio tape transcript. “I didn’t mind when you gave me the old fist up in the air. … But when you give me the raspberries … I’m just telling you that’s contempt in the face of the court. You’re going to jail.”

Back in March, when Russia’s Federal Customs Service first proposed settlement talks in its $22.5 billion RICO case against Bank of New York Mellon, it appeared that the Russians might be willing to accept as little as $800 million to end the litigation. Even that may have been aiming a little high; a $14 million settlement is now in the works, according to reports in The Wall Street Journal and the Russian press.

When plaintiffs attorney Pierce O’Donnell contributed $26,000 to a presidential candidate in 2003 in the names of 13 other people, he violated the Federal Election Campaign Act even though the law does not specifically address “conduit” or “indirect” contributions, federal prosecutors argued in a brief filed on Monday with a federal appeals court. In their brief, federal prosecutors contended before the 9th Circuit that Congress, in drafting Section 441f of the FECA, intended to address O’Donnell’s actions.