In-house Counsel

2nd Circuit Reverses Tax-Shelter Convictions of 2 Former Ernst & Young Lawyers

Saying that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to support a conviction, a divided federal appeals court panel Thursday reversed the convictions of two former Ernst & Young tax attorneys for developing abusive tax shelters sold by the accounting and financial firm between 1999 and 2001. However, the New York City-based 2nd…

Nov 29, 2012 10:51 PM CST

Attorney Who Gave Up City Job for Kids Forms ‘Top Brain’ Law Firm With Other Stay-at-Home Moms

A former London lawyer who gave up a lucrative legal job in the global financial center after she had her first child is now challenging the traditional idea that skilled corporate attorneys have to work at traditional BigLaw firms if they want a challenging legal career. Eve King joined with…

Nov 27, 2012 7:03 PM CST

Doubly Disbarred? In-House Lawyer Who Didn’t Disclose Sanction Gets Permanent Punishment

A disbarred Louisiana lawyer who didn’t disclose the sanction to WorldCom and Verizon while working in their legal departments has now been permanently disbarred. The Louisiana Supreme Court permanently disbarred James David Turnage on Friday after he failed to respond to the ethics charges. The Legal Profession Blog links to…

Nov 19, 2012 12:15 PM CST

Stanford Receiver Sues Greenberg and Hunton Firms, Says Lawyer’s Work Helped $7B Ponzi Scheme

A court-appointed receiver representing victims of a $7 billion Ponzi scheme for which former billionaire R. Allen Stanford is now serving a 110-year prison term has sued two well-known law firms. In a federal suit filed Thursday in Dallas that seeks class action status, receiver Ralph Janvey and several individual…

Nov 16, 2012 5:37 PM CST

Firms Wave Goodbye to Billing for Research Costs

With clients increasingly primed to demand discounts, balk at hourly rates and refuse to pay for associate lawyers, a greater number of law firms have found themselves absorbing legal research costs as a way to shrink their clients’ tabs. More and more billing partners are knocking research costs off invoices…

Nov 14, 2012 2:30 PM CST

6th Victim Dies After Alleged Office Shooting Spree by In-House Counsel; Some Blame Computer Game

A sixth person has died from a Wednesday shooting spree in which an in-house Russian lawyer is accused of shooting seven individuals at work after being dumped by his former girlfriend, who also was employed by the same pharmaceutical company. Although initial reports about the crime indicated that the two…

Nov 9, 2012 5:48 PM CST

Median GC Compensation Is $1.4M, and the Perks Are Also Decent

General counsel compensation is on the upswing at the same time that in-house lawyers are taking a more strategic role at their companies. The median compensation for surveyed general counsel in the Fortune 1000 is $1.4 million, an increase of 2.4 percent for the respondents who also participated in the…

Nov 8, 2012 12:14 PM CST

In-House Russian Lawyer Accused of Shooting 7, Slaying 5, at Company’s Moscow Offices

A 30-year-old Russian in-house lawyer is reportedly in custody and being questioned by investigators, accused of shooting to death four colleagues as they sat at their desks at the Moscow offices of a pharmaceutical company, killing another man at the stairs and and gravely wounding two other individuals. The Russian…

Nov 7, 2012 6:05 PM CST

Altman Weil Survey Says Corporate Legal Budgets Cut As Most CLOs Negotiate for Lower Law Firm Bills

A new Altman Weil survey of corporate legal spending isn’t happy news for law firms. For the first time in three years, more in-house legal departments are reducing, rather than increasing, their spending on law firm services, the Phildelphia Business Journal and Reuters report. Almost 40 percent of those responding…

Nov 5, 2012 11:15 PM CST

Video: Hurricane Sandy’s Legal Fallout; Consequences for Tweeter of Fake News; GCs’ Big Donations

Editor’s Note: We’re experimenting with using more video on ABAJournal.com and will be bringing you this short weekly legal news brief from Bloomberg Law for the next few weeks.

Nov 1, 2012 5:00 PM CDT

A Bill for Voice Mail? In-House Counsel Tell of Law Firm Gaffes

Law firms, take note. In-house counsel don’t like it when one of your lawyers is glued to a BlackBerry during a meeting. Or when one of your lawyers submits a bill for a voice mail. Or when your firm offers a poorly drafted motion to dismiss under a flat fee…

Oct 30, 2012 11:15 AM CDT

County’s Top-Paid In-House Lawyer Earns $375K, May Leave If He Doesn’t Get $30K Raise

The highest-paid employee in Alabama’s Jefferson County is County Attorney Jeff Sewell. But he may not be there much longer: Sewell has packed the contents of his office into boxes and cleared his desk in midst of an ongoing discussion about whether he, along with other members of the county’s…

Oct 22, 2012 9:04 PM CDT

Finicky In-House Counsel Refuse to Pay Law Firms for ‘Legal Miscellany’

Legal consultant Rob Mattern remembers when law firms used to charge up to 25 cents for each photocopy. Other so-called “soft costs”—word processing and faxes—were also billed to clients. “I remember having conversations with executive directors who said the soft costs were one of the larger individual areas of revenue…

Oct 22, 2012 12:20 PM CDT

Ethics Experts Question Bank of America’s New Tactic for Reducing Its Legal Fees

Ethics experts are raising questions about a new plan by Bank of America to win reductions in its legal fees from outside law firms. The bank is seeking a credit on its annual legal fees based on the amount of customer business it sends to its preferred provider law firms,…

Oct 11, 2012 11:31 AM CDT

Toast Incident Spurs In-House Lawyer to Write Novel

In-house lawyer Richard Burton has always enjoyed writing, but it was a piece of toast that inspired him to write a novel being released later this month. Burton’s book, Godsent, is a thriller about the son of God returning to earth, Texas Lawyer’s Tex Parte Blog reports. Reviews say the…

Oct 5, 2012 11:15 AM CDT