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  • October 30, 2008 |

    Gibson Dunn defends Seinfeld in defamation claim

    Gibson Dunn & Crutcher is taking a headline role on a defamation claim involving US comedian Jerry Seinfield, reports The American Lawyer. The case started earlier this year when Missy Chase Lapine, author of cookbook The Sneaky Chef, sued Seinfeld's wife, Jessica Seinfeld. Lapine claimed that Seinfeld had plagiarised The Sneaky Chef when she wrote her own book, Deceptively Delicious, on how to get kids to eat their vegetables. Lapine sued Jessica Seinfeld for copyright and trademark infringement. But she also sued Jerry Seinfeld for defamation, citing some of his comments about her on the Late Show with David Letterman.

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  • October 29, 2008 |

    Loss leaders

    The lawyers that shepherd their clients down the road to the White House do everything from renting office space to vetting television ads to navigating the complex financial regulations that govern campaigns. These attorneys get front-row seats at the conventions, but are they making any money?"I can assure you that I do this for a profit and for a living," says Jan Baran of Wiley Rein, who most recently represented Stephen Colbert in his short-lived presidential run and acted as general counsel for George Bush senior's 1988 campaign. "But it is a lot easier dealing with business clients that recognise the need for counsel, pay for it promptly, and in amounts that would make most politicians blanch."This time around, the lead lawyers for the remaining candidates seem to be doing just fine, thank you. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Robert Bauer of Perkins Coie, general counsel to the Obama campaign, brought the firm close to $800,000 (£494,000) between January 2007 and July 2008. Trevor Potter of Caplin & Drysdale, general counsel for McCain, has raked in more than $400,000 (£247,000) during the same period. (The McCain campaign has made smaller payments to Bryan Cave, Dickstein Shapiro, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher and Akerman Senterfitt)."We're talking about a huge amount of money spent on a lot of innovative programming and outreach efforts," Bauer says. "At that level, there is a lot for lawyers to do."Both Bauer and Potter are loyalists. Bauer has worked for Obama since 2004, and his resume is packed with work for Democratic candidates and organisations reaching back through his 30 years of practice. Potter left his old firm, Wiley Rein, in 2001 over conflicts in his defence of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform act so he could continue representing the Arizona senator. Both say they have kept up with other clients to a certain degree although, as the election looms, they have devoted themselves fully to the campaign.

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  • October 22, 2008 |

    Gibson Dunn lands high-profile Heller hire

    Gibson Dunn & Crutcher has hired the firmwide managing partner of Heller Ehrman Robert Hubbell as a partner for the firm's Los Angeles office. Hubbell is the most high-profile departure from Heller since it announced its dissolution at the end of September.Hubbell had been at Heller for 17 years, becoming managing partner at 2003. Prior to that, he had worked at Los Angeles law firm Tuttle & Taylor.He practices securities litigation and accounting liability matters. He has advised the big four accounting firms and Fortune 500 companies.

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  • October 17, 2008 |

    UBS picks Sullivan as US counsel on $60bn bailout

    Sullivan & Cromwell has landed a lead role for UBS after the Swiss National Bank and the Government of Switzerland created a fund for the bank to dump $60bn in illiquid assets, reports the Am Law Daily. The elite US firm is advising UBS, Switzerland's largest bank, on US aspects of the bailout.Sullivan has worked with UBS in the past, advising the bank on its $10.8bn (£6.3bn) acquisition of private banker PaineWebber in 2000. The team handling the work was led by firm chairman Rodgin Cohen.

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  • September 17, 2008 |

    Falconer: Lehman will spark litigation boom

    The former Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, has predicted an explosion of 'mega-litigation' in the aftermath of this week's collapse of Lehman Brothers. Delivering the keynote speech at the Legal Week Litigation Forum in London this morning, Falconer said the demise of the US's fourth-largest investment bank would be a turning point for credit crunch-related litigation, unlocking a flood of cases."There is going to be litigation on a scale that we have not seen before," he told the conference, predicting the emergence of "a new era" for litigation and dispute resolution.

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  • September 12, 2008 |

    Gibson Dunn recruits top SEC lawyer as partner

    Mark Schonfeld, the regional director of the Security and Exchange Commission's (SEC's) New York office, is set to join Gibson Dunn & Crutcher as a partner, reports The American Lawyer. Schonfeld joined the SEC's Boston office in 1996, before being promoted to the top role in New York in 2004. He will join Gibson Dunn's New York office at the end of September, where he will co-head the firm's securities enforcement practice group.

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  • September 5, 2008 |

    McCain VP adviser re-elected as O'Melveny chair

    O'Melveny & Myers' policy committee has selected Arthur Culvahouse to lead the firm for another four-year term, reports The Recorder. An email to the partnership on Thursday (4 September) said: "The policy committee selected Arthur Culvahouse as the chair of the firm, subject to a partner vote in accordance with the partnership agreement," as relayed by a current partner. The Recorder reported on Thursday that Culvahouse led a five-way race with about a third of the partnership supporting him. Votes will be cast in an email ballot, which has not yet been sent out. Current and former partners expect the selection to be ratified, despite Culvahouse not winning a majority of support in the informal survey.

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  • August 27, 2008 |

    Eyeing the door

    When Arnold & Porter's director of professional development, Caren Ulrich Stacy, started working in law firm recruiting in the mid-1990s, she says there was one question she could count on hearing from every incoming associate, be it a new law school recruit or a potential lateral hire: how long does it take to make partner here? Today, Ulrich Stacy says, it goes largely unasked. "I have maybe had that question once in the past five years," she says.Why doesn't anyone ask the partnership question any more? It's not the well-documented reluctance of big law firms to make new equity partners. In The American Lawyer's most recent mid-level associate survey, which polled 7,259 respondents from 180 firms, more than 70% of respondents said they are on their firm's partnership track, and only a few indicated they strongly view partnership as an impossibility.

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  • August 7, 2008 |

    Falconer joins elite litigation panel line-up

    Lord Falconer has agreed to chair the Legal Week Litigation Forum, with the former Lord Chancellor to lead an elite line-up of judges, barristers and solicitors at the event in September. Falconer, who last month took up a senior counsel role with the London arm of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, completes a heavyweight roster that includes keynote speaker former attorney general Lord Goldsmith QC, Bar Council chair Timothy Dutton QC and Herbert Smith litigation chief Sonya Leydecker.The event, now in its fourth year, has swiftly built up a reputation for attracting leading figures in commercial litigation.

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  • July 9, 2008 |

    ...Legal Week Lunchbox: 09/07/08...

    The five most popular articles on legalweek.com today; the pick of the day's posts; and more

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