Law Firms

The former partners of now-defunct law firm Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison in San Francisco didn’t let mere bad times stop them a few years ago. According to suits filed in January by Brobeck’s bankruptcy trustee, Ronald F. Greenspan, the 223 former partners maintained their distributions–a total of $264 million in 2001 and 2002–even though the […]

Closing a difficult chapter, Time Warner Inc. said Monday it would pay $300 million and restate three years of financial results to settle civil fraud charges stemming from its accounting of online advertising revenues and subscriber counts at its AOL unit. The settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission also calls for the world’s largest

A federal judge weighed the fate of a brain-damaged Florida woman on Monday, acting hours after the U.S. Congress and President Bush intervened to push the highly charged right-to-die case back into court. U.S. District Judge James Whittemore began a hearing shortly after 3 p.m. EST to consider a request from Terri Schiavo’s parents to

John Carroll, the managing partner of Clifford Chance’s Americas region has announced he is stepping down from the role, nearly nine months before his term was due to expire. The move comes just two months after managing partner Peter Cornell jetted to New York to troubleshoot the firm’s US operation. Carroll, who cited a desire

It took eight years of political maneuvering, but a bill to overhaul the nation’s bankruptcy system now looks close to becoming law. If it does, that’s when the real fight will begin. Lawyers who have combed through the 501-page bill say that despite its attempt at specificity and bright-line tests to tell the truly destitute

THERE is a joke doing the rounds that goes: “Knock, Knock.” “Who’s there?” “Michael.” “Michael who?” “Right, you’re on the Michael Jackson jury.” Given the pop singer’s immense fame, it is hard to imagine that anyone in the potential jury pool for his child molestation trial would not have heard of him. Yet Rodney Melville,

The arms of the justice system reached out and touched Bernard J. Ebbers this week, but it was a cold and crushing embrace. The folksy former WorldCom chief executive, one of the telecommunication bubble’s enduring icons, was found guilty for his role in an $11 billion accounting fraud, which could put him away for as

Last March, a federal prosecutor in Utah overseeing a racketeering case against a dozen members of the Soldiers of Aryan Culture received a chilling threat. “You stupid bitch!” the letter to the assistant United States attorney, who is an African-American woman, began. “It is because of you that my brothers are in jail.” The letter

Michael Jackson’s lawyers will be allowed to question witnesses about an alleged incident in which the boy now accusing the singer of molestation claimed that comedian George Lopez took $300 from his wallet. Defense attorneys have tried to raise the matter during cross-examination of the boy and other witnesses but have been blocked by objections

High-profile attorney Charles E. Polk Jr. evaded paying more than $470,000 in income taxes and bilked large sums from a public agency and his own law clients, according to a federal indictment unsealed Thursday. Polk, who has been at the center of several controversies in recent years, was charged late Wednesday in U.S. District Court