Midsize Firm

Kelly Hart opens New Orleans office with 6-lawyer team from Gordon Arata

A former Louisiana state lawmaker has opened a New Orleans office for Kelly Hart & Hallman. Headed by Loulan J. Pitre Jr., the office is the first outside Texas for the 140-attorney law firm, which will be known in New Orleans as Kelly Hart & Pitre, according to a law…

Jun 23, 2014 2:45 PM CDT

3rd name partner of law firm shuttered by founder’s $1.4B swindle takes plea in felony case

A trifecta of felony convictions looms for a once-prominent South Florida law firm, following a guilty plea in federal court in Miami on Wednesday by Stuart Rosenfeldt. The 59-year-old is the third of three former name partners of the bankrupt Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler firm to take a plea in a…

Jun 12, 2014 8:43 PM CDT

8 Steptoe litigators leap to Chicago trial boutique, which hopes to expand further

Updated: Eight litigators have exited Steptoe & Johnson for Williams Montgomery & John, their new firm announced Wednesday. Led by Christopher J. Barber, the three-partner, five-associate group focuses on complex litigation, arbitration and trial work. They are expected to add substantial depth to the nearly 50-year-old Chicago commercial trial boutique,…

Jun 11, 2014 7:15 PM CDT

‘Other’ is fastest growing attorney category in larger law firms

One category of attorneys is doing especially well in the nation’s top 350 law firms. “Other” attorney jobs grew by 8.8 percent last year, the National Law Journal reports. The increase was the largest of any attorney category. The “other” category includes staff attorneys, of counsel, and lawyers who aren’t…

Jun 11, 2014 4:24 PM CDT

Former state bar president gets two-year suspension for filing false tax returns

The Ohio Supreme Court has imposed a two-year suspension on a former state bar president who pleaded guilty to filing false income tax returns. Leslie Jacobs was suspended for two years, with credit for the time he was on an interim suspension that began in April 2012, report Cleveland.com and…

May 28, 2014 4:40 PM CDT

City of Bell sues its former bond counsel, says law firm didn’t sound alarm about $100M debt

Still recovering from a corruption scandal that resulted in multiple convictions over excessive salaries paid to officials and a 12-year sentence last month for a former city administrator, a Los Angeles suburb is now suing its former bond counsel. Meyers Nave failed to warn the city of Bell about the…

May 23, 2014 9:35 PM CDT

Feds charge another Rothstein lawyer, say sheriff’s office went to escort’s home to erase phone info

A name partner of a now-shuttered South Florida law firm linked to a massive fraud has been federally charged with a single conspiracy count. Stuart Rosenfeldt is charged with conspiracy to commit campaign finance fraud, bank fraud and civil rights violations. He could get as much as five years if…

May 22, 2014 10:10 PM CDT

Warner Norcross opens in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and is looking for more office space there

Last year, a Kalamazoo, Mich., law firm dissolved when two name partners decided to join Warner Norcross & Judd. Now the 230-attorney, Grand Rapids-based business firm is adding more lawyers from Miller Canfield and is looking for additional space in Kalamazoo, its eighth office in Michigan, MLive.com reports. The article…

May 21, 2014 6:10 PM CDT

Park memorial honoring murdered law firm partner draws fire due to jailed founder’s notoriety

For years, no one apparently noticed that a park memorial for crime victims in South Florida had been paid for by a law firm now associated with a massive swindle. Funded in honor of murdered Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler partner Melissa Britt Lewis, the site at a Broward County nature park…

May 15, 2014 9:25 PM CDT

Bar to pursue case against 3 lawyers accused of setting up opposing counsel for mid-trial DUI arrest

The Florida Bar has found probable cause to pursue a legal ethics case against three lawyers accused of playing a role in setting up opposing counsel for a mid-trial drunken-driving arrest. No formal ethics complaint has yet been filed against attorneys Robert D. Adams, Stephen Diaco and Adam Filthaut, but…

May 9, 2014 10:00 PM CDT

Snell & Wilmer lays off about 40 staffers

A well-known Western regional law firm with more than 400 attorneys on its roster has laid off about 40 staff members. Snell & Wilmer notified them this week of the reduction in force, said chairman John Bouma in a written statement provided to Above the Law. “This decision was made…

May 9, 2014 6:35 PM CDT

Quarles & Brady opens office in Indianapolis with Frost Brown litigation team

Four litigators from Frost Brown Todd are opening a new office in Indianapolis as partners of Quarles & Brady, along with another lawyer who formerly was a partner at Krieg DeVault. D. Linden Barber, who serves as director of Drug Enforcement Administration compliance and litigation for Quarles, within the firm’s…

May 9, 2014 3:50 PM CDT

Business law firm to pay $8M to settle class action over its work for hedge-fund client

Ater Wynne wasn’t aware that a client was helping to run a million-million-dollar scam under the guise of a hedge fund, the lawyer for plaintiffs in a securities class action against the firm says. But that didn’t prevent the Portland, Oregon, business law firm being named as a defendant, due…

May 8, 2014 3:50 PM CDT

Office managing partner of Florida firm is killed in bike wreck

The managing partner of the Fort Myers, Florida, office of a Tampa, Florida-based firm has been killed in a bicycle-car accident. James Chelius Jr., 61, died Sunday after the bicycle he was riding was struck by a car, the Naples Daily News reports. Chelius was managing partner of the Fort…

May 7, 2014 8:44 PM CDT

Airlines and World Trade Center leaseholder don’t have to pay cleanup costs for 9/11 attacks

An appellate court has upheld a decision shielding American Airlines, United Airlines and the World Trade Center leaseholder from paying environmental cleanup costs relating to the 9/11 attacks in New York City. According to Reuters, a unanimous three-judge panel for the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held…

May 2, 2014 9:36 PM CDT