Partners

‘Retired’ Partners Rehired at Other Firms

In the last decade or two, requiring law firm partners to retire at a certain age has become a common practice. But now the tide seems to be turning on that trend. The median age of lawyers is increasing, and, although more than half of the nation’s larger law firms…

Sep 5, 2007 10:57 PM CDT

Firm Survives 9/11 Attack, But Changes

It takes a lot today to create a crisis at Harris Beach. Its law offices at 2 World Trade Center were obliterated on Sept. 11, 2001, killing three lawyers, two staff members and a contractor supervising an almost-completed $4 million renovation project. Now, many among the more than 100 who…

Sep 5, 2007 6:16 PM CDT

Lawyer Fights Armed Intruder & Wins

A 37-year-old partner at Faegre & Benson in Minneapolis isn’t just a tough competitor at the table in corporate transactions. Keith Radtke battled a rifle-toting intruder who broke into his Lakeland, Minn., home on Friday—and won—even after he was shot in the lower back with a .45-caliber handgun. The battle…

Aug 27, 2007 8:45 PM CDT

Latest Name Game Move: ‘Mayer Brown’

Following a trend that is increasingly popular among many major law firms, Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw is shortening its name as of Aug. 31. The 1,500-attorney Chicago-based international firm will hereafter be known simply as Mayer Brown, reports Crain’s Chicago Business. Although rainmaking partners traditionally have had their names…

Aug 22, 2007 11:54 PM CDT

Clifford Chance Settles Sexual Pref Case

In a precedent-setting case in the United Kingdom, a London-based megafirm has reportedly reached a settlement with a former partner who claimed he was discriminated against because of his sexual preference. The agreement, between famed “magic circle” firm Clifford Chance and former partner Michael Bryceland, is for an undisclosed amount.…

Aug 20, 2007 7:30 PM CDT

Pension Suit Turns on Partner Definition

A “partner” who was denied pension benefits from her former law firm because she was not considered a shareholder will get a chance to prove she is entitled to the money. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled (PDF) Wednesday that a magistrate erred in barring Karen Strom from…

Aug 17, 2007 11:05 AM CDT

Working Mother Lists Top 50 Law Firms

A new player has just entered the law-firm rankings game. Working Mother magazine, in an issue that arrived on newsstands today, has listed 50 law firms that it considers particularly attuned to the concerns of its readers. “In this, our inaugural Working Mother & Flex-Time Lawyers Best Law Firms for…

Aug 14, 2007 3:30 PM CDT

Alec Scott, Esq: ‘Why I Escaped the Law’

It isn’t just many American lawyers who feel overworked and dispirited. Their Canadian counterparts increasingly feel the same way, according to an article in next month’s issue of Toronto Life magazine. Author Alec Scott, a lawyer who is now a journalist, says that getting fired from a big Toronto firm…

Aug 13, 2007 11:09 PM CDT

Anger, Frank Talk Help Promote Diversity

Working to diversify the legal profession–which lags significantly behind corporate counterparts–requires, as a first step, talking clearly about the issue. And sometimes anger helps. Or so Stanley Stallworth found about six years ago, as he was on the verge of making a diversity presentation to the executive committee of the…

Aug 10, 2007 10:01 PM CDT

ABA to Weigh Position on Forced Retirement

Aging attorneys will be one of the subjects taken up at the ABA Annual Meeting that begins tomorrow in San Francisco. A resolution before the policy-making House of Delegates calls on law firms to discontinue mandatory retirement policies, the National Law Journal reports. ABA President Karen J. Mathis supports the…

Aug 7, 2007 11:07 AM CDT

Punching the Clock

Firms crack down on start times, but is it a “generational” thing?

Aug 1, 2007 8:48 AM CDT

NJ Firm Bows Head re Unadmitted Atty

In a rare sanction of a law firm that names no individual partner names, the New Jersey Supreme Court has reprimanded Newark-based Sills Cummis Epstein & Gross for allowing an associate not admitted to the state bar to work on transactional matters for seven years. There are conflicting accounts of…

Jul 27, 2007 12:03 AM CDT

US Attorney to Judge: No Scruggs Case

A federal prosecutor in Alabama has declined a federal judge’s suggestion that she should prosecute Richard Scruggs, a prominent Mississippi plaintiffs lawyer, for contempt of court. U.S. Attorney Alice Martin said yesterday in a letter to U.S. District Judge William M. Acker Jr. that “following a serious and thorough review…

Jul 26, 2007 5:43 PM CDT

Major Jacksonville PI Firm is Splitting Up

Two longtime law partners in Jacksonville, Fla., have agreed to an amicable split, saying that their plaintiff personal injury firm had grown so large they were essentially officing together rather than practicing together. Woody Wilner and Robert Spohrer now plan to dissolve the firm they formed in 1991 and go…

Jul 26, 2007 12:40 AM CDT

Lawyer, 47, Moves to 6th Firm in 8 Years

If this is a day in 2007, the law firm at which David Wiseblood is working must be Seyfarth Shaw. Or possibly Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Gates, where he hung his shingle earlier this year, or–before its merger with Kirkpatrick & Lockhart–Preston Gates & Ellis. Lawyers leap laterally to new firms…

Jul 25, 2007 8:20 PM CDT