Posts on ‘March 2nd, 2010’

With the May 1 deadline for the merger of Hogan & Hartson and Lovells nearing, Hogan’s 38-lawyer Warsaw office has agreed to join K&L Gates as of March 15. In an interview, Hogan Chairman J. Warren Gorrell Jr. said that as the deadline for the merger moves forward, Hogan and Lovells are continuing to examine overlapping locations. He said it was possible other offices may be affected by the overlaps, but declined to say which ones.

The former chairman of Arnold & Porter, Michael Sohn, has joined Davis Polk & Wardwell’s D.C. office as counsel, saying at 69 years old, he’s not ready to downcycle his practice. Arnold & Porter requires lawyers who will be turning 70 to retire or decrease their workload significantly.

Novels by Jack London, like “The Call of The Wild,” have long been staples of American curricula, but a New Jersey teacher used a nonfiction work attributed to the author to give a lesson, and a federal judge got it. The judge ruled last week that history teacher Robert Cowan can pursue a claim that his constitutional rights were violated when he was suspended for placing copies of “The Scab,” a pro-union essay attributed to London, in three colleagues’ mailboxes at a high school in 2008.

Philip Morris USA, the nation’s largest tobacco company, said Monday it has filed federal lawsuits accusing eight New York and New Jersey retailers of selling counterfeit Marlboro cigarettes. The company said the New York area is fertile for cigarette smugglers because of the combination of high federal, state and local taxes.

Winston & Strawn saw gross revenue and overall productivity decline modestly last year while profits per equity partner held steady amid a difficult transactional climate. To absorb shrinking revenue, the firm made some compensation cuts; average compensation among nonequity partners dropped by 14.5 percent. Winston CFO David McDonald says that looking ahead, the firm is cautiously optimistic.

Federal prosecutors in New Jersey are going after four men who are charged with illegally obtaining and then reselling more than a million tickets to concerts, sporting events and live entertainment in a computer hacking scheme that the government says defrauded Ticketmaster and other vendors. The performances included concerts starring Bruce Springsteen, Hannah Montana and Billy Joel, in addition to such major sporting events as the 2006 Rose Bowl and 2007 Major League Baseball play-off games.