Lawyer - News

Cost-conscious Big Law clients want more bang for their buck these days, like the legal fee equivalent of 20 percent more Fritos for free, notes the Snark. One way to get it is through a system called "task-code billing." The Snark is confident this system saves clients some money because it makes the timekeeper self-conscious about everything they do and every second they spend doing it, probably yielding some freebies for clients. Just for fun, the Snark imagines coding some non-work activities. No comments

Efforts to introduce a Chapter 11-style corporate restructuring law in Hong Kong have been revived, the South China Morning Post reports. In Hong Kong and in much of the rest of Asia, failing companies typically end up in the hands of liquidators. By comparison, Chapter 11 proceedings under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code famously permit troubled companies to enter a court-supervised period of reorganization, during which they are sheltered from creditors and can seek ways of boosting their finances. No comments

The Federal Trade Commission cannot force practicing lawyers to comply with new regulations aimed at curbing identity theft, a federal judge ruled Thursday. The decision offers a reprieve to law firms across the country, which faced a deadline this weekend to put in place programs to meet so-called "Red Flags Rule" requirements, which would have forced firms to verify the identities of potential clients. The American Bar Association had argued that the rules would impose a serious burden on firms. No comments

The lawyers for accused insider trader Raj Rajaratnam, the head of the Galleon Group hedge fund, launched their first attack on the government's case Thursday, claiming the chief witness in the $25 million insider trading prosecution was a liar who could not be trusted. John M. Dowd and his legal team at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer Feld said that cooperating witness Roomy Khan was a convicted felon who was "adjudicated by a court in August 2009 to have fabricated evidence in a court proceeding." No comments

The Federal Trade Commission cleared the way Thursday for Schering-Plough's $41.1 billion acquisition of Merck Co., but required both companies to make significant divestures. Under the terms of the FTC's consent order, Merck must sell its interest in Merial Limited, an animal health joint venture with Sanofi-Aventis, and Schering-Plough must sell its assets related to drugs that treat nausea and vomiting in humans. No comments

Should metadata be considered a public record like most other government documents? Yes, said the Arizona Supreme Court, overturning a lower court decision that denied a police officer access to performance reviews, written by his superiors, to find out who accessed the documents when. No comments

Only a quarter of in-house lawyers now use online information-sharing sites to evaluate and select lawyers and law firms, according to a recent survey by LexisNexis Martindale Hubbell. What's more, in-house counsel are not yet convinced that such sites would help them hire lawyers. No comments

Kaye Scholer plans to split up its incoming first-year deferred associates, with half working on pro bono work for a reduced salary. The 500-lawyer firm had already delayed start dates for its 40 incoming associates to January. Now, 20 of the new lawyers will work in its pro bono program at the firm for a $60,000 salary, managing partner Barry Willner said Thursday. No comments

The 11th Circuit on Thursday heard arguments in a case that involves some of the heaviest issues in the area of obscenity law, such as whether the government should criminalize adult films purchased over the Internet and viewed in the privacy of the home, and whether a Florida jury should apply its own mores to materials available all over the country. But the judges on the panel seemed interested less in hot-button issues than in sentencing matters and a personal problem experienced by a juror during the trial. No comments

News spread fast through the legal community about the death of plaintiffs attorney John M. O'Quinn, named one of the "100 Most Influential Lawyers in America" by The National Law Journal in 1997. Known for winning billions of dollars in verdicts against makers of breast implants and tobacco products, O'Quinn, 68, died Thursday in a car accident. A longtime partner remembered O'Quinn as being much like Houston, "the city that created him," adding that O'Quinn "thought there was nothing he couldn't do." No comments