Posts on ‘November 16th, 2009’

Reed Smith will ask its roughly 300 nonequity partners to contribute a percentage of their base pay — likely about 15 percent — to the firm in order to maintain their partnership status, Gregory Jordan, the firm’s chair, has confirmed. Those who choose not to kick in can “opt to be a kind of salaried employee without those attributes of partnership,” Jordan says. The move has unnerved a chunk of the nonequity partner ranks, according to sources.

In brief comments at the opening of the Supreme Court’s session Monday, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. expressed “profound sympathy” to retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor for the death Nov. 11 of her husband, John O’Connor III, at the age of 79 of complications resulting from Alzheimer’s disease. Roberts said he was speaking on behalf of the Court and retired Justice David Souter, and that the official record of the Court would note that its upcoming recess would be in honor of O’Connor.

Microsoft Outlook isn’t perfect, but there is more to its e-mail and calendar functions than meets the eye. By combining some of Outlook’s best undiscovered features with a little ingenuity, lawyers can reduce their stress levels and perhaps add a bit of leisure time to their schedules.

As Sonia Sotomayor wraps up her second full argument cycle as a U.S. Supreme Court justice, it has become clear that she is a prolific and fearless questioner. She can be tenacious and direct, bordering on harsh. She can be impatient when the lawyer does not answer her question precisely. She knows her stuff and clearly loves the give and take. All of which is to say, she fits right in with her new colleagues. What’s notable is that Sotomayor has tuned into the high court’s wavelength so early in her tenure.

Since the 1990s, the ferocious litigation style of Engstrom, Lipscomb & Lack’s Walter Lack — paired with the genial Thomas Girardi of Girardi & Keese — has made millions for both men. Their relationship encompasses some of the biggest toxic tort paydays on record. Now the lawyers are coming to the end of a disciplinary action before the 9th Circuit, accused of deceiving the court in a Nicaraguan pesticides case. But Girardi is much better positioned to escape without serious punishment, for a few different reasons.

The court-martial of Maj. Nidal Hasan, the man accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, is an opportunity to put the military justice system on display. The lawyers involved will shoulder incredible pressure from inside and outside the military to get it right, experts on military law say. And they’ll have to do it while trying to find an unbiased jury and managing a complex and high-profile capital trial at the same time overlapping congressional investigations may be under way.