Large Firm

Am Law 100 firms make modest gains in revenue and profits: Is the legal market recovering?

Am Law 100 law firms overall had low single-digit year-over-year increases in all major metrics, the American Lawyer magazine reported in its annual survey. Gross revenue was up 3.4 percent, average revenue per lawyer was up 2.6 percent, and average profits per partner were up 4.2 percent, American Lawyer reported.…

Apr 25, 2013 11:38 PM CDT

Plan to have Kaye Scholer give up $1.5M in fees to settle disclosure case is withdrawn

A planned settlement of a case over lack of disclosure by a law firm and others in a corporate bankruptcy case has been withdrawn without explanation by the feds. The settlement would have required Kaye Scholer to forgo $1.5 million in attorney fees in a Chapter 11 case and have…

Apr 25, 2013 3:58 PM CDT

With up to 20% of Am Law 200 ‘badly weakened,’ will more firms fail? (video)

A substantial percentage of the nation’s largest law firms enter the sixth year of the Great Recession “badly weakened,” and more firms are expected to fail, according to law firm consultant Kent Zimmermann of the Zeughauser Group. Their problems boil down to “too many attorneys for too little work,” he…

Apr 25, 2013 2:27 PM CDT

Major Chinese firm Zhong Lun opens office in New York

One of China’s largest law firms has opened an office in New York. The Zhong Lun Law Firm announced in a press release Tuesday that its new midtown office expects to help both U.S. clients investing or doing business in China and Chinese clients investing or doing business in the…

Apr 24, 2013 6:05 PM CDT

Kaye Scholer cedes $1.5M in Chapter 11 fees, OKs new policy to end US Trustee’s disclosure case

Kaye Scholer has agreed to give up $1.5 million in legal fees and revamp its policies and procedures concerning applications for bankruptcy work to settle a U.S. Trustee’s office claim that the law firm failed to make necessary disclosures in a major Chapter 11 case. The settlement announced Monday in…

Apr 23, 2013 10:02 PM CDT

Ex-Ogletree VP said to be working at Littler, 6 other Ogletree partners to follow

Earlier this month, Reuters published an article announcing that a former vice president had resigned from Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart and planned to take a group of lawyers from the national labor and employment boutique to another law firm. Now it appears that Don Prophete is actually in…

Apr 23, 2013 4:49 PM CDT

Senator’s query prompts law firm to quit ‘political intelligence’ work

Greenberg Traurig has said it will stop working with so-called political intelligence firms after a U.S. senator questioned whether one of the law firm’s lobbyists obtained and shared confidential information on Medicare. In a statement provided to Bloomberg, Greenberg Traurig said it “concluded that providing government relations services to an…

Apr 22, 2013 12:25 PM CDT

DLA Piper settles fee-dispute case that brought ‘churn that bill, baby!’ email to light

DLA Piper has reportedly settled, on confidential terms, a case over a disputed $675,000 in legal fees in a corporate bankruptcy case that brought embarrassing email to light when the client counterclaimed and discovered 250,000 pages of documents. In particular, a “churn that bill, baby!” comment captured the attention of…

Apr 18, 2013 3:40 PM CDT

Ex-employee takes plea in $376K copy machine toner theft from Fried Frank

A former employee accused of stealing $376,000 worth of copy machine toner from a BigLaw firm over a two-year period has taken a plea. Adrian Rodriguez has pleaded guilty to second-degree larceny concerning the theft of the cartridges from Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, the Associated Press reports. Rodriguez,…

Apr 16, 2013 7:50 PM CDT

King & Spalding blocks employee access to personal email accounts, but offers an alternative

Citing security concerns, a major law firm has blocked its workers from accessing their personal email on its computers. In a memo to employees on Monday, King & Spalding said it had been advised by consultants that accessing personal email accounts such as Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail from the law…

Apr 16, 2013 7:30 PM CDT

Survey: Strong consensus law firms need to change. But can they? (video)

A survey of the readers of the Adam Smith, Esq. law firm management blog has found that there is widespread agreement that law firms have to change their fundamental business models, consultant Bruce MacEwen tells Bloomberg Law’s Lee Pacchia. But lawyers have real doubts that law firms will be willing…

Apr 11, 2013 4:35 PM CDT

As many law firms boost pay of top performers, Shearman reportedly takes a different tack

Many law firms in recent years have boosted the salaries of their star lawyers, creating larger gaps between the highest and lowest paid partners. Shearman & Sterling, however, is apparently taking a different tack, according to a published report. Reuters reports that Shearman is “bucking the industry trend” by reducing…

Apr 10, 2013 2:59 PM CDT

‘Big-firm mediocre’ style of legal writing is oddly consistent, ‘curmudgeon’ writes

The former big-firm lawyer Mark Herrmann turned his critical eye—along with a scalpel in one hand and an axe in the other—on lawyering and legal writing some years ago, laying out much of it in his 2007 book, The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law, which was addressed to law firm…

Apr 8, 2013 8:51 PM CDT

Booted from big enviro case, Covington blames ex-client for not protesting conflict earlier

A Minnesota judge last year agreed with 3M Co. that its longtime counsel, Covington & Burling, could not continue to represent the state in a big environmental lawsuit against the corporation. But even if a legal ethics rule would otherwise have prohibited the representation, Covington should be allowed to continue…

Apr 5, 2013 9:36 PM CDT

Law firm mergers surge in 1st quarter 2013

Law firm merger activity hit a four-year high in the first quarter of 2013. All of the 20-plus law firm weddings listed by the Altman Weil Mergerline, however, involved the acquisition of smaller—and often much smaller—legal shops. “Firms are picking up specialty practices, expanding in strong markets and adding offices…

Apr 4, 2013 9:50 PM CDT