Posts from ‘January, 2010’

A personal injury attorney who was arrested twice last year for allegedly stealing client funds is now facing tax charges. On Wednesday, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. announced that prosecutors have accused Marc A. Bernstein, formerly a name partner of Bernstein & Bernstein and the son of former Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Aaron D. Bernstein, of evading about $220,500 in personal income taxes.

The deceased plaintiff in a lawsuit alleging a Wyeth-made hormone replacement therapy drug caused her death from breast cancer has a surviving identical twin who has not had breast cancer. Both the plaintiffs and the defense attorneys sought to leverage to their advantage the fact that Cheryl Foust’s twin sister, Carol, was present and in good health in a Philadelphia Common Pleas courtroom Wednesday during opening arguments in Foust v. Wyeth.

Four real estate partners are leaving Paul Hastings to join the New York office of Haynes and Boone. The Dallas-based firm confirmed it had hired Kenneth Friedman, Robert Grados, Steven Koch and Walter Schleimer as part of what it characterized as a significant expansion of its East Coast real estate and finance practices. Haynes and Boone said more New York lateral hiring moves will be announced in the next several days. Koch was administrative head of Paul Hastings’ real estate group.

The 5th Circuit has sided with Texas in a dispute over buying wine and efforts to control its quality, allowing the state to continue regulating alcohol sales under its current system. The California-based Specialty Wine Retailers Association had challenged the Texas law to enable consumers to buy wine from out-of-state retailers.

In these economic times, many people are going back to school for more education, and some will undoubtedly ask you if law school is a good idea. The Snark discusses the illusion that a J.D. guarantees a high-salaried job, saying that many recent law grads are bartending, cleaning houses, living with their in-laws or teaching LSAT prep courses. Still, The Snark says there are benefits to a legal education, and runs down lists of the top three — and bottom three — reasons to go to law school.

The start of January always brings hopes that the new year will be a better one. And this year, it might be. The bad news is that Union Bank’s Justin Miller says that based on conversations with West Coast Am Law 100 and 200 firms, more associates and staff will be getting the pink slip before the spring quarter is over. The good news is that sources don’t expect this year to be the disaster that last year was. Recruiter Julie Brush says some firms don’t want to over-slash their workforces.

The $44 million payday coming next week for some United Airlines pilots from the settlement of a pension dispute will include a $16.4 million payout for their Illinois lawyers. Myron M. Cherry & Associates of Chicago will get the lion’s share of the payment, raking in $9.8 million as class counsel. St. Louis-based Korein Tillery will take home $6.6 million. The case may represent the biggest award ever in a fair representation case, in which unions are sued over their responsibility to fairly represent their members.

A Manhattan judge has slapped the personal injury firm of Morelli Ratner with $6,000 in sanctions for bringing a “spiteful” and “wasteful” suit against a former client. Supreme Court Justice Emily Jane Goodman’s ruling comes three months after she sharply criticized the firm for launching a “nonsensical” action to recover the costs of an unsuccessful medical malpractice action from Victoria Kremen.

Former White House Counsel Gregory Craig told The National Law Journal Wednesday that when he set out to pick a law firm after a year in the White House, it was all about “global reach.” Craig, who will be leading the newly formed global policy and litigation strategy practice group in Skadden’s Washington, D.C., office, said Skadden offered a broader range of practices and more international offices than his longtime firm Williams & Connolly, making it a better fit for his new practice.

Senior U.S. District Judge David Hittner of Houston issued on Tuesday a preliminary injunction that orders two insurance companies to advance defense costs to Stanford Financial Group executives facing criminal charges and civil litigation. Allen Stanford and three other Stanford Financial Group defendants — Laura Pendergest-Holt, Gilberto Lopez Jr. and Mark Kuhrt — filed the coverage suit after the underwriters in November 2009 retroactively denied them coverage under directors and officers’ policies.