Posts on ‘November 25th, 2009’

The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday approved the $9 billion merger of Panasonic Corp. and Sanyo Electronic Co. — on one condition. To satisfy the FTC’s anti-competitive concerns, Sanyo must sell its portable nickel metal hydride battery business, including a manufacturing plant in Japan. The two companies are the world’s largest makers of such batteries, which power products including two-way radios used by police and fire departments throughout the United States.

“Turn out the lights; the party’s over.” Such may be the refrain of the 2009-2010 law school recruiting season, says attorney Steven C. Bennett. For law students, “downsized” associates and other lawyers in transition, these may be stressful times. For law firms, the financial turmoil may herald changes in the recruitment process and a fundamental restructuring of employment in the profession. Bennett provides some steps that job-seekers may consider to help adapt to the new recruitment practices.

Incoming associates at Haynes and Boone will start work Nov. 30 with a starting salary for 2009 of $145,000. That’s below the $160,000 first-year salary that’s been the first-year market rate at Big Texas law firms. Richard Fijolek, a partner in Dallas who is the firm’s financial partner, says the firm hasn’t yet decided what it will pay the first-year lawyers in January. Fijolek says the firm is waiting to see where the BigTex market rate settles before setting its 2010 salary for first-year lawyers.

In early 2009, David Koller was a young lawyer with a Philadelphia law firm. He had two clients he could call his own, a few thousand dollars saved in the bank and a lot of experienced people he trusted offering discouraging words about the economy and business. On March 2, Koller showed up to work and was laid off. On his drive home, he was a bit surprised he was not feeling all that bad. Koller discusses his decision, made that same day, to become a solo practitioner, and his first steps toward his future job.

New case law limiting the ability of plaintiffs to obtain maritime attachment orders on electronic fund transfers routed through New York banks has been made retroactive by the 2nd Circuit. The circuit last month overturned as “erroneously decided” a 2002 holding that led to an explosion of maritime attachment orders in the Southern District of New York, and was credited with creating both “a cottage industry” and threatening New York City’s standing as a financial hub.

Law firms are benefiting from the gaming industry’s losing streaks. Kirkland & Ellis landed work Tuesday as the lead debtor’s counsel for Majestic Star Casino, which filed for bankruptcy related to two Indiana casinos and other facilities in Mississippi and Colorado. In another casino-related bankruptcy, Carl Icahn, represented by outside counsel at Sonnenschein, has won the right to be the stalking horse bidder for the bankrupt — and still unfinished — Fontainebleau casino project in Las Vegas.

A New York judge has ruled that an investment banking firm vice president cannot recover attorney fees from his former spouse, whom he accused of using underhanded tactics to drag out a bitterly fought divorce proceeding. Jeffrey Molinari claimed that Paula Molinari’s “stonewalling” and “manipulation” caused him to incur thousands of dollars in unnecessary fees. The divorce proceedings involved 17 motions, more than 50 court appearances and 17 days of trial, costing the couple more than $1.4 million in combined attorney fees.

Companies under criminal investigation may — subject to conditions — retain counsel for their employees who are also targets or may become witnesses, the New Jersey Supreme Court held on Monday. The decision puts the court’s imprimatur on an Illinois company’s provision of a list of pre-approved attorneys that employees could retain free of charge. As long as the employer does nothing to interfere with the lawyers’ representation of those employees, the retainers comply with the Rules of Professional Conduct.

A prevailing plaintiff should be entitled to recover the full cost of her medical care, even if her private insurer paid a smaller, negotiated amount to cover all of her hospital and doctor bills, a California appeals court held Monday. The panel wrote that, under California’s collateral source rule, the plaintiff “as a person who has invested insurance premiums to assure her medical care, should receive the benefits of her thrift.” The ruling marks a significant victory for personal injury lawyers.

Billionaire hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam responded forcefully to SEC insider trading charges in papers filed Tuesday by his lawyers at Akin Gump, who claim that wiretaps that federal investigators used to implicate Rajaratnam in a $20 million insider trading ring were unconstitutional. They also say the Galleon Group founder was already working with investigators on an inquiry into another hedge fund and that he relied on research analysts, not inside information, to grow his business.