In a time when many law firms are relatively less stable than their employees would like, it’s definitely not good to hear about a Biglaw executive allegedly defrauding his firm out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
But such is the world we live in. So let’s get to it: which former executive at Chicago-based Mayer Brown is facing pretty egregious fraud charges?
* “I think this is destined to fail.” People are not happy with the proposed settlement plan for former Dewey partners, but who are they kidding? These people don’t exactly like to part with money — not even to hand out bonuses. [Am Law Daily (sub. req.)]
* Andrew Levander, a partner at Dechert LLP, is representing ex-Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond. Diamond hasn’t been charged with anything, but this white-collar defense lawyer’s apparently been on his side since 2010. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Money talks: lawyers and law firms are the top donors by industry to presidential campaign funds, with Kirkland & Ellis leading for Romney, and DLA Piper for Obama. [Capital Business Blog / Washington Post]
* Escándalo! Louis Freeh’s report revealed that PSU’s “seriously deficient” counsel billed a whopping 2.9 hours on an incident involving Jerry Sandusky’s locker room shower with a young boy. [Centre Daily Times]
* But here’s where the football chatter comes in (not that I know a lot about football): legal experts say Freeh threw an “incomplete” with this report, because it didn’t go far back enough in time. [New York Daily News]
* Sorry, lady, but you didn’t need to attend a Justin Bieber concert for his music to allegedly cause permanent damage to your ears to the tune of $9M. All you really needed to do was turn on the radio. [Chicago Tribune]
Today Allen Stanford, the former knight turned convicted Ponzi schemer, learned his fate. He was just sentenced by Judge David Hittner (S.D. Tex.).
Did Stanford get a bigger sentence than Bernie Madoff? The prosecution sought a longer sentence — 230 years for Stanford, compared to the 150 years received by Madoff.
Find out the Stanford sentence, and comment, over at our sister site Dealbreaker.
The verdict is in — and we’re not just talking about vanity license plates for luxury cars. We’re talking about the jury in the prosecution of former senator John Edwards, vice-presidential nominee turned disgraced philanderer, for alleged violations of campaign finance law.
So, what did the jury decide? Let’s find out.
Dewey & LeBoeuf's sign at 1301 Avenue of the Americas. (Photo by David Lat. Feel free to use.)
Let’s take a step back from the hurly-burly of day-to-day, hour-by-hour coverage of Dewey & LeBoeuf, the once-powerful law firm that could soon find itself in bankruptcy or dissolution. We will return to bringing you the latest Dewey news in tomorrow’s Morning Docket. (Of course, as you may have noticed, we added many updates to Tuesday night’s story; refresh that post for the newest developments.)
Let’s take a step back, and ask ourselves: Who is to blame for this sad state of affairs? And what lessons can be learned from the Dewey debacle?
Multiple UPDATES, including a short bio of Stephen DiCarmine, after the jump.
Continue reading “Dewey Know Whom To Blame? Some Say ‘Steve’”
Mmm... shoe porn.
* Dewey really need to keep coming up with punny headlines about D&L’s painful probe? Pass the lube, ’cause you better believe we dew! Steven Davis, the firm’s former chairman, has hired Barry Bohrer, a white-collar criminal defense lawyer and partner at the Morvillo Abromowitz firm. [WSJ Law Blog]
* “Of course all of that money for my baby mama is legal. I… uh… checked with my lawyers. Um, yeah. Just get the money in.” Cheri Young gave some pretty damning testimony yesterday during the John Edwards campaign-finance violations trial. [CNN]
* As if you didn’t have enough to worry about during finals, Law School Transparency has come out with a new clearinghouse that includes employment outcomes, salaries, and student debt loads. [National Law Journal]
* “I do not own a color. I own a specific color in a specific place.” Christian Louboutin was seeing red when he responded to interview questions over his trademark infringement suit against Yves Saint Laurent. [Fox News]
* Remember that Nutella class action suit? Ferrero settled, and you can cash in if you bought their delicious hazelnut crack during the relevant time period. Needless to say, they owe me $20. [American Thinker]
* Richard Bellman, the lawyer behind New Jersey’s “Mount Laurel doctrine,” RIP. [New York Times]
Remember David T. Shulick, the Philadelphia lawyer who filed a colorful case that we recently named a Lawsuit of the Day? After his luxury vacation was ruined, Shulick sued two airlines, alleging (among other things) that a sassy baggage agent referred to his wife as a “honkey.”
Well, David Shulick — “a nationally and locally recognized attorney,” according to his website, which also shows photos of him with famous people (like Barack Obama) — is back in the news….
Continue reading “Federal Investigators Pay Visit to Rich ‘Honkey’ Lawyer”
John J. O'Brien
Last August, John J. O’Brien, who was once a highly regarded and well-liked partner in the celebrated M&A practice of Sullivan & Cromwell, pleaded guilty to four misdemeanor tax offenses. The charges of conviction were mere misdemeanors, but the amounts involved were large, as you’d expect from a well-paid partner at S&C.
O’Brien was accused of failing to file income-tax returns for tax years 2001 to 2008, on almost $11 million in partnership income. In the end, he pleaded guilty to failing to file taxes relating to $9.2 million in partnership income, for tax years 2003 to 2008.
Earlier today, John O’Brien was sentenced. The sentencing hearing provided some interesting additional information about why O’Brien acted as he did.
So is O’Brien trading Biglaw for the Big House? And if so, how long a sentence did he receive?
Continue reading “Former S&C Partner Gets Sentenced for Tax Offenses”
Paul Clement
* If defending unpopular clients is cool, consider Paul Clement Miles Davis. He’s the lead lawyer in three politically charged cases going up before SCOTUS in the new year. [LA Times]
* Joe Arpaio’s going to have a tough time racially profiling Hispanics in 2012. What’s a man to do without verification powers and the ability to detain people on suspicion alone? [WaPo]
* A summary of the NLJ’s 2011 year in review round-up: all of this was a preview of what’s to come in 2012. And what’s to come? Same sh*t, different docket number. [National Law Journal]
* C&F fail: the California Supreme Court is busy worrying about Stephen Glass, a guy who took his “creative writing” efforts a bit too far. [San Francisco Chronicle]
* The Hollywood actress suing IMDb for revealing her age has to reveal much more thanks to this ruling. She’s got two weeks to amend her complaint to include her name. [The Wrap]
* “Oh my God, the law school has gone crazy.” Don’t blame the messenger, but UVA Law’s headlines on ATL are totally self-inflicted. Here’s Elie’s take on the collar-poppin’ action. [C-VILLE]
* Larry Ribstein, partnership law guru, business law blogger, and Associate Dean for Research at the University of Illinois College Law, RIP. [Truth on the Market]
* Robert Morvillo, New York trial lawyer and white-collar defense pioneer, RIP. [WSJ Law Blog]
* John Lawrence, plaintiff in the landmark LGBT rights case of Lawrence v. Texas, RIP. [NY Times]
Matt Kluger
Here’s a Fried Frank bonus for you: Matthew Kluger, the former Fried Frank associate who sued the firm for alleged discrimination, is going to prison. As you may recall, Kluger — who also worked as an associate at other top law firms, including Cravath, Skadden, and Wilson Sonsini — was charged in a massive insider trading case this past spring. A week ago, he pleaded guilty to all four counts against him. He’ll be sentenced in April 2012.
Now, on to the matter at hand: associate bonuses in the New York office of Fried Frank. How were they this year?
Continue reading “Associate Bonus Watch: Fried Frank Announces Bonuses ‘Up to $52,500′”
What does it mean to be “newly admitted?” To us, it means endless possibilities!
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After physically attending a full weekend, you will receive:
• 3.0 Ethics CLE credits,
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Date: Saturday, June 8 and Sunday, June 9, 2013
Time: 9:00 a.m. – 4:35 p.m. (EST)
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We currently have a number of active openings for associate roles at US and UK firms in HK / China, Singapore and two new in-house openings. As always, please feel free to reach out to us at asia@kinneyrecruiting.com in order to get details of current openings in Asia, as well as to discuss the Asia markets in general and what we expect for openings later this year. Our Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney will be in Beijing the week of March 25 and Evan Jowers will be in Hong Kong the week of April 1, if you would like to meet them in person.
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:
• 2nd to 5th year mandarin fluent M&A associates needed in Beijing and Hong Kong at several firms;
• Korean fluent 2nd to 4th year cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 5th year Japanese fluent M&A associates needed in Tokyo;
• 4th to 6th year mandarin fluent cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 4th year M&A / cap markets mix associate needed in Singapore.
Also, we have the two below in-house openings:
Keep reading »
In a land that is right here and in a time that is right now, a technology has arisen so powerful that it can replace basic human document review. Is it time to bow down before our new robot overlords?
First, here’s a little story about me: my life in the legal world began as a paralegal. My first case was a GIANT patent infringement case that was already six years old and had involved as many as five companies, multiple US courts, the ITC and an international standards committee. I knew nothing about any of this.
On my first day, my supervisor (a paralegal with at least eight other cases driving her crazy) sat me down in front of a Concordance database with a 100,000+ patents and patent file histories. “Code these,” she said. I learned that “coding”, for the purposes of this exercise, meant manually typing the inventor’s name, the title of the patent, the assignee, the file date, and other objective data for each document. I worked on that project – and only that project – for at least the first six months of my job. After a week or so, time began to blur.
What I know, in retrospect and with absolutely certainty, is that as time began to blur, so did my judgment. So did my attention to detail. If you could tell me that I did not make at least one mistake a day – one inconsistent spelling, one reversed day and month, one incorrectly spaced title – I frankly would need to see your evidence. I would not believe it. The human mind is trainable but it is not a machine.
Keep reading »
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