Lawyer - News

A federal judge on Thursday dismissed drug charges against former Broadcom Chief Executive Officer Henry Nicholas and threw out a plea deal reached between prosecutors and a witness in a related stock-options backdating prosecution. In a related civil complaint, the judge gave the Securities and Exchange Commission seven days to file amended securities fraud charges against Nicholas and three other former Broadcom executives, telling an SEC attorney that he found "serious problems of proof" with the existing complaint. No comments

Reed Smith reached the $1 million profits per equity partner mark in 2009 with a 7 percent increase. Although revenues could have reached the $1 billion milestone with a mild rise, they instead dipped by 3.8 percent, to $942 million. Reed Smith managed the feat of raising profits on falling revenue by squeezing the traditional pyramid structure: While the equity partnership grew by 4 percent, the firm shrank the ranks of non-equity lawyers by nearly 6 percent, and staff by about 4 percent. No comments

The 5th Circuit has sided with Texas in a dispute over buying wine and efforts to control its quality, allowing the state to continue regulating alcohol sales under its current system. The California-based Specialty Wine Retailers Association had challenged the Texas law to enable consumers to buy wine from out-of-state retailers. No comments

Four real estate partners are leaving Paul Hastings to join the New York office of Haynes and Boone. The Dallas-based firm confirmed it had hired Kenneth Friedman, Robert Grados, Steven Koch and Walter Schleimer as part of what it characterized as a significant expansion of its East Coast real estate and finance practices. Haynes and Boone said more New York lateral hiring moves will be announced in the next several days. Koch was administrative head of Paul Hastings' real estate group. No comments

The deceased plaintiff in a lawsuit alleging a Wyeth-made hormone replacement therapy drug caused her death from breast cancer has a surviving identical twin who has not had breast cancer. Both the plaintiffs and the defense attorneys sought to leverage to their advantage the fact that Cheryl Foust's twin sister, Carol, was present and in good health in a Philadelphia Common Pleas courtroom Wednesday during opening arguments in Foust v. Wyeth. No comments

A personal injury attorney who was arrested twice last year for allegedly stealing client funds is now facing tax charges. On Wednesday, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. announced that prosecutors have accused Marc A. Bernstein, formerly a name partner of Bernstein Bernstein and the son of former Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Aaron D. Bernstein, of evading about $220,500 in personal income taxes. No comments

Last year was a tough year for most industries, and especially hard hit were law firms -- so it is no wonder marketing is also seeing significant cuts, notes consultant Jessica Sharp. But there's a silver lining, according to Sharp. This may be the best time to market your firm, and -- even better news -- it doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg (or rather an associate and an end-of-year bonus). She provides 10 marketing tips that you can start using now to help promote your law firm and generate business. No comments

As a legal recruiter, Laurence R. Latourette has met a growing number of lawyers who are bumping up against their firms' mandatory retirement age but who are interested in continuing to practice law. And that trend will accelerate over the next five years, he notes, in part because about 60 percent of law partners are now 55 or older. Latourette discusses the current state of mandatory retirement policies at law firms, and how attorneys can help themselves to make a late career lateral move. No comments

Bob Page, Grace Brown and Jessica Vapnek sat down to a meeting sometime after 4 p.m. on Jan. 12 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. They were there working on a project to strengthen the country's shaky judicial system and had come to talk with local lawyers. Their firm, San Francisco-based DPK Consulting, helps build judicial systems in developing countries. Just before 5 p.m., there was a huge roar and shaking, "like a train coming right through your living room," recalls Page. No comments

Google's recent threat to pull out of China over the country's human-rights and free-speech constraints highlights the central question First Amendment expert and Columbia University President Lee Bollinger attempts to answer in his new book, "Uninhibited, Robust, and Wide-Open: A Free Press for a New Century." What happens when the American idea of free speech collides with restrictions in a country that does not accept the U.S. conception of press freedom? No comments