"Legal services employment in Boston, which never fully recovered from the previous recession, is now shedding jobs at a rate not seen since the recession of the early nineties," and one result is that some local law firms are unloading no-longer-needed office space, Jones Lang LaSalle said in a new report.

A real estate money management and services firm with a big presence in Greater Boston, Jones Lang LaSalle said, "The downturn has caused Boston law firms to shed surplus office space and renew their focus on utilizing remaining space more efficiently."

Declines in mergers and acquisitions and in legal financial business have led to a drop in law firm revenue, and law firms are now looking at "their real estate for possible opportunities to decrease overall operating costs," the report said.

The press release included a statement from Tom Doughty, the international director of Jones Lang LaSalle law firm group.

"There is a 'Perfect Storm' of circumstances that law firms need to understand and take into consideration as they contemplate their real estate plans for the future," Doughty said. "Space options abound � from new buildings to existing built-out space - while competition for premium space is decreasing and rental rates are declining. As a result, law firms that are able to take advantage of the current market will have an opportunity to solidify long-term occupancy at significantly decreased costs."

The Colorado parents who reported their 6-year-old son floated away aboard a helium balloon will plead guilty to some charges and serve probation so that the family can stay together, the attorney for the boy's father said Thursday.

Richard Heene will plead guilty in the alleged Oct. 15 hoax to attempting to influence a public servant, a felony, his attorney David Lane said. Mayumi Heene — a Japanese citizen who could have been deported if convicted of more serious charges — will plead guilty to false reporting to authorities, a misdemeanor, he said.

Prosecutors haven't announced whether they've filed charges in the case and didn't immediately return a call Thursday seeking comment on the plea agreement.

The saga gripped a global audience, first with fear for the safety of 6-year-old Falcon Heene and then with anger at his parents when authorities accused them of perpetrating a hoax.

After the boy was found safe at home, sheriff's officials contacted social workers to make sure the children were in a healthy environment.

Lane didn't address whether the pleas would include monitoring of the couple. Mayumi Heene's attorney, Lee Christian, did not return a call, and the Heenes didn't answer when an Associated Press reporter knocked on their door Thursday morning.

As part of the plea deal, Lane said prosecutors have agreed to let both parents serve probation sentences. The most serious of the charges recommended by Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden would have carried a maximum sentence of six years in prison.

A California plastic surgeon accused of molesting dozens of patients, many while unconscious, has pleaded not guilty to 64 felony sex charges.

Forty-seven-year-old Peter Chi (CHEE) of Tracy entered the plea Monday in San Joaquin County Superior Court.

Authorities say Chi inappropriately touched more than 30 female patients, including a 15-year-old girl, while working at his business, Beauty Renewed.

A grand jury indicted Chi in June on charges that included sexual battery by fraud and sexual penetration by foreign object while unconscious.

The former doctor also faces civil lawsuits from some 40 women. Chi's insurance company also is suing him in federal court, accusing him of failing to disclose his criminal troubles when he renewed his policy.

A former Hyundai Motor America executive has pleaded guilty to felony vehicular manslaughter in a drunken driving crash that killed a motorcyclist in Orange County.

Forty-two-year-old Youn Bum Lee made his plea Tuesday in the 2005 death of college student Ryan Dallas Cook.

Prosecutors say Lee crashed his company car after drinking with colleagues. Cook slammed into Lee's car and was thrown onto the freeway, where he was hit by other cars. Cook was pronounced dead at the scene.

Prosecutors say Lee boarded a flight to Korea the day after the crash, leaving his family behind. Lee was arrested in Seoul last year and was returned in January to Orange County.

Lee is expected to be sentenced to nine years in prison Dec. 7.

Profit at the 100 highest-grossing U.K. law firms fell 30 percent on average during the past year as deal work declined with the recession, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP survey.

Profits per partner at the top 10 U.K. firms averaged 872,000 pounds ($1.44 million), a 21 percent decrease, according to PwC. Partners at the second tier of law firms, ranked 11 to 25, brought in around 444,000 pounds and saw “the greatest average fall in U.K. income,” the accounting firm said.

“This year has seen the greatest turmoil in the law firm sector since our survey began in 1991,” Alistair Rose, a PwC partner, said in a statement. The effect of the economic crisis “has been even greater than we anticipated across the sector.”

Large law firms in the U.S. and U.K. have been forced to cut costs by firing lawyers, reducing pay and deferring the hiring of first-year attorneys as they weather a decline in legal work.

Allen & Overy LLP, the fourth-highest-grossing U.K. law firm, said revenue fell 7 percent to 511 million pounds for the first six months of the financial year that began May 1. Revenue at Simmons & Simmons LLP, also based in London, fell 16 percent to 120.3 million in the half-year period, spokesman Ibrahim Kamara said.

A spokesman for Linklaters LLP, the highest-grossing U.K. law firm, said half-year revenue results weren’t yet available.

An anti-abortion activist says he's the one who killed a Kansas abortion provider — and did it because it was necessary to save lives. But one of his attorneys says there's no such thing as a "necessity defense" in state law, and that is not the strategy the defense team plans to present at his trial.

Scott Roeder told The Associated Press in a telephone call from jail on Monday that he plans to argue at his trial that he was justified in shooting Dr. George Tiller to protect unborn children.

"We have explored that possibility," public defender Steve Osburn said a day after his client's confession. "That does not seem to be the approach that is viable, nor is it the approach we intend to use."

Roeder, 51, of Kansas City, Mo., is charged with one count of first-degree murder in Tiller's death and two counts of aggravated assault for allegedly threatening two ushers who tried to stop him during the May 31 melee in the foyer of the doctor's Wichita church. Roeder has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to go to trial in January.