Posts from ‘November, 2009’

Former Gardner Carton & Douglas partner Steven L. Loren, who pleaded guilty to a criminal felony over representation of a firm client, left the firm before its 2007 merger with Drinker Biddle & Reath. But that didn’t stop Drinker Biddle’s name from appearing on a lawsuit filed last month against Loren, Gardner Carton and others over an alleged kickback scheme. Drinker Biddle isn’t alone in facing litigation stemming from an acquisition, which is why legal liability due diligence has become part of firms’ merger process.

The folks over at Emigrant Savings Bank won’t easily forget Kirkland & Ellis. On behalf of Metavante Corp., the firm won $6 million in damages against the bank last May, after a breach of contract bench trial before Milwaukee federal Judge J.P. Stadtmueller. That was bad, but here’s a big, fat insult to add to that injury: Last Friday the judge ordered Emigrant to pay nearly $10 million in attorney fees and costs to Kirkland and a Wisconsin firm.

Companies are successfully pushing their outside counsel to abandon the billable hour, a new survey indicates. The survey of 587 general counsel and chief legal officers found that 39 percent paid law firms more money this year under alternative fee arrangements than they did in 2008. “People are assuming the change is here to stay,” says Susan Hackett, general counsel for the Association of Corporate Counsel. “We’ve turned a corner, and I don’t think we’re going back.”

The past year has been a tumultuous one in the legal industry, but despite the turbulent times, some new lawyers are flourishing. Texas Lawyer is following the careers of five attorneys who graduated from Texas law schools in May 2008 and began diverse full-time careers in different parts of the state. Four are with the same firms or organizations where they started their careers in 2008. Here is the yearly update on how all five attorneys are doing in their new careers.

The law career of disgraced Florida attorney and fraud suspect Scott Rothstein is over. The Florida Supreme Court disbarred Rothstein Wednesday at his request, a day after the governor suspended him from the 4th District Court of Appeal Judicial Nominating Commission. A four-paragraph order came in response to Rothstein’s request for permanent disbarment on consent, in the wake of claims by investors that he had stopped paying returns on structured settlement financing that he had promoted.

Family law attorneys call it a first: a babysitter winning custody of a child. Now the mother’s lawyer has won a rehearing — just in time for the holidays. In an emergency hearing, the same judge who last month gave a babysitter custody of a 2-year-old boy vacated the guardianship order at the request of the child’s parents. The toddler will stay with the babysitter pending a Jan. 20 status hearing, aside from Thanksgiving and Christmas stays with his parents and grandmother.

The New Jersey Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal by a former Curtiss-Wright employee whose $10.6 million sex discrimination judgment was reversed because she shared confidential company records with her lawyer. The issue is whether an employee’s acquiring of company information in the normal course of her job, and communicating it to her attorney in her discrimination case, is protected activity for which retaliation is actionable. So far, a trial judge has said yes, and an appeals court has said no.