Law Firms

Michael Jackson’s legal team is undergoing a shakeup just days before the defense is expected to start presenting its case to jurors in the pop star’s trial on child molestation charges. Brian Oxman is no longer representing Jackson, according to a notice filed Monday in Santa Barbara County Superior Court. The document did not give […]

A secretary has won a nine-year legal battle against the Government in a case that will have far-reaching consequences for thousands of women. Michelle Alabaster began legal proceedings after claiming that her former employer broke European sex discrimination law by underpaying her during maternity leave. Spanning nearly a decade, the case passed from an employment

Michael Jackson’s former attorney said Friday that, long before a family had accused the star of child molestation and false imprisonment, he viewed their relationship with Jackson as a “pending disaster” and suspected they were after his client’s money. “I thought they were going to shake him down,” attorney Mark Geragos testified as Jackson’s defense

Fourteen Republican and Democratic senators announced this evening they had reached a compromise designed to prevent a showdown over President Bush’s judicial nominations. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), speaking for the group of seven Republicans and seven Democrats, announced the agreement at a news conference at 7:40 p.m. Under the deal, the Democrats agreed to accept

In 1970, when I was serving as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy and assigned to Adm. Thomas H. Moorer, the chief of naval operations, I sometimes acted as a courier, taking documents to the White House. One evening I was dispatched with a package to the lower level of the West Wing of the

A gay senior associate in the Los Angeles office of New York’s White & Case has sued the firm for sexual harassment and sex discrimination, claiming two male partners created a “intimidating, hostile and offensive work environment” through inappropriate comments and behavior. In a suit filed June 2 in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Christopher

Last year, Tsan Abrahamson jumped from her post as worldwide IP and licensing counsel at LeapFrog Enterprises Inc. to start her own firm focused on sweepstakes and trademark law. Now she’s getting reinforcements. Katherine Spelman, a partner at DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary, joined the firm last week, along with Deborah Davis Han, a former

In the fast-growing, highly lucrative arena of real estate investment trusts, competition among law firms for established REIT practices is cutthroat — and turnabout is fair play. Six weeks after its REIT practice was decimated by the departure of a 10-lawyer team from its Raleigh office, Alston & Bird early this month attempted to raid

Merck & Co. must pay more than $253 million to the family of a Texas man who died after taking the company’s Vioxx painkiller, a jury ruled in the first personal-injury case over the drug to come to trial. Jurors deliberated more than 10 hours in Angleton, Texas, before awarding $24.4 million in actual damages

Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, like Sandra Day O’Connor, is polished and popular, with a warm plainspoken style and surprising pluck. When it comes to substance, however, the two have differences that will nudge the divided court to the right if, as expected, Roberts is confirmed to succeed the retiring O’Connor. The differences have been