Practice Management

Major UK Law Firms Plan to Help Partners Launch Post-Retirement Careers

At least two major London-based law firms are pursuing programs to help partners launch new careers after they retire from legal practice. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has already started a pilot program, in which partners nearing retirement sit down with consultants to discuss ” their strengths and possible career paths,” reports…

Jun 12, 2008 5:30 PM CDT

Non-Attorney Ownership Will Mean More Competition for UK Law Firms

Within the next four years or so, the United Kingdom market for legal services will become one of the most lightly regulated in the world. And, as literally hundreds of well-funded businesses line up to invest in law firms there by 2012, when the Legal Services Act will allow non-attorneys…

Jun 12, 2008 5:11 PM CDT

Law Firm Sues Over Yellow Pages Ad

The partners of a prominent Charleston, W.Va., law firm have sued the company that produces Verizon phone directories, saying that a mistake in its Yellow Pages ad is costing Neely & Callaghan legal business. Idearc Media Corp. allegedly ran the wrong copy for the firm’s ad in the Charleston edition…

Jun 12, 2008 4:31 PM CDT

Latest Law Firm Benefit Is College Coaching

Several large law firms are offering college coaching to help lawyers and staffers whose children are going through the admissions process. Older law firm employees who no longer use on-site child care are likely to see a benefit in college coaching, the National Law Journal reports. The consulting program may…

Jun 12, 2008 12:13 PM CDT

In-House Counsel See Generation Gap

Younger lawyers are more likely to use e-mail and text messages to communicate and less likely to respect authority. Those were the conclusions of some in-house lawyers and a diversity consultant at a discussion last week sponsored by the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, according to the Fulton County Daily Report.…

Jun 12, 2008 12:01 PM CDT

Avvo Petitions Illinois Supreme Court for Lawyer List

The lawyer rating website Avvo has filed a petition with the Illinois Supreme Court requesting a disk with information about all of the state’s lawyers. The website of the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission already contains information about the state’s 85,000 lawyers, but it has two limitations, the petition…

Jun 11, 2008 4:57 PM CDT

Akin Gump Will Close at Least One Office Due to Loss of IP Rainmaker

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld has closed its Taiwan office and is re-evaluating its Silicon Valley office after the loss of rainmaker Yitai Hu. Akin Gump chairman R. Bruce McLean told the Recorder that Hu kept both offices busy with patent work since he opened them in 2005. Among…

Jun 11, 2008 2:51 PM CDT

Heller Ehrman Sends Chairman to New York, in Something of a Trend

The last big San Francisco law firm to have its chairman full-time in the city has decided to send its leader packing to New York. Matthew Larrabee, chairman of Heller Ehrman, will move to the firm’s New York office this month, the Recorder reports. Larrabee told the publication the change…

Jun 11, 2008 2:12 PM CDT

Online Social Networking Lessons for Lawyers

Updated: If you don’t know what online social networking is, let alone LinkedIn and Plaxo, you’re surely not unique among the legal profession. But you need to know, says Robert Ambrogi in Law Technology News. And Facebook, he contends, isn’t just for the nonlawyer teenagers and 20-somethings amongst us. “For…

Jun 10, 2008 7:16 PM CDT

Weil Gotshal Holds Networking Event at Henri Bendel

Lawyers at Weil Gotshal & Manges combined shopping and networking last week during a private shopping party with clients and friends at upscale clothing store Henri Bendel in New York. Both the store and the law firm pledged to donate 10 percent of the evening’s proceedings to the Breast Cancer…

Jun 10, 2008 5:23 PM CDT

Employee Stole $685K From Law Firm & Partner’s Mom

A former paralegal and bookkeeper for a small Connecticut law firm proved to be a one-woman theft machine after she developed a gambling problem in 1998. Karen Davis-Jennings, 44, was sentenced yesterday by a federal judge to 16 months in prison for stealing more than $685,000 from the firm and…

Jun 10, 2008 3:31 PM CDT

Associate Advice: Start Early on Client Development, Stay Late at the Office

It’s never too early for new associates to start working on client development, according to an article written by a law firm partner. Thomas Coyne of Thompson Hine in Cleveland suggests in an article for the National Law Journal that associates join bar associations, publish articles and polish their public…

Jun 10, 2008 1:59 PM CDT

Partner Accused of Stealing from Firm to Plead Guilty Today

A former partner at a Maine law firm who was accused of stealing more than $300,000 from his law firm and clients is expected to plead guilty to felony theft. John Duncan, who had worked at Verrill Dana in Portland for 29 years, is expected to enter a plea today,…

Jun 10, 2008 1:26 PM CDT

Some Law Firms Give Managing Partner Firing Authority

A lawsuit brought by the former chairman of the intellectual property practice at Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman highlights an unusual policy at law firms: The managing partner has authority to fire partners without approval from others. The suit by Jeremy Pitcock claims he was fired by the managing partner…

Jun 10, 2008 11:25 AM CDT

British Firms Banding Together at MyLawyer.com

It isn’t just the biggest and best-known law partnerships that could potentially benefit from a new U.K. statute allowing alternative business structures and non-attorney ownership by 2011. If the operator of a new British website is correct, relatively small law firms in the United Kingdom, too, will be able to…

Jun 9, 2008 6:52 PM CDT