Law Admin

A federal judge has refused to accept a guilty plea from a former America Online employee accused of selling the Internet provider’s customer list to a “spammer,” saying he was unsure a crime had been committed. U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein stopped a Tuesday hearing at which Jason Smathers was to plead guilty to conspiracy

The constitutional crisis provoked by the Government’s refusal to withdraw anti-terror laws is expected to deepen this week with the resignation of more lawyers appointed by ministers to represent foreign terror suspects at secret hearings. Five barristers are considering following the lead of Ian Macdonald QC, who declared yesterday his intention to step down from

First Command Financial Planning Inc., a company that sold high-fee mutual funds to military officers, has agreed to pay $12 million to settle regulators’ charges that it used misleading sales material to promote the funds. The Securities and Exchange Commission and the National Association of Securities Dealers, the brokerage industry’s self-policing organization, announced Wednesday the

Leaders in Saddam Hussein’s regime will go on trial for crimes against humanity and war crimes as early as next week, Iraq’s interim premier says. Iyad Allawi said that the “symbols” of the former regime would be tried “one by one” but gave few details. There was no indication when Saddam Hussein himself would face

Greed and sexual desire drove Martin Frankel to mastermind one of the largest insurance frauds in U.S. history, a federal judge heard on Friday as she sentenced him to nearly 17 years in prison. Once the target of a worldwide manhunt, the Connecticut financier pleaded guilty in May 2002 to racketeering, conspiracy, wire fraud and

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi escaped conviction in a major corruption trial on Friday after a court invoked a statute of limitations that meant time had run out to sentence him for bribery. Berlusconi welcomed the verdict, which brought down the curtain on a trial that lasted almost five years, saying he had always expected

Law firms showed healthy increases in billing rates this year, with the vast majority of those responding to The National Law Journal’s annual survey boosting both associate and partner fees. Firms that are focused in the Northeast consistently racked up the highest increases, though hikes occurred in all regions. The figures might have edged even

The last hurdle has been cleared for the homegrown law firm of Gray Cary Weir & Freidenrich to help create the world’s third-largest law firm on Jan. 1. Attorneys for Piper Rudnick of Baltimore and DLA of London voted unanimously Sunday to complete the firms’ three-way merger. Previously, San Diego’s Gray Cary had approved its

One of the biggest law firms in Chicago is about to become one of the biggest in the world. Piper Rudnick, which five years ago was a Chicago-based firm of 355 lawyers, agreed Saturday to merge with the British law firm DLA to create a legal giant of 2,700 lawyers. The deal, set to close

Partners at U.S. law firm Piper Rudnick LLP and London-based DLA voted to merge, creating the world’s third- largest law firm by number of lawyers. The merger will be completed on Jan. 1, the firms said in a press release. The combined firm will have 2,700 lawyers across 49 offices in the U.S., Europe and