Business Development

Top NY Court Reinstates Felony Charges Against PI Firm Over Retainer Filings

In the latest twist in an unusual criminal case against a law firm, New York’s top court has reinstated felony charges brought against Silverman & Taylor over alleged factual misstatements in filed retainer agreements. Initially convicted in 2005, following a two-week bench trial, of filing a false instrument, Silverman &…

Feb 16, 2010 9:54 PM CST

Small Firm Hires Greenberg’s Top DC Gun to ‘Punch Above Our Weight Class’ in New Outpost

Little known in BigLaw circles, a 16-attorney South Florida law firm has hired the managing partner of Greenberg Traurig’s office in Washington, D.C., to open its new outpost in the nation’s capital. Ronald Kleinman will start Monday at Colson Hicks Eidson, where he will head the D.C. office, the firm…

Feb 13, 2010 12:53 AM CST

Judge’s order vacates up to $312K in bad-faith sanctions at parties’ request

Updated: After a federal district judge’s opinion blasting a law firm and its corporate client over what he describes as their bad-faith litigation tactics, a federal magistrate judge made a sanctions recommendation and later vacated it. U.S. Magistrate Judge Walter Johnson said in a Jan. 29, 2010, report two lawyers…

Feb 10, 2010 7:03 PM CST

5th Circuit Stays Judge’s Order That Insurer Must Pay Stanford’s Lawyers

Staying a federal district court’s order that a renowned insurance company must pay for R. Allen Stanford’s defense in a criminal case, a federal appeals court today scheduled oral arguments on the issue later this month. Last week, a federal judge in Houston ruled that Lloyd’s of London had a…

Feb 5, 2010 12:58 AM CST

Judge Rapped Over Order to Pay Class Action Attorney in Store Coupons

Apparently figuring that what is considered reasonable reimbursement for winning clients in class actions is also fair pay for their lawyers, a California state-court judge ordered that a male attorney receive a structured stream of $10 gift cards from the defendant women’s apparel retailer. However, the decision in January 2009…

Feb 3, 2010 12:43 AM CST

BP Plaintiffs Lawyer Accused of Failing to Pay $50K in Hotel Bills

A California plaintiffs lawyer who represented 153 plaintiffs in the 2005 explosions at a BP refinery in Texas has been asked to explain expenses charged to 22 clients—and to disclose whether he charged them for almost $50,000 in unpaid hotel bills. Los Angeles lawyer Daniel Becerra provided a Galveston court…

Feb 2, 2010 1:45 PM CST

Pur$e String Proponents

Lawyers buck the system to protect people’s pocketbooks

Feb 1, 2010 6:30 AM CST

Are Flat-Fee Contracts Good for Law Firms? Lawyer Learns Tweaking Needed

A lawyer overseeing a fixed-fee contract with boating and sporting equipment maker Brunswick Corp. jumped to K&L Gates and tweaked the contract to make the arrangement more profitable. The flat-fee contract, now in its second year, covers national litigation, including product-liability and breach-of-warranty cases, the Chicago Tribune reports. Brunswick general…

Jan 26, 2010 1:13 PM CST

Managing Partners More Confident, Expect Increased Legal Work

Managing partners are becoming more confident about the economic outlook for their law firms. A “confidence index” developed by Citi Private Bank Law Watch shows that managing partners haven’t been this confident since 2007, according to the Legal Intelligencer and the Wall Street Journal Law Blog. The index stands at…

Jan 22, 2010 4:57 PM CST

Drinker Biddle Wins $1.78M Bill Battle; Firm Clocked 5,225 Hours in 3 Months

Drinker Biddle & Reath has won a $1.78 million award from a Pennsylvania state-court jury in a hard-fought legal bill battle that bared ordinarily confidential fee details in a bet-the-company patent litigation case. It all began in 2006, when AgriZap Inc. retained the Philadelphia-based firm to handle a patent dispute…

Jan 21, 2010 11:14 PM CST

Tenn. High Court’s Divorce Ruling Costs Class Action Lawyer $6.8M

Tennessee class action lawyer Gordon Ball will have to give his former spouse an extra $6.8 million because of a ruling by the Tennessee Supreme Court on the division of property acquired after a divorce filing. Ball was awarded a $17 million fee after his wife, Marn Suzanne Larsen-Ball, filed…

Jan 20, 2010 1:57 PM CST

Ex-Client Sues Debevoise for $55M re ‘Variety of Chimera & Boondoggles’

It’s a truism that a law firm that sues a client to collect an unpaid bill is almost asking for a malpractice claim. And a $6 million unpaid-bill suit filed by Debevoise & Plimpton last year against a former client is not the exception that proves the rule. In an…

Jan 14, 2010 7:03 PM CST

Ethics Ruling Finds $2M Attorney Fee Excessive in Class Action Aiding 7 People

The founding partner of a Florida law firm violated legal ethics rules by arranging a $7 million class action settlement on behalf of seven individuals rather than all Miami taxpayers, a referee in a Florida Bar attorney disciplinary case has determined. And Henry Adorno of Adorno & Yoss also breached…

Jan 13, 2010 12:45 AM CST

‘Foreclosure Mills’ Use ‘Assembly-Line’ Litigation Process

Amidst the worst economic downturn in the memory of many practitioners, business is red-hot at Florida law firms that handle multiple mortgage foreclosures for minimal legal fees of perhaps $1,200 a case. Some “foreclosure mills” are filing hundreds of cases monthly, utilizing an “assembly-line” process. It assigns each component of…

Jan 4, 2010 7:54 PM CST

How Lawyers at One Small Firm Said Goodbye to the Billable Hour

A five-lawyer San Francisco intellectual property law firm has largely abandoned the billable hour. Instead Smithline Jha charges a monthly subscription fee that ranges from $6,000 to about $30,000, the Recorder reports. The firm’s founders told the Recorder that Smithline Jha focuses on IP licensing for software and Internet companies,…

Dec 23, 2009 6:40 PM CST