Merged law firm Norton Rose Fulbright launches

The merger of Fulbright & Jaworski and London-based Norton Rose became official today. The firm will have nearly 3,800 lawyers in more than 50 cities, making it one of the world’s top 10 legal practices by number of lawyers, according to a press release. The Wall Street Journal Law Blog…

Jun 3, 2013 12:28 PM CDT

Meet 6 law firm leaders, each with a different story, each at the top of her game

Reporters’ phone calls steadily interrupted Madeline Cahill-Boley’s first days as managing partner of midsize, San Diego-based law firm Sullivan Hill Lewin Rez & Engel in 2008. And while she knew it would be a topic broached during the interviews, Cahill-Boley wasn’t prepared for the surge of questions about her gender.…

Jun 1, 2013 10:20 AM CDT

Do women’s initiatives work?

Jun 1, 2013 10:10 AM CDT

Letters: Deconstructing the envelope

Jun 1, 2013 9:50 AM CDT

Judge OKs $19.5M settlement over claimed Dewey mismanagement

A federal judge in New York has approved a settlement between the bankruptcy estate of Dewey & LeBoeuf, an insurer and its former chair over claimed mismanagement of the now-defunct law firm. The insurer, XL Specialty Insurance Company, will pay the lion’s share of the $19.5 million settlement approved Thursday.…

May 31, 2013 4:45 PM CDT

Nesting mallard lays 8 eggs at Crowell & Moring, gets royal treatment

Crowell & Moring is rolling out the red carpet for a mallard duck that has laid eight eggs in a nest it built in a terrace flower planter outside the law firm’s ninth-floor conference room in Washington, D.C. A contractor working on other Crowell renovations has constructed a wooden access…

May 30, 2013 5:13 PM CDT

Boies Schiller to open London office, its first outside the US

Boies, Schiller & Flexner is planning to open a London office, which will be its first outside the United States, in the near future. The 258-lawyer, New York-based litigation powerhouse currently represents banking giant Barclays, among other London-based clients, and has confirmed that it plans to open a London office,…

May 30, 2013 4:35 PM CDT

Suit claims law firm acted as ‘puppet master’ in divorce case to protect client Morgan Stanley

The ex-wife of a Morgan Stanley executive claims in a lawsuit that Blank Rome gave her bad advice in a divorce because it wanted to preserve its client relationship with the financial services firm. Kristina Armstrong filed suit in New York on Friday, Reuters reports. She alleges that Blank Rome…

May 29, 2013 2:37 PM CDT

Ex-partner settles suit claiming ‘boys club’ hogged origination credit at Greenberg Traurig

A former partner has settled her lawsuit contending that male lawyers at Greenberg Traurig hogged origination credit, excluded women from client pitches and favored themselves in work assignments. The suit filed in December by Francine Griesing was settled for an undisclosed amount, report Reuters and the Legal Intelligencer. The would-be…

May 29, 2013 12:53 PM CDT

A year after Fitzgerald’s resignation, Obama nominates Latham litigator for Illinois US attorney

Zachary Fardon, a Latham & Watkins partner who chairs its Chicago litigation department, was nominated Thursday to serve as the Northern District of Illinois U.S. attorney. Previously a federal prosecutor who worked on the corruption trial of former Illinois governor George Ryan, Reuters and the Associated Press report, Fardon worked…

May 24, 2013 6:46 PM CDT

Dewey’s bankruptcy lawyer: More large law firms will fail (video)

While failed law firms make for notoriously difficult bankrupty cases, Dewey & LeBoeuf’s time in bankruptcy court was quicker and easier than other notable law firms. Joe Samet, head of restructuring at Baker & McKenzie, and Al Togut, founding partner at Togut, Segal & Segal, talk with Bloomberg Law’s Lee…

May 23, 2013 3:40 PM CDT

8 protestors arrested outside Holder’s former firm

Eight individuals were arrested Wednesday as they protested the U.S. government’s lack of prosecution of bank mortgage foreclosure activities in the lobby of Covington & Burling’s office building in Washington, D.C. Seven were charged with unlawful entry and one was charged with assaulting a police officer, reports NBC4 Washington. The…

May 23, 2013 2:47 PM CDT

How in-depth knowledge of Star Wars paid off for lawyers at Skadden

Due diligence for last year’s $4 billion acquisition by Walt Disney Co. of Lucasfilm required the purchaser to check that George Lucas did, in fact, own the rights to some 10,000 characters and elements from his six Star Wars movies. So Brian McCarthy, who heads the Los Angeles office of…

May 23, 2013 1:45 PM CDT

Law firm leaders say industry shift permanent, yet don’t list value and efficiency as top concerns

Law firm leaders say the paradigm shift is here to stay, according to a new Altman Weil survey. Yet surprisingly they don’t put concerns such as delivering value to clients and improving efficiency at the top of the list when asked an open-ended question about the biggest challenges they will…

May 22, 2013 11:59 AM CDT

Kasowitz opens new Calif. office with two Jenner insurance recovery partners

Kasowitz Benson Torres & Friedman has opened a new office in Century City, Calif., with two partners from Jenner & Block. They are Jerold Oshinsky and Linda Kornfeld. Both represent businesses and university policyholders in insurance coverage disputes with their carriers, and Oshinsky had co-chaired the practice group at Jenner.…

May 21, 2013 10:30 AM CDT