At his confirmation hearings this week, Judge John G. Roberts Jr. will be asked to respond to questions about documents he wrote as a young government lawyer. The questions are sure to be sharp, but at least he can take solace in the fact that his mentor, and the man whom he seeks to replace, […]
Technology and communications companies rank third on the list of U.S. and U.K. industries with the most litigation, according a new survey of manufacturing companies. The survey by the law firm Fulbright & Jaworski, a leading intellectual-property litigator based in New York and Houston, found that the average U.S. manufacturer currently faces 40 lawsuits. Of
The federal grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA officer’s identity met for three hours Wednesday with Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald and his deputies, adjourning for the day without announcing any action. Fitzgerald is known to be putting the finishing touches on a two-year criminal probe that has ensnared President Bush’s top political adviser
Exxon Mobil’s appeal of a $5 billion judgment Alaska jurors levied as punishment for the 1989 Valdez oil spill was heading back to a federal appeals court today. The case, one of America’s longest-running civil disputes, stems from a 1994 decision by an Anchorage jury to award the punitive damages to 34,000 fishermen and other
Rohan Weerasinghe, head of the Wall Street law firm of Shearman & Sterling, received unwelcome news this month. Five partners, including the asset-management group chief, jumped to a New York rival. The turn of events was not entirely unfamiliar. Some partners were already heading for the exits when Weerasinghe became the head of Shearman in
Milberg Weiss bills itself as the largest contingent-fee plaintiff-side firm involved in securities suits, and it has negotiated well-known settlements for hundreds of millions of dollars with companies including Rite Aid, 3Com, MicroStrategy and Sunbeam. The 35-year-old firm currently represents the lead plaintiff in shareholder suits against Enron and Dynegy. Senior partners on both coasts
The talks broke off July 24 with management at both firms claiming the split was reached by mutual agreement, despite earlier reports that a merger deal could have been finalised by the end of July. Commenting on the split, one senior Orricks partner said “There are always people and egos and politics in these things,
In what is believed to be the largest capital call the City has seen, equity partners will be asked to contribute up to 100 per cent of the value of the capital they have in the firm to ease debt and increase loyalty. Hammonds, which made gross fees of £137m last year, holds £18m in
Radical plans being drawn up by the Commission for Judicial Appointments (CJA), which advises the Government on legal matters, would see all judges up to the level of the High Court being selected by an independent panel of experts, most of whom would be drawn from outside the legal profession. The dramatic move to take
Latham & Watkins has broken the $1bn (£562.4m) revenue barrier — matching the profits of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Linklaters along the way — as London’s top law firms prepare to be eclipsed by another record-breaking year for US rivals. The Los Angeles-based giant leads the charge of US firms preparing to announce double-digit growth
