Posts on ‘October 5th, 2009’

According to a monthly jobs report released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the nation lost 263,000 jobs in September as the unemployment rate reached 9.8 percent, the highest in 26 years. The legal sector wasn’t spared. When the data is seasonally adjusted, the sector shed another 2,000 jobs. When not seasonally adjusted, the legal industry lost 13,600 jobs, likely a result of the conclusion of most summer associate programs and the return of students to their law schools.

In an e-mail to the Washington legal community in the summer of 2008 to announce that he and wife Kyndra Rotunda had found new jobs in California, professor Ronald Rotunda wrote an eye-catching final line: “We are … pleased to be leaving George Mason University.” Behind that less-than-fond farewell lie accusations of sexual harassment and discrimination and, ultimately, dismay that drove a noted constitutional scholar and his wife to quit their jobs at George Mason University School of Law.

Anyone who practices law knows that the ubiquitous PDF is the standard for digital document delivery. But creating them from a scanned image is frequently “lassoed with quibbles,” notes consultant Brett Burney. With that in mind, Burney evaluates how OmniPage 17 rebuts his cavils.

Recession or no recession, many top in-house lawyers continue to care deeply about diversity. Indeed, they worry that the recent downturn is hitting minority associates especially hard, threatening the limited advances that law firms have managed to make. This year’s Minority Experience Study, which set out to measure the recession’s impact on midlevel associates of various racial groups, shows there’s definite cause for concern.

Former insurers of securities class action firm Milberg waited too long to rescind coverage and sue for repayment of money spent defending the firm in a probe of a $251 million kickback scheme, a New York federal judge has ruled, holding that the carriers knew the law firm was under indictment, yet failed to act. “The law does not protect the plaintiff who turns a blind eye to such information,” the judge wrote, ruling the carriers’ rescission claims were untimely under New York’s six-year statute of limitations.

As the U.S. government cracks down on advertising off-label uses of drugs, one company is fighting back. Allergan, which makes the drug Botox, has filed a legal action against the government, seeking the right to “share truthful, relevant information” with physicians about off-label therapeutic uses of its drugs. The action seeks a preliminary injunction to halt government enforcement that is “currently causing irreparable harm to Allergan’s First Amendment rights by chilling Allergan’s protected speech.”

Exactly when, and why, must lawyers stay buttoned up and when are they permitted — maybe even morally obligated — to be critical of the environment in which they work? Joel Cohen and Katherine A. Helm examine the potential collision of confidentiality, criticism and civility and the impact on lawyers’ ethical and professional duties to their clients, fellow legal practitioners and the practice of law as a whole.