Posts on ‘September 18th, 2009’

Dechert announced Thursday that it has hired a counsel and two associates in Russia; a third new associate will split her time between London and the Russian capital. Dechert’s continued efforts to strengthen the Moscow office come after the firm lost corporate partner Konstantin Konstantinov earlier this week. Konstantinov is returning to Chadbourne, the firm he left last May to join Dechert. He was part of a three-partner team to leave Chadbourne for Dechert last spring.

Roxanne B. Conlin and Associates, a Des Moines, Iowa-based plaintiffs firm, is one of only a handful of firms in the country that allows parents to bring their babies to the office. This is not on-site day care; it is full-time parenting in the workplace. In Roxanne Conlin’s experience, parents are so happy to keep their kids nearby that they are motivated to perform at the top of their game. And because they aren’t constantly worrying whether their child is being fed or changed, they are better able to focus.

Apparently lawyers don’t always know their clients as well as they think they do. Consider a couple of recent cases in Connecticut involving real estate transactions. In both matters, the lawyers have come under scrutiny following allegations that impostors forged signatures on mortgage documents. What it boils down to is that the lawyers did not check photo IDs or otherwise verify the identities of clients, and now people who claim their identities were stolen are lashing out at the lawyers.

Former patent blogger Rick Frenkel took the stand in a federal courthouse in Texas on Wednesday, and apologized for referring to the Eastern District of Texas as a “Banana Republic” in a post he published as the “Patent Troll Tracker.” But Frenkel insisted his blogging about a patent infringement suit against his then-employer, Cisco Systems, was not defamatory. “You know, I think I was outraged over a situation … and I used words that were strong,” said Frenkel. “But I sure didn’t mean to hurt anyone by it.”

The Senate on Thursday confirmed Gerard Lynch for the 2nd Circuit, making him only the second Obama administration judicial nominee to win confirmation so far. The 94-3 vote means that Democratic nominees now hold four of 10 currently filled seats on the appellate court that serves New York, Connecticut and Vermont. The court has three vacancies, giving the president the opportunity to give the circuit a Democratic tilt.

Recent 2nd Circuit decisions establish a “virtually insurmountable” standard for determining fees for out-of-district counsel that will “rob some civil rights plaintiffs of the only representation they can find,” insists a broad coalition of 30 public interest organizations and private law firms. An amicus brief filed Thursday on behalf of the group by the Brennan Center for Justice and Paul Weiss asks the circuit for en banc consideration of the standard.

President Barack Obama ordered on Thursday that $25 million be made available in grants to examine alternatives to the current medical liability system. In a memorandum, Obama calls for reducing doctors’ malpractice insurance premiums while still downplaying the impact of premiums on overall health costs. The grants could mean changes for a system that the plaintiffs bar has lobbied to protect, but they stop short of the nationwide limits on malpractice torts that doctors and insurance companies have sought.