Deaths

  • Morning Docket: 09.30.16
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 09.30.16

    * According to a labor relations suit filed in 2012, Donald Trump allegedly wanted to fire female employees of Trump National Golf Club in California, who he didn’t think were pretty enough. The suit was settled without any admission of wrongdoing. [Los Angeles Times]

    * Biglaw mega-merger alert: Word on the street is that London-based firms CMS and Olswang will join with international firm Nabarro for a three-way merger that would create a combined entity with more than 3,000 lawyers. If the merger were to go through, the firm would have more than $1.5 billion in revenue. [LegalWeek]

    * According to the results of this survey, corporate counsel don’t think too highly of millennials when it comes to loyalty. Almost 70 percent of baby boomers and Gen Xers thought millennial lawyers in their legal departments would leave in less than five years, potentially causing “major problem[s]” in terms of turnover rates. [WSJ Law Blog]

    * How many women serve as lead counsel in New York state and federal courts and in mediation and arbitration? That’s what a new study being conducted by the New York State Bar Association’s Commercial and Federal Litigation Section hopes to find out, because “[o]nce you have a diagnosis, you can get to a solution.” [New York Law Journal]

    * “Something is going wrong at this bank, and you are the head of it. You should be fired.” Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf may be forfeiting $41 million in pay, but lawmakers were still pretty darn upset with him when he testified before the House Financial Services Committee at a hearing yesterday. [DealBook / New York Times]

    * Phil C. Neal, former dean of University of Chicago Law School, RIP. [UChicago News]

  • Morning Docket: 09.28.16
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 09.28.16

    * “It would have been disastrous for the whole country.” Following Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski’s screening of “The People vs. Larry Flynt,” the infamous smut peddler at the center of the film received a standing ovation after speaking to an audience about what would have happened if the Supreme Court hadn’t ruled in Hustler’s favor in the landmark First Amendment case. [WSJ Law Blog]

    * Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf will forfeit $41 million in bonus and stock awards in the wake of the lender’s sham accounts scandal. As we mentioned previously, the bank’s board was looking to Shearman & Sterling for guidance on whether it would move forward with clawback actions against executives considering the severity of the misconduct and fraud that occurred. [CNN]

    * Sorry, Lynn Tilton, but the Supreme Court isn’t going to rescue you: the “Diva of Distressed” applied to the high court for a stay of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s action against her, arguing that the agency’s use of in-house judges was unconstitutional, but the Court flat-out rejected her request, without even so much as a dissent. Tilton could be barred from further work in the securities industry. [Bloomberg]

    * Chelsea Grayson, who currently serves as general counsel of American Apparel, is moving up in the company to take on an even bigger and better role. She will assume the position of chief executive officer next month as the company considers a sale. She’s guided the company through controversies in the past, so a potential sale should be no problem for this former Loeb & Loeb partner. Congratulations! [Big Law Business]

    * A former investigator for the Illinois Appellate Defender’s Office is receiving a major windfall after alleging that she was forced to resign for complaining about a salary cut. Alice Washington is set to receive more than $1 million dollars for her retaliation claim, but State Appellate Defender Michael Pelletier says he plans to appeal the judgment due to the fact that he “cannot in good conscience settle with this woman.” [ABA Journal]

    * Michael Fahy, lawyer turned firefighter, RIP. [New York Daily News]

  • Morning Docket: 09.27.16
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 09.27.16

    * “Even with a new Republican appointee, [Justice Clarence] Thomas is likely to remain somewhat isolated on the extreme right.” In the case of Justice Thomas, it wouldn’t even matter if Donald Trump won the presidency — he’d still be the most conservative justice in the modern history of the Supreme Court. [New York Times]

    * The Supreme Court’s long conference was yesterday, and we’ll likely find out later today (or in the days to come) the cases for which the justices decided to grant certiorari for the 2016-17 term. One of those cases may be NCAA v. O’Bannon, where the question of sports amateurism for the purpose of athletes’ pay is up for debate. [CBS Sports]

    * Hot on the heels of the news that Dentons dragged down revenue per lawyer rankings for the entire 2016 Global 100 thanks to its mega-merger with Dacheng, the firm had a more upbeat announcement. Partners Mike McNamara, Jeff Haidet, and Peter Wolfson have ascended to national and global leadership positions. Congrats! [Big Law Business]

    * Under a new California law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, actors may conceal their age and force websites like IMDb to remove their age from bio pages in order to shield themselves from age-based discrimination in casting. Critics of the law are calling this an attack on free speech — and it’s too little, too late for Junie Hoang. [WSJ Law Blog]

    * Judge Leonard I. Garth, Third Circuit Court of Appeals jurist, RIP. [Washington Post]

    * Daniel O. Bernstine, president of LSAC, RIP. [ABA Journal]

  • Morning Docket: 09.23.16
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 09.23.16

    * Tulsa police officer Betty Shelby has been charged with first-degree manslaughter in the shooting death of Terence Crutcher. In the charging documents, prosecutors said she “reacted unreasonably by escalating the situation.” If convicted, she faces between up to life in prison. [AP]

    * Thanks to millennials in the workforce, some Biglaw firms are doing away with corner offices, since those corner offices can be intimidating to young associates. Rainmakers at a few firms were pretty pissed: “Some partners said, ‘We earn this — It’s a right of passage. It’s where we work.'” [Big Law Business]

    * “We should really hold the Department of Justice’s feet to the fire here. Will they pursue individuals and not just the underlings?” Many are hoping that the Department of Justice will use Wells Fargo’s misconduct as its test case for getting tough on corporate executives responsible for corporate crime. [DealBook / New York Times]

    * ACLU attorney Ahilan Arulanantham won a $625K MacArthur “genius grant” for his legal work performed on behalf of immigrants facing deportation, which has set “vital precedents to expand the rights of non-citizens.” He’s the second immigration attorney to win the award in three years. Congratulations on this achievement! [WSJ Law Blog]

    * “If things slow down and I had time, I really want to go to law school.” Despite the fact that she hasn’t even gone to college, Kim Kardashian West wants to follow in her late father’s footsteps and become a lawyer. Which law school do you think would be willing to accept the queen of reality TV? Would she be able to bring Kanye? [Daily Caller]

  • Morning Docket: 09.16.16
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 09.16.16

    * Former Berkeley Law dean Sujit Choudhry is suing the school, claiming that Berkeley discriminated against him by punishing him more harshly for alleged sexual harassment compared to white professors. [Law.com]

    * The family of Sandra Bland settles its lawsuit over her death for $1.9 million. [New York Times]

    * The Sixth Circuit, sitting en banc (and rather splintered), rules that the mental-health ban on gun ownership could violate the Second Amendment. [How Appealing]

    * Congratulations to Miami corporate partner Ira Coleman, who will replace Peter John Sacripanti and Jeffrey E. Stone as chair of McDermott Will & Emery in January. [Big Law Business]

    * Ashurst remains in a tailspin, with five partners (including two office heads) leaving in the span of 24 hours. [Ashurst]

    * In other U.K. law firm news, Freshfields is replacing “Dear Sirs” with gender-neutral salutations in all communications and legal documents. [The Lawyer via Big Law Business]

    * More exciting news for Bancroft: recognition for its pro bono work, which partners pledge will continue after they move over to Kirkland. [Law360]

    * Paging parents who left Davis Polk to raise their kids: here’s a program to bring you back into Biglaw. [Law.com via ABA Journal]

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  • Morning Docket: 09.14.16
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 09.14.16

    * “Your complaint claims that it must speak for us because we are too afraid to speak for ourselves. That is not how we see ourselves and certainly not how any of us believes our clients and colleagues perceive us.” Some female partners at Chadbourne & Parke are speaking out against the $100 million class-action sex discrimination lawsuit that’s been filed on their behalf. We’ll have more on this news update later today. [WSJ Law Blog]

    * Davis Polk is so desperate to improve gender diversity at the firm that it has launched an alumni rehiring program to give women who have opted to leave the firm to raise children a pathway back to an associate-level position. Participants in the program will earn $190K for one year, and may be offered a permanent job. [Am Law Daily]

    * Say hello to Michael Gerstenzang, who was elected as Cleary Gottlieb’s new managing partner. He’s been with the firm for his entire career as an attorney since the 1990s, and he’ll continue to maintain his private equity and funds practice during his time serving as the firm’s leader, or rather, its “listener in chief.” Congratulations! [Legal Week]

    * The House of Representatives approved the Financial Choice Act, a bill meant to roll back portions of the Dodd-Frank Act, including the Volcker Rule and the Durbin Amendment. Critics had this to say: “This bill is so bad that it simply cannot be fixed. It’s clear that this is a rushed, partisan messaging tool.” [DealBook / New York Times]

    * Sixteen years after the alleged fraud took place, ex-AIG chairman Hank Greenberg is standing trial. Although he’s accused of orchestrating multimillion-dollar transactions, David Boies of Boies Schiller says “[t]his case is devoid of any admissible evidence that ties Mr. Greenberg to anything improper in either of these transactions.” [Reuters]

    * Deborah Broyles, global diversity director at Reed Smith, RIP. [Big Law Business]

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