I’ve spent my whole life watching my ignorance be exposed.
When I worked at a small firm in California, I thought the whole litigation world was my oyster: We handled all civil cases (other than immigration or family law matters) in all state and federal courts in California.
I moved to a huge firm in Cleveland and lost my bearings: I now held myself out as being able to handle any civil case filed in any court in the United States. (This was a big change. When I worked in California, at least I knew what advance sheets to read. Cleveland set me adrift at sea.) Now, surely, the world was my oyster.
Wrong again. Now I’ve gone in-house, and I’m ultimately responsible for all litigation filed against my company anywhere in the world. The world is my oyster….
The American Lawyer Global 100 is out. It’s the list that ranks law firms around the world by gross revenue.
And this year, there’s a new name at the top. Baker & McKenzie leapfrogged a number of firms to become the top-grossing law firm in the world (based on 2009 revenue numbers). Baker narrowly edged out Skadden for this honor.
Of course, Skadden people shouldn’t be ashamed of their second-place finish. Baker & McKenzie is huge: it leads the Am Law list of most lawyers by more than a thousand over its nearest rival, Clifford Chance. Skadden ranks #9 on the “most lawyers” list, with an attorney headcount that is almost doubled by Baker & McKenzie. Skadden gets to #2 in the revenue rankings by having a much higher revenue-per-lawyer figure.
Let’s take a look at the top ten in terms of revenue, and drool over these billion-dollar businesses…
Law professor Peter Erlinder’s summer break continues to suck.
Last week, we told you about the William Mitchell College of Law professor, who traveled to Rwanda to help with the defense of a political leader running against the incumbent president. He was arrested soon after his arrival because of his “genocidal ideology.” He allegedly violated Rwanda’s laws against minimizing the 1994 genocide in which more than 500,000 Rwandans, mainly ethnic Tutsis, were killed.
Erlinder, who previously defended a Hutu during the International Criminal Tribunals in 2003, contends that it’s inaccurate to blame just one side for what happened. That got him locked in the Rwandan slammer, along with the opposition leader he went to Kigali to defend. During interrogations last week, he fell ill, leading to his hospitalization. Erlinder’s wife says he needs his blood pressure medicine. His daughter told us she’s hoping the State Department will intervene.
He pleaded not guilty to the genocide-denial charges during a hearing on Friday, but the Rwandan judge decided today to turn down Erlinder’s bail application.
What are the charges based on? It appears obscure publications don’t just come back to haunt lawyers during Senate confirmation hearings….
A law professor from Minnesota is not having a very good start to his summer break. As we previously mentioned in the Memorial Day Docket, a William Mitchell College of Law professor, Peter Erlinder, 62, traveled to Rwanda last month to help with the legal defense of Victoire Ingabire, an opposition leader running against current-President Paul Kagame in the central African country’s August elections.
Erlinder, who previously defended a Rwandan accused of genocide during the International Criminal Tribunals in 2003, was arrested within a week of his arrival for denying that genocide occurred there. (If you need a history lesson here, watch Hotel Rwanda.) From the Associated Press:
Erlinder is accused of violating Rwanda’s laws against minimizing the genocide in which more than 500,000 Rwandans, the vast majority of them ethnic Tutsis, were massacred by Hutus in 100 days. Erlinder doesn’t deny massive violence happened but contends it’s inaccurate to blame just one side.
Erlinder’s views are generally controversial. See, e.g., this open letter he wrote about Darfur (via the WSJ).
Erlinder could face up to 25 years in prison. His defenders say his arrest has more to do with his efforts on behalf of an opposition candidate than his views on genocide. But the Rwandan government has a different view:
[Rwandan Prosecutor General Martin] Ngoga’s office compared Rwanda’s laws to those in some European countries against denying the Holocaust.
“We understand that human rights activists schooled in the U.S. Bill of Rights may find this objectionable,” government spokeswoman Louise Mushikiwabo said in a statement. “But for Rwandans — schooled in the tragedy of the 1994 genocide and who long for peace — Mr. Erlinder’s arrest is an act of justice.”
How did Erlinder get into this mess? We corresponded with his daughter, who shed some light on the situation….
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The US associate openings we have in law firms are in the usual areas of M&A, cap markets, FCPA / white collar litigation, finance, and project finance. The most urgent of our top tier (top 15 US or magic circle) law firm openings in Asia (among many other firm openings that we have in Asia) are as follows:
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The last time I flapped my wings your way, I tried to make at least enough noise about your mobile phone to make you more than a little bit uncomfortable. I hope I did. If enough of us become anxious enough about the known and unknown unknowns and knowns in our mobile phones, then we can start making wise decisions about how to manage that information and its resultant investigations.
Today, I’d like to put a finer point on the last installment’s topic by asking a question that seemed to catch most attendees off-guard at a conference panel that I moderated last week: is there discoverable personal information in a mobile app? Our panelists’ answer was a uniform “yes” with one stating that, if he had to choose only one type of data that he could discover from a mobile phone, he’d choose app data. Why? Because there’s simply so much of it and because almost all of it is objective – not just user-created like an email – but machine-tracked like GPS, usage duration, log in and log out times, browsed web addresses, browsed actual addresses. Also, most of us seem to have the idea that data doesn’t actually “stick” to our mobile devices the way it “sticks” to our hard drives. Maybe there’s a disconnect based on the fact that our phones are mobile so we assume the data is mobile to?
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Ed. note: This is the latest installment of Inside Straight, Above the Law’s new column for in-house counsel, written by Mark Herrmann.
Continue reading “Inside Straight: Overseeing International Litigation”
