Law Firms

Just in Time for Summer Associates: Lessons About Law Firm Job Success

Not sure about e-mail ettiquette or what’s expected at a law firm social event? Professors from Suffolk University Law School and other legal writing professors from around the country may well have the answers for you. The Boston school’s well-regarded legal research and writing program has organized a free 19-podcast…

May 29, 2008 8:54 PM CDT

Clifford Chance FY Revenue up 11%, Hits $2.623 Billion

Corrected: Clifford Chance has started the British law firm earnings reporting season with a bang, announcing a hefty revenue increase regardless of the economic slowdown that began last year. The London-based international firm is the first magic circle firm to report its earnings for the 2007-2008 fiscal year. “Despite its…

May 29, 2008 5:16 PM CDT

Sonnenschein Layoffs Signal Sea Change in Law Firm PR Strategy

An announcement that Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal is laying off 37 lawyers and 87 staffers was noteworthy for the size of the reduction alone. But even more noteworthy, perhaps, is the fact that the more than 700-attorney Chicago-based international law firm took a highly nontraditional approach to the reduction in…

May 29, 2008 4:21 PM CDT

Judge Rules Against Recruiter Seeking Fee from Blank Rome

A recruiter has lost a lawsuit seeking a $730,000 fee from Blank Rome for proposing a merger with Healy & Baillie. Judge Herman Cahn of Manhattan said an e-mail exchange between Blank Rome and the plaintiff, Mark Bruce International, was not an enforceable contract, the New York Law Journal reports.…

May 29, 2008 2:42 PM CDT

Holland & Hart to Merge With Nevada’s Hale Lane

Denver-based Holland & Hart will merge with Nevada’s 50-lawyer Hale Lane Peek Dennison and Howard to create a firm with more than 400 lawyers. The smaller firm’s 22 partners will become full equity partners in the merged firm, the AmLaw Daily reports. The new firm will retain the Holland &…

May 29, 2008 11:06 AM CDT

Gender Gap Due, in Part, to ‘Ambition Gap’?

Although Hillary Clinton is, perhaps, a rare exception, there is a reason why women are underrepresented in lawyer-laden political circles. It’s because they don’t fight as hard as men do for political office, writes Ruth Marcus in a Washington Post column. “There is a substantial gender gap in political ambition;…

May 28, 2008 9:21 PM CDT

Affymetrix Legal Team Jumps Ship to Dewey & LeBoeuf

The general counsel of a California-based genetic products manufacturer is leaving, along with three in-house Affymetrix patent lawyers, to join Dewey & LeBoeuf. Barbara Caulfield, who formerly worked as a federal district court judge before she joined the Santa Clara company, will be in charge of the Silicon Valley office…

May 28, 2008 5:06 PM CDT

Mayer Brown DC MP Jumps to JPMorgan Chase

The managing partner at Mayer Brown’s Washington, D.C., office is leaving to become vice president in charge of global government affairs for JPMorgan Chase. The lawyer, Peter Scher, is a former Clinton administration official, the Washington Post reports. He was a special trade negotiator in the Office of the U.S.…

May 28, 2008 2:29 PM CDT

DLA Piper Litigator Named Pfizer GC

The lead lawyer defending Pfizer Inc. in litigation over two of its painkillers will become the company’s general counsel. Amy Schulman will take the place of Allen Waxman, said to have left the company for personal reasons. Schulman is a partner at DLA Piper, where she earned $5.75 million last…

May 28, 2008 2:04 PM CDT

N.Y. Lawyer Sues Delta for $1M, Claims Airline Ruined Dream Trip

A New York lawyer has filed a $1 million suit against Delta Air Lines that claims the carrier ruined a planned dream trip to Argentina for his mother’s 80th birthday. The suit filed by litigator Richard Roth says he and his family arrived at their destination almost three days late,…

May 28, 2008 1:28 PM CDT

Energy Lawyers Lured by High Pay in Houston’s Booming Legal Market

In the last two years, several national law firms have opened in Houston and lured lawyers from firms already established in the city. The competition has created a “buyer’s market” for lawyers, particularly energy lawyers, the National Law Journal reports. ABAJournal.com noted last April that energy lawyers in Houston are…

May 28, 2008 12:48 PM CDT

Some Bingham Lawyers Blame Departures on Management

At least 16 partners have left Bingham McCutchen this year, and some of them are blaming the management style and decisions of chairman Jay Zimmerman. The National Law Journal spoke to several departing lawyers, who cited a variety of reasons for their decision to leave. They included better opportunities, poor…

May 28, 2008 12:30 PM CDT

Lawyer Suspended for E-Mail Snooping

A West Virginia lawyer has been suspended for two years for accessing the e-mail of his wife and eight other lawyers at least 150 times over a two-year period. The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals imposed the sanction against Charleston lawyer Michael Markins in an opinion issued Friday, the…

May 28, 2008 11:56 AM CDT

Blacked-Out Pacer Briefs Easy to Read in GE Bias Lawsuit

A plaintiffs law firm didn’t succeed in blacking out large portions of information in briefs filed in a sex discrimination lawsuit against General Electric. The Connecticut Law Tribune revealed that blacked-out information in briefs accessible through the Pacer electronic filing system could be read by copying and pasting the data…

May 28, 2008 11:19 AM CDT

Malpractice Suit Claims Morgan Lewis Failed to Quickly Admit Patent Goof

A lawsuit filed last week against Morgan Lewis & Bockius and one of its partners claims the partner made mistakes in a patent application and then waited too long to admit it. The suit by billboard maker Landmark Screens claims San Francisco partner Thomas Kohler and the law firm learned…

May 28, 2008 10:50 AM CDT