To gain perspective, we ran VPL numbers for the last six years and found that each of the top 15 firms this year have been in the top quintile in every year since 2000. The top isn’t the only place where firms stay in place. We found that over the six years most firms tended […]

Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s departure from the high court heats up the judicial nominations battle, while also creating a political bind — and an opportunity — for President Bush and a focal point for interest groups. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor hated being called the Court’s swing vote. And she never thought

Microsoft yesterday agreed to pay $775m to settle a long-running dispute with IBM which had accused it of predatory business practices. The settlement is part of Microsoft’s continuing efforts to clear away the litigation that has dogged it for much of the past 10 years. In the past couple of years the company has paid

The arrest Tuesday of Robert Johnson, the former Newsday publisher and a New York State regent, was one of hundreds so far growing out of a 2 1/2-year-old federal investigation that targets the financing of child pornography Web sites, according to sources familiar with the case. The New Jersey-based probe by U.S. Immigration and Customs

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

Federal prosecutors in New York have asked a judge to sentence former WorldCom Inc. chief executive Bernard J. Ebbers to spend the rest of his life in prison for leading the largest accounting fraud in U.S. history. In a court filing unsealed yesterday, the government urged U.S. District Judge Barbara S. Jones to reject any

Charges against a wealthy California investor accused of taking kickbacks to file shareholder lawsuits show that federal prosecutors really want to go after securities law firm Milberg Weiss and its principals, the investor’s lawyer said on Monday. In a statement on Monday, the firm said that the fees it had paid were part of a

Last weekend over 110,000 music fans paid £125 ($228) each to attend the Glastonbury festival in Britain’s West Country and hear their favourite bands perform. In years gone by, many thousands more attended than paid, as less scrupulous festival-goers jumped the fence to watch the bands for free. The organisers stamped out the practice by

Public health groups, saying they lacked confidence in the government’s handling of the case, asked on Wednesday to intervene in the federal racketeering lawsuit against major tobacco companies. The six groups contended that prosecutors were no longer representing their interests after scaling down a proposed penalty. The filing to U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler asked

Federal prosecutors here have charged a retired Palm Springs, Calif., lawyer with taking kickbacks from a prominent New York law firm in exchange for serving as plaintiff in dozens of class-action and shareholder lawsuits that earned the firm $44 million over 20 years. The indictment against 78-year-old Seymour M. Lazar, unsealed Thursday, stems from a