Toymaker Mattel has been awarded multi-million dollar damages in a copyright case against the maker of the popular Bratz dolls, MGA Entertainment. A California jury made the award after a court ruled that the creator of Bratz dolls, Carter Bryant, came up with the idea while he was working for Mattel. The payout is thought […]
The most widely watched ranking of U.S. law schools may move to stop an increasingly popular practice: schools gaming the system by channeling lower-scoring applicants into part-time programs that don’t count in the rankings. U.S. News & World Report is “seriously” considering reworking its ranking system to crack down on the practice, says Robert Morse,
Solo practitioner Ronald Henry Pierce of Mississippi will have to pay a $1.5 million verdict against him for having an affair with a client’s wife, the Mississippi Supreme Court has ruled. The court affirmed the verdict for intentional infliction of emotional distress, breach of contract and alienation of affection in an Aug. 14 opinion (PDF),
A booking agent for a prostitution ring whose clients included former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer pleaded guilty on Monday to a conspiracy charge relating to prostitution. Tanya Hollander, 36, was one of four people charged with running the Emperors Club VIP, a high-priced prostitution ring broken up this year. She pleaded guilty to a
Since 2001, the legal industry has been characterized by double-digit profit growth, strong demand, solid productivity and controlled expense growth. That all started to change in the second half of 2007, and now, the first half of 2008 looks very different from the previous six years. In a trend that started last year, expense growth
Sen. Joe Biden, now a Democratic candidate for vice president, paid off a sizable amount of debt last month from the presidential campaign he ended in January. Among the bills paid were some from son Hunter Biden’s Washington law firm, Oldaker, Biden & Belair, which was owed $52,000 at the last filing, according to a
In a struggling economy, reduced levels of legal work and rising costs tempt law firm partners to cut associates. But the money they save by doing so now may result in associate salary increases later, if history repeats itself. In 2002 and 2003, the number of associates employed by the country’s 250 largest law firms
A Garden City, N.Y., tax certiorari firm must pay more than $716,500 in damages to a former associate and a paralegal who claim they lost their jobs after they became pregnant, a federal jury has decided. Sitting in Central Islip, the panel of four women and three men Wednesday awarded only $16,499 in damages to
A rising Miami legal star and community activist has quietly agreed to a plea deal in which he has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and money laundering in connection with his role as in-house counsel to an indicted billionaire businessman. Few in Miami have known that Richard Simring, a former partner at
Taylor Wessing’s embattled French office has lost the majority of its partnership, with 12 non-equity partners resigning to join US firm Nixon Peabody. Eight partners, six of whom six are in the equity, remain at Taylor Wessing France (TWF) after the resignations. TWF and Nixon Peabody are involved in two New York legal battles after
