Midsize Firm

Founder leaves 120-lawyer firm due to disagreement about its future direction

A co-founder is leaving a 120-attorney Texas law firm after 28 years, due to a disagreement about its future direction. In a Tuesday internal memorandum, partner Donald Looper, who headed the firm’s corporate practice group, announced his resignation from Looper Reed & McGraw. He plans to share an office on…

Jan 2, 2014 4:55 PM CST

Lawyer fined for telling friend that client ‘Harry Potter’ author wrote new novel under pseudonym

A British lawyer has been rebuked and fined £1,000 by the Solicitors Regulation Authority for violating client confidentiality by revealing to his wife’s best friend that the author of the best-selling “Harry Potter” children’s book series had written a new novel under a pseudonym. The revelation sent sales of the…

Dec 31, 2013 5:40 PM CST

How an ordinary attorney got hired as general counsel to Marlon Brando

When David Seeley was working as a deputy prosecutor for Clark County, Wash., he happened to handle a number of cases against the son of a woman who said she knew Marlon Brando. He didn’t believe her when she said the famous actor was interested in her son’s cases. And…

Dec 30, 2013 9:19 PM CST

Law firm sues Florida Bar over rules restricting what legal websites and blog posts can say

A law firm has sued the Florida Bar and several of its officials, claiming that its legal ethics rules restricting law firm website content and what can be said in blog posts by attorneys are unconstitutional. Filed Wednesday in federal court in Tallahassee by Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley…

Dec 13, 2013 9:00 PM CST

Big-bucks bonuses for Boies associates top out at $300K; average is $85K

It may not be the long-established BigLaw firms that are handing out the biggest bucks to associates in the form of year-end bonuses this year. Boies, Schiller & Flexner, known for its high-end litigation work, has announced that it will be paying as much as $300,000 to its 133 associates…

Dec 11, 2013 7:00 PM CST

Leader exits Kaye Scholer’s LA office; at least 4 other partners left last month

A Kaye Scholer lawyer who served as co-managing partner of the firm’s two offices in California left this week for the Los Angeles office of Jenner & Block. The departure of G. Thomas Stromberg, a corporate practitioner, follows the exit last month of at least four other partners from the…

Dec 4, 2013 4:45 PM CST

Midsize firm closes satellite office, sees attorney roster dip

The attorney roster has shrunk at one of the biggest law firms in Sacramento, Calif., and it has closed one of its four satellite offices. However, Downey Brand managing partner, Kevin O’Brien says no lawyers have been laid off and the firm expects to grow in the future. “We’ve lost…

Dec 3, 2013 5:50 PM CST

Law firm to pay nearly $1M to receiver to settle claim it helped client conceal assets

Add another law firm to the list of those that have helped fund a receivership winding up the business affairs of disbarred attorney Arthur Nadel. Without admitting liability, Florida’s Band Weintraub has agreed to pay nearly $1 million in settlement of a lawsuit by the receiver that alleged the firm…

Nov 27, 2013 6:05 PM CST

Managing partner of White & Williams, 59, died in sleep at vacation home over weekend

When he took the helm at White & Williams in 2010, managing partner Guy Cellucci stepped in for an older partner who was required under the Philadelphia-based law firm’s partnership agreement to retire from management at age 64. Then 56 years old, Cellucci, who had been at the firm for…

Nov 20, 2013 9:05 PM CST

Taft Stettinius to acquire 70-attorney Chicago firm

A 70-attorney Chicago law firm is planning to merge with Taft Stettinius & Hollister in January, in a move that will eliminate the Shefksy & Froelich name but potentially double the size of its Chicago office and provide the growing Ohio-based Taft Stettinius with a significant presence in the Midwest’s…

Nov 19, 2013 5:45 PM CST

Outten & Golden opens a San Francisco office, plans to help workers sue financial and tech companies

An employment boutique that’s been in the news recently because of its unpaid-internship litigation against big entertainment companies is now opening a third office. Outten & Golden announced Monday that Jahan C. Sagafi, formerly a partner of Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein, will head its new office in San Francisco.…

Nov 18, 2013 10:10 PM CST

Patton Boggs to cut equity partner roster from 98 to 80; firm’s income soared after earlier layoffs

Two rounds of layoffs this year in which Patton Boggs has let go 40 attorneys and 70 staff members have left the Washington, D.C.-based lobbying powerhouse on-budget and poised for growth and a strong financial performance, a leader says. But although recent layoffs of 10 lawyers and 35 staffers represented…

Nov 15, 2013 8:59 PM CST

Patton Boggs axes 10 attorneys and 35 staff in second round of layoffs this year

As a possible merger with Locke Lord looms, lobbying powerhouse Patton Boggs is laying off lawyers and staff for the second time this year. The 450-lawyer Washington, D.C.-based law firm is letting go of 10 associate attorneys in its Newark, N.J., office and 35 staff members throughout its 10 locations…

Nov 14, 2013 9:15 PM CST

NY Times: Kramer Levin to bring in John P. Coffey as chair of complex litigation group

After losing a campaign to become New York’s attorney general several years ago, John P. “Sean” Coffey got involved in starting a litigation-funding investment firm and said he didn’t know if he would ever return to law practice. But last summer he helped Allen & Overy defend a former Goldman…

Nov 13, 2013 7:19 PM CST

Kim Rothstein, wife of ex-lawyer jailed in $1.2B swindle, gets 18 months for hiding $1M in jewelry

The wife of a disgraced Florida attorney has been sentenced to 18 months for her own role in scheme related to the $1.2 billion swindle for which the now-disbarred lawyer is serving a 50-year federal prison term. Kim Rothstein, 39, got 18 months Tuesday from a federal judge in Miami…

Nov 12, 2013 8:04 PM CST