Posts on ‘September 21st, 2009’

Looking for work is tough, especially for senior candidates in the current legal marketplace, acknowledge consultants Valerie Fontaine and Roberta Kass. Understand that the vast majority of employment inquiries end in rejection, regardless of experience level. Stay focused on what you have to bring to the table, and remember that despite how many “no’s” you receive, it only takes one “yes,” the right one, for your career, to proceed toward success. The only way to make a smart career move is to keep looking.

About a year ago, Heller Ehrman partners voted to dissolve the 118-year-old firm, and its collapse offered a few lessons to those watching. “Certainly Heller and the other law firm failures from last year were important lessons in minimizing short-term debt, because in every death story from these law firms, the banks rang the bell,” says Morrison & Foerster Chairman Keith Wetmore. And despite dire predictions about the death of Big Law, some say the last year shows the resilience of large law firms.

Plaintiffs T. John “Johnny” Ward Jr. and Eric Albritton took the stand in the closing days in last week’s closely watched Troll Tracker defamation trial, with Albritton tearfully telling the jury that two posts published by blogger and ex-Cisco lawyer Rick Frenkel in October 2007 had “hurt” and “humiliated” him, and Ward describing his strong and straightforward response to the offending posts as: “Let’s get this shut down.” Ward took legal action the next month, seeking to unmask the then-anonymous patent blogger.

The New York Court of Appeals on Thursday affirmed a lower court’s holding that a lawyer should not be allowed to foreclose on a condo he said he bought for his girlfriend before she discovered he was married to another woman. The court noted the “highly unusual circumstances of this case” and the outstanding questions over whether the $285,300 used to buy the condo was a loan or a gift.

Attorneys for Miami’s former top drug cop are dropping a request for an immediate trial, telling a federal judge that it was unfeasible after the government dumped a database of 4 million documents on the defense. Thomas Raffanello, who joined Stanford Financial Group after retiring from the Drug Enforcement Administration, is charged with obstruction of justice for ordering the shredding of documents after federal regulators took over the company, calling it an elaborate $7 billion Ponzi scheme.

Police say a woman has been charged in connection with the theft of more than $700,000 from the New York law firm where she worked as a legal secretary and bookkeeper. The arrest follows a five-month investigation into an embezzlement scheme at the firm, the name of which was not released.

R. Allen Stanford, the Houston financier who faces federal criminal charges related to an alleged conspiracy to defraud investors, has another new lawyer, Houston criminal defense attorney Kent A. Schaffer. U.S. District Judge David Hittner of the Southern District of Texas had appointed the federal public defender’s office to defend Stanford, but on Thursday, noting the “extremely difficult case,” Hittner added Schaffer to the defense.

The Federal Circuit has ruled that a medical treatment method is patentable in a closely watched case that is expected to aid the field of personalized medicine. The opinion reversed a lower court ruling invalidating patents that cover methods of adjusting the dosage of certain drugs used to treat autoimmune diseases, depending on a patient’s particular metabolism. At least one patent attorney is speculating whether humans developed from a manufacturing process are now eligible subject matter for patenting.