Law Firms

The Martha Stewart verdict signals a stunning fall from grace for one of the most successful women in American business. Not only was she the founder of a New York Stock Exchange company, she was its public face and chief spokeswoman, with a celebrity burnished on magazine covers, in books and on television shows, all […]

Maori Treaty lawyer Donna Hall’s credibility and income is at stake as she slugs it out with outraged tribal clients, the Waitangi Tribunal and the law society. Ms Hall, the wife of High Court judge and former Waitangi Tribunal chairman Justice Eddie Durie, has been dumped from her lucrative role as lead lawyer running the

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is seeking to overturn 10 patents they claim are too sweeping, the New York Times reported on Monday. The foundation, which includes lawyers, researchers and software experts, takes aim at the patents of several little-known companies, but names two media and entertainment leaders: Clear Channel Communications Inc., the No. 1 U.S.

A probe at Hollinger International has concluded the company’s former chief executive – newspaper tycoon Lord Black – colluded with associates to systematically loot the company of nearly all of its profits over the past seven years. And the report says the staggering figure involved is more than £222m. It detailed how Black lavished the

The trials of seven men on Pitcairn Island, the remote Pacific island home to descendants of HMS Bounty mutineers, were drawing to a close Thursday and judges were expected to deliver their verdicts Monday. The cases against the men — two of whom pleaded guilty — have exposed allegations of widespread sex abuse on the

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 trial of Richard M. Scrushy, the charismatic founder and former chief executive of HealthSouth who is being charged with fraud, opens next week in a federal district court in Birmingham, Ala. The trial “will be a fascinating soap opera,” said John C. Coffee Jr., a Columbia University professor who specializes in securities law. More

The trial of Bernard Ebbers, the Canadian-born former chief executive of WorldCom Inc., got underway Tuesday in New York. Ebbers, 63, has pleaded not guilty to charges of fraud and conspiracy connected with the company’s $11 billion US accounting scandal. He faces up to 85 years in prison if convicted on the charges. “Bernie Ebbers

Would-be jurors in the Michael Jackson trial were asked in writing if they knew about past or current accusations of child sex abuse against the pop star and for their feelings about people of different races. A copy of the 41-question, seven-page questionnaire that was given to jury candidates earlier this week was made public

Dickie Scruggs, a Mississippi trial lawyer who led the charge against Big Tobacco in the 1990s, helping 46 states win a $246 billion settlement, once described the features of a “magic jurisdiction” in America’s tort system. Speaking at an asbestos conference in 2002, he said that such a place would have judges elected with “verdict