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Arsonist pleads not guilty in SoCal blazes
Court Feed News |
2007/12/01 17:19
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| A convicted arsonist has pleaded not guilty to setting eight fires in the Angeles National Forest. Prosecutors contend 52-year-old Rickey Jimenez was behind the tiny fires that erupted last month in the Lake Hughes area. The largest burned about an acre and all were contained without property damage. Jimenez is from Lake Hughes. He pleaded not guilty yesterday to eight felony arson counts that carry a maximum life sentence. Jimenez was sent to prison in 1988 for a series of nail salon fires in the San Fernando Valley. He also has a 1979 arson conviction for a school fire.
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Greenberg Traurig Grows Bankruptcy, Litigation Practice
Law Firm News |
2007/12/01 15:48
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Greenberg Traurig, an international law firm with more than 1,750 attorneys in 28 offices throughout the United States and Europe, including Tampa, has added nationally recognized attorney Robert A. "Rob" Soriano as a shareholder to its business reorganization and bankruptcy and litigation practices. Soriano joins the firm from Shutts & Bowen's Tampa office. He was previously at Carlton Fields, also in Tampa, where he headed that firm’s bankruptcy and creditors’ rights practice group.
“Rob Soriano has a national reputation in the area of creditors’ rights and bankruptcy and will strengthen this practice for Greenberg Traurig in the Middle District of Florida. To that end, Rob will spend part of his time in our Orlando office,” said David Weinstein, managing shareholder of Greenberg Traurig’s Tampa office. The office has grown by 16 lawyers since its founding in August of 2006. “Bringing Rob to Greenberg Traurig is something I've been attempting to do for more than a decade. Given where Rob is in his career, how well our Tampa office is developing, and where the bankruptcy and insolvency practice appears to be headed, Rob’s decision to join us could not come at a more opportune time,” said Mark Bloom, co-managing shareholder of the firm’s Miami office and co-chair of the national business reorganization and bankruptcy practice. “Greenberg Traurig has an excellent national platform and leadership position to offer my clients. In addition, this is somewhat of a homecoming as I will be working with old friends whose work I respect,” Soriano said. The firm’s business reorganization and bankruptcy practice brings together more than 65 attorneys located across the United States. The team has experience handling the many complex issues that arise in business reorganizations, restructurings, workouts, liquidations and distressed acquisitions and sales, as well as cross-border proceedings involving U.S. and foreign law. Soriano received his undergraduate degree from Rutgers University, with high distinction, and his J.D., cum laude, from Syracuse University. He served as a law clerk to the Hon. Mark A. Costantino, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York, and practiced at Skadden Arps in New York before coming to Florida. He is a member of the bars of both New York and Florida. Soriano has been listed in Best Lawyers in America for more than 12 years, was given the highest rating in Chambers USA Guide to America's Leading Business Lawyers, and is listed in Florida Super Lawyers. In addition, Rob is a contributing editor to Collier Bankruptcy Practice Guide and to Chapter 11 Theory and Practice. He is a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy and a member of The American Law Institute. Recently, Greenberg Traurig was named “USA Law Firm of the Year” by Chambers and Partners. The award honors excellence in legal services in countries around the world. Winning firms are selected by a distinguished panel of judges made up of international corporate buyers of legal services. In Florida, practice areas that were ranked by Chambers and Partners in its USA Guide, or had members who were, include Bankruptcy/Restructuring; Construction; Corporate/Mergers and Acquisition; Environmental; Immigration Labor and Employment; Litigation; Litigation: Appellate; Real Estate; Real Estate: Zoning/Land Use; Tax; and Tax: Employee Benefits. Greenberg Traurig is ranked seventh on The American Lawyer’s Am Law 100 listing of the largest law firms in the U.S., based on number of lawyers. Additionally, the firm has strategic alliances with the following independent law firms: Olswang, London and Brussels; Studio Santa Maria, Milan and Rome; and Hayabusa Asuka Law Offices in Tokyo. For additional information, please visit the firm's Web site at www.gtlaw.com. |
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Caplan Law Firm adds new OWI practice specialty
Law Firm News |
2007/12/01 15:45
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Caplan Law Firm principal attorney Allan Caplan has announced that the firm is currently offering a new OWI practice specialty, defending residents of the state of Wisconsin who have been charged with OWI or Operating While Intoxicated. Wisconsin and other states typically use the term OWI as opposed to DWI or DUI with the operative word being ‘operating’. Attorneys Allan Caplan and Joseph Tamburino are both licensed to practice law and try court cases in the State of Wisconsin. A principal of Caplan Law Firm, P.A.,, Allan Caplan spent six years prosecuting major felonies and white collar crimes as an Assistant Hennepin County Attorney During his 32-year career. In 1983, Mr. Caplan formed Caplan Law Firm, P.A., one of the largest criminal defense firms in the Midwest, with six lawyers representing clients in criminal law matters, both locally and nationally. A MInnesota DUI attorney, Mr. Caplan has achieved numerous acquittals and successful results for his clients in every type of case ranging from DWI and DUI to first-degree murder. The Caplan Law Firm, P.A., recognized as a top criminal defense and Minnesota DUI law firm, has successfully represented numerous clients throughout Minnesota, the Minneapolis St. Paul area, Wisconsin, and the Federal Courts in a wide range of criminal matters. |
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Law Firms Fail to Make the Grade in Diversity
Law Firm News |
2007/11/30 17:25
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Ivan Wang is an attorney for McKool Smith law firm in Austin. He says he has never faced challenges as a minority and that his firm gives equal opportunities to all races. Yet, he is one of only two minority attorneys at the firm.
McKool Smith received a D on the 2007 law firm report card presented at a press conference Thursday at the Travis County courthouse.
The report card, issued by minority lawyers' groups, gave a letter grade to the top 25 law firms in Austin based on the number of minority attorneys, minority partners and minority law clerks involved with each firm.
"What we ask of the law firms is very simple," Paul Ruiz, recruiting chairman of the Hispanic Bar Association of Austin, said in a statement. "Even though the percentage of minorities in Texas is well over 50 percent, we are asking Austin law firms to meet the threshold of the percentage of minority attorneys who are licensed to practice law in Texas, which, according to the Texas State Bar, is 15 percent."
Any law firm with a minority representation of 15 percent received an A on the report card, Ruiz said.
According to a report released by the State Bar of Texas, Hispanics make up 7 percent and African Americans make up 4 percent of the total number of State Bar Attorneys in Texas in 2007.
The Brown McCarroll firm received the highest grade, an A, with more than 24 percent of their attorneys being minorities, according to the report card. Five of the 24 firms on this year's report card failed.
Graves, Dougherty, Hearon & Moody improved from a grade F in 2000 to a C in 2007, according to a diversity progress report released with the report card.
Paul Saenz, a Hispanic shareholder at Graves, Dougherty, Hearon & Moody, said the firm had formed a diversity committee and implemented improvements in their hiring process to develop more diverse candidate pools since their 2000 report card grade.
Having minority attorneys at law firms is important for representing all communities and businesses and to take advantage of all market segments, Saenz said.
Law professor Daniel Rodriguez said that teachers and administrators work on encouraging minority law students to succeed in the profession and stay energetic in their pursuit to find their first job.
Rodriguez also said the small number of minority law professors at elite schools and at senior levels makes it hard to relate and identify to the backgrounds of the minority students in their classes.
According to the 2004 census report, white male attorneys make an average of $17,000 more than their Hispanic male colleagues and $46,000 more than their black male colleagues.
Law student Yuridia Caire said she does not personally feel discriminated as a minority in the UT School of Law, but said she notices many law firm's Web sites show very low numbers of minority attorneys and partners.
"Many law firms all over say they are dedicated to increasing minorities, but in the end, their actions are not what they are saying," she said. Caire is a vice president of the Chicano and Hispanic Law Students' Association and said she notices that many law firms hold study sessions with the group and then do not end up hiring the students.
The Chicano and Hispanic Law Students' Association is dedicated to helping law students in the law school process and improving their bar scores, Caire said.
According to the UT Statistical Handbook, of the 1,427 enrolled law students at UT in 2005, 230 were Hispanic and 77 were black. In 2000, there were 126 Hispanic and 33 black law students out of the 1,406 enrolled. |
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Associate Attrition Rates are on the Upswing
Law Firm News |
2007/11/30 17:15
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With associate attrition rates on the upswing and young lawyers unwilling to sacrifice personal time, law firms are being forced to rethink the classic high-workload, partner-track model for associates or watch as valuable talent slips away.
Firms have found that the lure of a hefty paycheck in exchange for a rigorous schedule has lost some of its shine for associates, who have different views on what success represents and increasingly leave firms after a handful of years. The new paradigm presents a dilemma for law firms, which have for years relied on the assumption that money -- and the potential of making partner -- buys loyalty.
Local and national law firms have begun to tweak that model, looking for creative alternatives to retain associates who are expensive to hire, but even more expensive to replace.
In 2006, the associate attrition rate in the U.S. was 19 percent, the same percentage as the previous year, which was the highest rate documented by any prior study of attrition, according to the National Association for Law Placement Foundation in Overland Park, Kan. Broken down, larger firms experience even higher rates of attrition with firms larger than 500 reporting a range of 13 percent to 27 percent attrition, according to NALP.
Associates' salaries at large firms range from $160,000 to $285,000 with the possibility of bonuses of $25,000 to $50,000. Meanwhile some law firms peg the cost of replacing an associate at around $300,000.
"Obviously law firms are quite concerned that associates are bailing out left and right," said Paul Clifford, a principal at Law Practice Consultants LLC in Boston. "Firms are starting to wake up to this and are starting to get more creative."
Nationally, McDermott Will & Emery is in the process of hiring a new class of about 15 staff associates who will charge less per hour for lower-end work, make less money and not be on the partnership track, according to a story on Law.com. The lawyers hired will be those who are not interested in working 80-hour weeks. The move is designed to benefit clients, who will pay less for their services. A representative from McDermott Will & Emery said the firm did not wish to comment for this story. |
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Archdiocese in Boston Finds New Representation
Lawyer Blog News |
2007/11/30 16:49
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Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley, in a step long sought by critics of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, said yesterday that he is hiring a new general counsel who will largely replace the controversial law firm that for years defended the archdiocese against scores of people who said they were sexually abused by priests.
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*
F. Beirne Lovely Jr., a partner at Goodwin Procter, will effectively replace the Rogers Law Firm, which has represented the archdiocese in most legal matters for at least two decades. The Rogers Law Firm, led by lawyer Wilson D. Rogers Jr., has been viewed with suspicion and hostility by many victim advocates and would-be church reformers - in part because of Rogers's close relationship with Cardinal Bernard F. Law, who resigned five years ago at the height of the clergy sexual-abuse crisis, and because Rogers was viewed as an architect of the archdiocese's yearslong adversarial handling of complaints and lawsuits brought by people who said they were sexually abused by priests.
"Wilson Rogers was the iron fist inside Bernard Law's velvet glove, the operative who for many years obstructed and outmaneuvered victims' attempts to hold the archdiocese accountable for sheltering pedophiles," said Anne Barrett Doyle, codirector of BishopAccountability.org, a victim advocacy organization. "God only knows how many children were harmed because of Rogers's success in silencing victims and his ruthless dedication to keeping the archdiocese out of civil courts."
The archdiocese, which has a vast array of legal issues ranging from personnel and real estate matters to more publicly sensitive cases involving parish closings and sexual abuse, said only that it had decided the time had come for an in-house counsel who would oversee all of the archdiocese's legal concerns and hire outside lawyers as needed.
"We believe that an in-house counsel having a broad-based legal background will best serve the archdiocese," James P. McDonough, archdiocesan chancellor, said in a statement.
Terrence C. Donilon, archdiocesan spokesman, said the Rogers Law Firm would continue to do some work for the archdiocese and represent Caritas Christi, the archdiocesan hospital network. He said the archdiocese would still retain Thomas H. Hannigan, a longtime and trusted O'Malley adviser from the law firm Ropes & Gray, to handle abuse-related litigation.
Donilon said Lovely would report to the archdiocesan vicar general and would be "a member of senior leadership" at the chancery.
Rogers declined to comment yesterday, but his firm offered the Globe a statement congratulating Lovely and saying, "The extent and magnitude of legal issues affecting the archdiocese on a daily basis warrants an in-house full-time general counsel. The Rogers Law Firm looks forward to working with Mr. Lovely and to continue providing legal services to the Archdiocese of Boston."
Lovely also declined to comment, except via a statement from the archdiocese in which he said he was "honored" by the new position. The archdiocese would not say how much Lovely would be paid, but said it would report his salary next year, with the archdiocese's annual financial disclosure forms, if he is among the archdiocese's top five salaried employees.
The archdiocese reported paying The Rogers Law Firm $610,000 in fiscal 2006 and $448,054 in fiscal 2005. Caritas Christi reported paying the firm $6.9 million over the past eight years.
Lovely is a decorated Vietnam veteran who graduated from Dartmouth College and Boston University Law School. He has been at Goodwin Procter since 1976 and is a member of its business law department. He is chairman of the Milton School Committee and a parishioner at St. Elizabeth Church in Milton. |
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