Willkie Farr

  • Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 11.13.15

    * Steven Metro, an ex-managing clerk at Simpson Thacher who was accused of passing insider info about mergers and other business transactions to his law school buddy in a $5.6 million insider trading scheme, has pleaded guilty. He faces up to 20 years in prison. [Reuters]

    * Remember Keila Ravelo, the Willkie Farr partner who allegedly stole millions from that firm and her prior firm, Hunton & Williams? It turns out her involvement in the $5.7 billion MasterCard/Visa antitrust settlement could ultimately become its kiss of death. [Big Law Business / Bloomberg]

    * Chief Judge Morrison England (E.D. Cal.) says he and his colleagues are incredibly overworked, sometimes putting in more than 80 hours per week. It’s too bad it doesn’t make a difference — the court is at a “crisis point” in its backlog of cases. [WSJ Law Blog]

    * Last summer, a federal judge ruled the death penalty was unconstitutional in California because an appeals process with the “slight possibility of death” was cruel and unusual. Here’s a real shocker: the Ninth Circuit overturned the decision. [New York Times]

    * Embattled Pennsylvania AG Kathleen Kane is well past the point of having 99 problems, but there’s no end in sight. Former prosecutors have filed suit against her, alleging she retaliated against them for exposing her alleged criminal misdeeds. [Tribune-Review]

    By  
  • Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 08.26.15

    * Melvin Feliz, husband of Keila Ravelo, the partner who allegedly bilked Hunton & Williams and Willkie Farr out of millions to lead a life of luxury, pleaded guilty in the fraud case brought against him. Is she a prospective Real Housewife of Cellblock D? [Bergen Record]

    * Sorry, Southwest passengers, but the Seventh Circuit says you’re stuck with your free drink vouchers, and the lawyers who represented you in this class-action suit are stuck with their $1.65 million. No one is happy up in the unfriendly skies. [Associated Press]

    * China’s economy may be on the brink, but that doesn’t matter to Dentons. The firm is as happy as ever about its proposed merger with Dacheng because it really wants a horde of lawyers, so it’s gonna get one. It’s “almost absurd” to think otherwise. [Am Law Daily]

    * As we mentioned yesterday, lawyers work too damn much — so much, in fact, that they’re quitting their Biglaw jobs, starting competitor practices, and poaching talent from top firms by offering them a sense of work-life balance. [Harvard Business Review]

    * Kevin Fagan, perhaps better known as Juror 83 in the Dzhokhar Tsarnaev trial, is speaking to the media about his experience, and says he might’ve changed his death penalty vote if he had known the youngest victim’s parents opposed it. [WSJ Law Blog]

    By  
  • Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 08.19.15

    * This is a footlong you definitely don’t want (but it’s probably much more like a six-incher if he’s lucky). Former Subway spokesman Jared Fogle is expected to plead guilty to child-pornography charges. We can’t wait to see what his plea deal with authorities actually entails. [CNN]

    * Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s lawyers filed a brief in favor of their client getting a new trial because his attack on the Boston Marathon apparently wasn’t a “crime of violence” within the meaning of the law he was sentenced under at trial. [WSJ Law Blog]

    * “To achieve those solutions, wouldn’t it help if you had a free press?” Justice Ginsburg’s travels recently took her to Vietnam, where she spoke to a packed house about the country’s need for greater freedom of press to promote social justice. [Voice of America]

    * Here’s a little-known fact about Biglaw: many of its most well-known partners were “White House rejects.” For example, Willkie Farr, Dewey & LeBoeuf, Bracewell & Giuliani, and Davis Polk are all named after failed presidential candidates. [Am Law Daily]

    * A New Mexico criminal defense attorney charged with a slew of criminal offenses is representing himself in a trial having to do with his shooting of a man outside his office. His best defense thus far? The man was a “methed-out lunatic.” [Albuquerque Journal]

    By  

Sponsored