Posts on ‘March 9th, 2010’

Lovells is set to change the way it pays bonuses to its non-equity partners to bring them in line with merger partner Hogan & Hartson. The new system will see Lovells’ salaried partners receive a fixed sum paid out of a central bonus pool directly related to the overall profits of the firm. The system will be phased in over a two-year period and ultimately lead to a bonus pool that amounts to 15 percent of the overall profits of the firm — the percentage currently used by Hogan & Hartson.

Prominent former Department of Justice officials are joining the growing criticism against efforts to question the ethics and loyalty of current DOJ attorneys who, in private practice, had advocated for Guantanamo Bay detainees. The Brookings Institution issued a statement on Sunday denouncing the attacks on DOJ attorneys as “shameful” and “unjust.” A group of prominent lawyers in private practice as well as policy specialists at Brookings endorsed the joint statement.

SEC Enforcement Director Robert Khuzami joined the agency at what was, arguably, its lowest point. Working under a tough mandate to reform the division to the satisfaction of Congress and investors, and to boost morale, he’s brought about the most sweeping changes since the 1970s.

For 10 years, semiconductor companies took their medicine from Dr. Qu. In case after case, Tessera Inc. relied on Jianman Qu’s expert testimony and computer model to prove patent infringement against the chip industry’s biggest companies. And Tessera never lost — until now. The International Trade Commission ruled against Tessera, finding Qu’s model for proving infringement decidedly lacking after lawyers from Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe got through with him on the witness stand.

Few recent confrontations have stirred as much emotion and debate as the spate of protests conducted at funerals for U.S. soldiers killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Supreme Court has agreed to take up a hot-button First Amendment dispute involving members of the Topeka, Kan., Westboro Baptist Church who, seeking to spread the word that God is punishing America for its acceptance of homosexuality, have shown up at funerals with signs carrying messages such as “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” and “God Hates You.”

According to a lawyer with Fowler White Burnett, the firm recently e-mailed all its attorneys, telling them not to read a Daily Business Review article that detailed a juicy lawsuit filed against the firm and Lilly Ann Sanchez, head of the firm’s white-collar division and a former federal prosecutor. The apparent result of the e-mail: just the opposite of what the firm intended.

Former McKesson HBOC Chairman Charles McCall, the last defendant to be sentenced in a lengthy case involving cooked books at the company, got 10 years for securities fraud Friday, considerably less than prosecutors sought. Federal Judge William Alsup complimented lawyers on both sides for superb work but rapped McCall’s defense team for trying to keep McCall out of prison pending appeal and dinged the defense for failing to preserve objections during trial.

Mark McCombs, a government affairs partner in the Chicago office of Greenberg Traurig, was arrested at home and charged Friday by state prosecutors in Illinois with bilking more than $1 million from a Chicago suburb through inflated legal bills, according to a report in the Chicago Tribune. In a statement released late Friday, Greenberg Traurig said “upon learning of these charges, the law firm severed connections” with McCombs and is fully cooperating with the investigation.

A New Jersey trial judge did the right thing in vacating a cocaine conviction based on a juror’s comment that “defense attorneys can be assholes,” an appeals court says. Burlington City, N.J., police officer John Fine, a prosecution witness in the case, said a juror uttered those words to him in a courthouse elevator. Fine immediately told a detective in the prosecutor’s office but the detective waited until after the verdict to tell the prosecutor, who told the judge.

Weil, Gotshal & Manges reported flat 2009 gross revenue and a modest uptick in profits per partner Monday. The results are slightly surprising given the firm’s strong bankruptcy practice last year, but executive partner Barry Wolf said that other parts of the firm suffered from the economic downturn. According to the firm, gross revenue rose just .18 percent, from $1,230,801,620 in 2008 to $1,233,054,282 in 2009. Revenue per lawyer dropped by about 1.6 percent, while profits per equity partner rose by 1.8 percent.