Posts on ‘February 22nd, 2010’

Ashurst has closed its liaison office in New Delhi after the Bombay High Court ruled against the practice of law by foreign firms in India. The office closure follows a December ruling in the long-running Lawyers Collective case, during which Ashurst’s license has been annually renewed. The liaison office was initially set up in 1994 to advise clients on the ground. White & Case and Chadbourne & Parke followed suit, before the Lawyers Collective brought a case against all three to ban their presence.

The hidden dangers lurking in many interviews are those tough or possibly inappropriate questions for which there seem to be no right answers, but many wrong ones, note consultants Valerie Fontaine and Roberta Kass. They discuss how to save yourself if you get hit with one.

After an hour of deliberation Friday and four weeks of trial, a Philadelphia jury will continue its work today in a lawsuit over whether drugmaker Wyeth’s hormonal drug caused an Alabama plaintiff’s breast cancer. An attorney for the plaintiffs alleged during closing arguments that Wyeth was negligent in “experimenting” on “grandmothers” because of its failure to adequately warn doctors and patients of the increased risk of breast cancer from using its hormone replacement therapy drugs, including Prempro.

White House counsel Robert Bauer made just under $1 million last year as
the head of the political law group at Perkins Coie, according to a
financial disclosure form he filed this month. Senior White House
officials are required to fill out the disclosure form, which covers
financial information that could point to potential conflicts of
interest. Filings a year ago from President Barack Obama’s initial staff
drew attention because of the prevalence of millionaires working in the
White House.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. may have opened the door to yet more legal troubles when it fired the lead plaintiff in a sexual harassment lawsuit last week, along with the woman’s husband, according to their lawyer. Cory Rosenbaum of Rosenbaum Faria said he is preparing to file retaliation charges against the retailer over what he called a “bizarre” decision to fire the plaintiff, Melissa Jackson, and her husband just weeks after the sexual harassment suit was filed.

Mayer Brown saw its revenue fall by just under 14 percent in 2009, as
the firm’s top line slipped to $1.1 billion from almost $1.3 billion in
2008. The firm also saw a dramatic fall in profits as its net income
fell by almost 19 percent from $359 million to $291 million. On the
prospects for 2010, firm Chairman Herbert “Bert” Krueger says: “We are
not counting on a recovery in the global economy, but we do see
continued strength in the practices that were busiest in 2009.”

A judge has dismissed part of a civil case filed against an accounting firm that worked for Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler before the Florida law firm collapsed under the weight of a $1.2 billion fraud allegedly engineered by its chairman. The lawsuit claims the accounting firm is liable for the loss of more than $100 million the plaintiffs lost in convicted fraudster Scott Rothstein’s settlement scheme, contending the accountants should have been aware Rothstein was running a scam and may have participated in it.

In a hearing to determine whether the Eastern District of Pennsylvania is the appropriate court to decide if Cravath Swaine & Moore should be enjoined from representing Air Products in its bid to acquire Airgas, the judge focused on one party who wasn’t there: Air Products. The judge asked lawyers for both sides whether federal rules regarding joinder of parties required Air Products to be a party to a suit that could potentially result in the company having its attorneys of choice being thrown out.