Law Firms

The legal world has been transformed in the last year, and so has the AmLaw seventh annual A-List. Only four firms held on to the same ranking that they had in 2008. Four firms fell off the list, which means another quartet joined this elite group. One constant, however, is the continuing reign of Munger, […]

After joining the Atlanta office of Hunton & Williams in 1989, soon after it opened, L. Traywick Duffie was still practicing there 20 years later. But not any more. The labor and employment specialist, who until March was co-head of his former firm’s practice group, is now a partner at Littler Mendelson. He joined the

Michael Jackson’s death leaves a trail of litigation involving the entertainer and his various entities. And his death, as with the death of such celebrities as Marilyn Monroe, is now entering a phase of intense interest as to exactly what occurred as Jackson’s family order a second autopsy and the LA Police want to further

The nation’s largest firm, DLA Piper, is planning to continue scaling back the size of its associate classes and rethink its associate program. DLA has already cut associate salaries and delayed start dates for its ’09 first-year associate class, which is down to 85 lawyers, from 100 the year before. The next class will be

Weil, Gotshal & Manges, Jenner & Block, and Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn have filed their applications for employment as counsel to General Motors in the troubled automaker’s Chapter 11 case. The filings show that GM has paid more than $80 million in fees to the three firms over the past six months. As lead

Most lawyers who take on major bankruptcy cases have the time and leeway to help troubled companies restructure in Chapter 11. Corinne Ball, the lead lawyer in Chrysler’s bankruptcy case, had neither. Learning only weeks before Chrysler sought bankruptcy protection that the company would wind up in court, Ms. Ball led a team of more

A federal court ruled Monday that Exxon Mobil Corp. owes $507.5 million, plus 5.9% annual interest accrued since 1996, in punitive damages to plaintiffs affected by the Exxon Valdez oil spill. In a divided opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit determined that the Irving, Texas-based company and the plaintiffs would have

Plaintiffs law firms are sinking their teeth into product liability lawsuits alleging that denture cream products cause zinc buildup in the body and neurological problems. A dozen cases pending in federal courts in California, Colorado, Florida, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Tennessee are awaiting the result of a May 28 multidistrict litigation panel hearing

The R. Allen Stanford legal defense story keeps getting stranger and stranger. While the securities world waits for the inevitable indictment of the Texas financier, he keeps going through lawyers with the same speed the alleged Ponzi mastermind was said to date women. Last week Stanford replaced his civil litigation defense team with a group

After months of anxious planning, it was time for Hugh Verrier (pictured) to finally press send. In his two years as chairman of White & Case, the venerable Wall Street law firm, Mr. Verrier had already laid off 70 young lawyers and shuttered offices in Bangkok, Dresden and Milan. He had watched top partners flee