Law Firms

Americans are still chuckling about the “pants suit”. A man—a judge, no less—sued his dry cleaners for $54m for allegedly losing his trousers. A sign at the shop promised “Satisfaction Guaranteed”. The plaintiff was not satisfied, so he cried fraud. He then used his highly trained legal brain to calculate the damages he was owed.

Citing an uncertain economy, Cooley Godward Kronish axed 52 lawyers and 62 staff Wednesday. The 725-lawyer firm cut associates, including some who had just started this fall, and three special counsel. Practice areas most affected by the layoffs are those being hardest hit in the economic downturn: corporate, transactional and public securities, the firm said.

Barack Obama took the 35-word oath of office Tuesday to become the United States’ 44th president — even if he may have been led to utter the historic words in the wrong order. Obama was sworn in by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, resting his left hand on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible and raising his

“You rolled the dice that you’d win, and you lost.” That’s what Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola told lawyers for the Bush administration at a hearing on Wednesday afternoon in the ongoing case over millions of missing White House emails. By this he meant that if the White House had followed the recommendations that the

A masked assassin with a silencer on his gun crept up behind Stanislav Markelov, a human rights lawyer with an insurgent spirit and a penchant for underdogs, and shot him dead in broad daylight today. A freelance reporter with Russia’s Novaya Gazeta newspaper was also killed in the attack. Markelov had just given a news

Plenty of homeowners have discovered in the past couple of years what it means to be overextended with their banks. Recently some big law firms have learned a similar lesson. Borrowing to fund operating expenses and expansion, they suddenly found nervous bankers at their doorsteps at the earliest sign that their businesses appeared to be

Marc Dreier, the New York lawyer accused of cheating hedge funds, lost part of the $380 million that prosecutors say he stole in failed investments and used the rest to repay the funds, cover his firm’s expenses and buy property, he said. Dreier, who is being held in jail on fraud charges, yesterday filed a

Stephen Sheller, a Philadelphia-based plaintiffs lawyer, was on the phone with Nina Gussack of Pepper Hamilton on Wednesday at 2 p.m. hammering out the final details of a record-making settlement against Eli Lilly & Co. for its fraudulent marketing of the antipsychotic drug Zyprexa. The two lawyers were discussing claims brought by six whistle-blowers, all

Clifford Chance, the world’s biggest law firm by revenue, today threw down a challenge to rivals eyeing the coveted Indian legal market after announcing a tie-up with AZB, one of the country’s top law firms. Under the “best friends” alliance — reminiscent of Slaughter and May’s informal ties with several of Europe’s leading law firms