Legal Ethics
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January 15, 2019
Firm Tries 3rd Time To Toss Malpractice Arbitration Award
A Texas law firm has asked the state's high court to undo lower court rulings that affirmed a nearly $460,000 arbitration award against it stemming from an ex-client's malpractice lawsuit, arguing the arbitrator's ruling goes against Texas law and must be reviewed.
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January 15, 2019
NJ Judge Says Hostile Boss Prompted Secret Recordings
A New Jersey state court judge facing a possible suspension for surreptitiously recording meetings with her superior and then denying it urged the state Supreme Court to forgo disciplining her, arguing Wednesday that she'd been new to the job and the higher-up was bullying her.
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January 15, 2019
Hunton Andrews DQ Bid Under Fire In Crash Coverage Suit
Ranger Construction Industries Inc. slammed Allied World National Assurance Co.'s bid to disqualify Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP for allegedly using inadvertently disclosed confidential documents in a pending case, saying Tuesday the insurer is trying to turn its own errors into a "reason to rob Ranger of its chosen counsel."
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January 15, 2019
4th Circ. Hands Saveri Firm Win In $1.2M Legal Fees Battle
Former Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP attorney Joseph Saveri's firm doesn't have to pay another plaintiffs firm a $1.2 million referral fee out of his score from settlements in titanium dioxide price-fixing litigation, the Fourth Circuit ruled Monday, finding he'd never agreed to shell out the sum.
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January 15, 2019
Timeshare Owners Seek Fees Over Marriott's Withheld Docs
Attorneys for timeshare owners locked in a lawsuit against Marriott Vacations over an alleged drop in the value of their properties asked for more than $200,000 in fees and expenses Monday after a Colorado federal magistrate judge sanctioned Marriott for a delay in turning over critical documents.
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January 15, 2019
Miami Atty Humiliated Ex-Partner, Ethics Complaint Says
The Florida Bar filed an ethics complaint Monday against Miami-area divorce attorney Daniel Kaplan, saying he disparaged and humiliated other attorneys, including in connection with a legal dispute with his former partner Eduardo Rasco, and violated a related court order.
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January 15, 2019
Drink Co. Wants Bradley Arant DQ'd After Jump To Rival
A coffee and tea company facing a patent infringement suit over its sweet tea drink told an Alabama federal court its attorneys of nearly a decade at Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP dumped the company and entered an appearance for the other side in the case less than an hour later.
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January 15, 2019
Blank Rome Can Arbitrate Ex-Dickstein Partners' $4M Suit
A Los Angeles judge told a group of former Dickstein Shapiro LLP partners Tuesday they must arbitrate claims that Blank Rome LLP mischaracterized its hire of more than 100 lawyers from the now-defunct Dickstein as an asset sale, rather than a merger, to avoid paying the former partners $4 million.
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January 15, 2019
Pa. Judge's Tough Sex Offender Sentences Challenged Again
Attorneys again questioned whether a Pittsburgh-based state judge had given an excessive sentence to a convicted sex offender, although the judge has announced her resignation after the Superior Court of Pennsylvania chastised her for an appearance of bias and removed her from two similar cases.
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January 15, 2019
London Lawyer 1st Fined Over Panama Papers Revelations
A partner at London law firm Child & Child on Tuesday became the first English lawyer to be punished as a result of revelations from the Panama Papers scandal after he was fined £85,000 ($109,000) by a U.K. disciplinary tribunal for failing to carry out money laundering checks.
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January 14, 2019
Quinn Says High Court Arbitration Ruling Sinks Ex-Partners
Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP seized on a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that removed one basis on which parties could escape arbitration, in order to bolster its case in a dispute against a group of former partners it contends must remit fees earned from clients they took to their new firm.
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January 14, 2019
Atty Central To Marijuana Penny Stock Fraud Plot, Gov't Says
A Florida-based securities attorney was a central figure in a plot to defraud investors who bought penny stock in a company involved in hydroponic marijuana growing equipment, prosecutors told a Colorado federal jury Monday at the start of his trial.
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January 14, 2019
GTC Law Group Settles Chancery Fight Over IP Asset Sale
GTC Law Group told a Delaware Chancery Court judge Monday that it had reached a settlement deal for a temporary restraining order with a secured lender of its client Osterhout Group Inc. that will allow a sale of the technology company to move forward while setting aside up to $700,000 in unpaid legal fees.
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January 14, 2019
Auto Parts Co. Threatens US Exit Over Price-Fixing: Plaintiffs
A Taiwanese auto parts company has threatened to pull out of the U.S. market if a proposed class of consumers accusing the company of price-fixing keeps pushing for a default judgment instead of accepting a $500,000 settlement the consumers had already rejected, the plaintiffs told a Wisconsin federal court.
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January 14, 2019
Baker Botts Defeats Takeda’s DQ Bid In Heartburn Drug Fight
Baker Botts LLP can continue representing Zydus Pharmaceuticals as it pursues antitrust claims against Takeda over a heartburn medication, despite the law firm’s prior representation of Takeda’s ally in patent litigation over the same drug, a New Jersey federal judge said in a ruling made public Friday.
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January 14, 2019
Judge Broke Ethics Rules By Bullying Opponent's Supporters
A Pennsylvania judicial ethics panel has agreed that a magistrate judge's hostile public confrontations with supporters of a political opponent, including an incident in which he threatened a woman with "payback" for her actions, constituted a violation of disciplinary rules.
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January 14, 2019
Mueller Probe To Dominate Barr Confirmation Hearing
The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to start grilling President Donald Trump's attorney general nominee William Barr Tuesday, and the biggest item on the menu is undoubtedly his supervision of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
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January 14, 2019
Pittsburgh Firm Botched Case, Paid For Reviews, Suit Says
A proposed class action in Pennsylvania state court has accused Kraemer Manes & Associates of botching a Pittsburgh woman’s federal harassment case by missing the statute of limitations while also inflating its reputation through soliciting five-star reviews from non-clients.
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January 14, 2019
NJ Firm Can't Shake Malpractice Suit Over Lost $102M Verdict
A New Jersey court ruled Friday that a law firm must continue to face malpractice claims over the settlement-related advice it gave a client before she lost a $102 million child-abuse verdict on appeal.
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January 14, 2019
Calif. Judge Accused Of 20-Year Pattern Of Sex Harassment
A California appeals judge engaged in a two-decade pattern of misbehavior that included repeatedly groping a fellow judge, making unwanted sexual advances toward police officers and appearing drunk while purportedly on official business, according to a filing in a disciplinary action made public Monday.
Expert Analysis
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Why AFAs Are Key To The Future Of Legal Practice
Alternative fee agreements can help align law firm and client interests, increase efficiency and eliminate corporate extortion, among other benefits. They are the best thing to happen to the practice of law in decades, says Kelly Eisenlohr-Moul at Dinsmore & Shohl LLP.
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Worldwide Freezing Orders Can Backfire Without Proper Care
Worldwide freezing orders, which preserve a respondent's assets until the outcome of the substantive case, are an important weapon in the arsenal of a commercial litigant. However, as FSDEA v. Dos Santos demonstrates, courts lay heavy obligations upon WFO applicants, says Nicola McKinney of Grosvenor Law Ltd.
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Series
Judging A Book: Barron Reviews 'The Clamor Of Lawyers'
Can lawyers lead a revolution? According to "The Clamor of Lawyers: The American Revolution and Crisis in the Legal Profession" — a slim but elegant volume by Peter Charles Hoffer and Williamjames Hull Hoffer — they can and they did, says First Circuit Judge David Barron.
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Opinion
The Case For Lawyer-Directed Litigation Funding In NY: Part 2
Lawyer-directed nonrecourse litigation funding is more likely to protect a lawyer's exercise of independent professional judgment than traditional means of litigation finance, and furthermore enables worthwhile cases that otherwise could not be funded, say Peter Jarvis and Trisha Thompson of Holland & Knight LLP.
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Opinion
The Case For Lawyer-Directed Litigation Funding In NY: Part 1
Contrary to what the New York City Bar Association concluded in an ethics opinion last year, lawyer-directed nonrecourse commercial litigation funding does not violate New York rules on sharing fees with nonlawyers, say Peter Jarvis and Trisha Thompson of Holland & Knight LLP.
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7 Questions To Add To Your Lateral Partner Questionnaire
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Law firms should redesign the vetting process for lateral candidates so it directly addresses sexual harassment and assault issues, says Howard Rosenberg of Decipher.
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Q&A
A Chat With Reed Smith Chief Marketing Officer Sadie Baron
In this monthly series, Amanda Brady of Major Lindsey & Africa interviews management from top law firms about the increasingly competitive business environment. Here we feature Sadie Baron, chief marketing officer at Reed Smith LLP.
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'Flexible Work' Makes Freelancing More Viable In BigLaw
The rise of remote work capabilities and advances in technology are making flexible, freelance legal work a more accessible career option for corporate attorneys, say Elizabeth Black and Sara Eng of InCloudCounsel.
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Opinion
A Call To Permit Judicial Substitution In MDL Proceedings
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While several proposed changes to multidistrict litigation procedures may be warranted and appropriate, consideration should be given to a modest modification of the judicial selection process, says Doug Smith of Kirkland & Ellis LLP.
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Guest Feature
Judge Weinstein On Activism, Gobbledegook, Going Robeless
Judge Jack Weinstein has served in the Eastern District of New York for over half a century. White and Williams LLP attorney Randy Maniloff visited his Brooklyn office to find out what makes the 97-year-old jurist tick.