"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."

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.

Reed Smith, one of Pittsburgh's largest law firms, said Tuesday it will reduce its hourly billing rates 20 percent in January, as well as cut salaries of newly hired lawyers.

The moves are a response to client concerns about "driving down the cost of legal services," said global managing partner Gregory Jordan.

First-year associate salaries in Reed Smith's 15 U.S. offices will shrink to a range between $130,000 in New York, Chicago and other major markets to $110,000 in Pittsburgh.

A survey of the nation’s top 250 law firms shows they collectively shed 5,259 lawyers in the past year, a drop of 4 percent.

The drop is the largest since the National Law Journal started collecting the information in 1978. The survey has recorded only two other declines—a drop of less than 1 percent in 1993, and a 1 percent drop in 1992, according to a National Law Journal story on the results.

The number of associates at the large firms dropped by 8.7 percent, while the number of partners increased by slightly less than 1 percent, the story says. The number of lawyers in the “other” category, including of counsel and staff lawyers, dropped by 8.9 percent.

The numbers indicate a law firm strategy of saving partners, according to law firm consultant Ward Bower of Altman Weil. “The cuts made were done primarily to preserve workloads for partners," he told the National Law Journal. "It suggests that work done by partners is work that associates could do.”

The law firm with the largest percentage reduction in lawyers was Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson. It lost 168 lawyers, a decline of 26.4 percent, according to the article. The firm that lost the most lawyers in raw numbers was Latham & Watkins. It shrunk by 444 lawyers, a decline of 19.1 percent.

The largest law firm, according to the survey, is Baker & McKenzie, with 3,949 lawyers.

The law firm of Burlingame attorney Joe Cotchett filed suit today against JPMorgan Chase, in connection with a busted, $150 million Bay Area Ponzi scheme.

As stated in a press release sent out by the firm, Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, the scheme, was operated out of Napa, by William A. Wise, Jacqueline Hoegel and her daughter, Kristi, operating through an entity known as Millennium Bank.

Last March, the SEC filed action against the bank and the principals, and froze their assets, including a Napa home purchased by the Hoegels with the money from duped investors.

According to the lawsuit, the Napa branch office of Washington Mutual, since taken over by JPMorgan Chase, "not only assisted in depositing millions from innocent investors and helping wire millions to offshore banking havens, it also "provided to Millennium a remote banking platform that it could use to transfer and launder money faster and with less oversight, all in violation of the law."

A separate, revised class action suit filed by the firm on behalf of Madoff victims, names JPMorgan, along with the Bank of New York Mellon, as "custodians of key Madoff bank accounts, sold Madoff structured notes, administered Madoff feeder funds, and helped ship Madoff money between New York and London."

A prominent Fort Lauderdale law firm is asking a Florida court to dissolve it amid allegations that substantial amounts of money are missing from accounts created by the firm's co-founder, Scott Rothstein.

The possible dissolution of Rothstein Rosenfeldt Alder PA would amount to a repudiation of the politically well-connected Mr. Rothstein by his law partners and pose a potential embarrassment to the many Republican politicians in the state who have enjoyed his support. The 47-year-old attorney has boasted of a rags-to-riches ascent from a modest New York childhood in the Bronx to a lifestyle of luxury cars and sumptuous homes.

If the firm is dissolved it could meet the same fate as Dreier LLP, a New York law firm that was closed after its founder, Marc Dreier, was arrested for defrauding investors by selling bogus notes. Earlier this year, Mr. Dreier was sentenced to 20 years in prison. It is still unclear, however, whether the Florida firm would have to disband.

Mr. Rothstein didn't respond Monday to requests for comment. In an email exchange with The Wall Street Journal last week, he said he had "nothing to hide at all." Mr. Rothstein's attorney, Marc Nurik, didn't reply to requests for comment.

A spokesman for the law firm said it has launched an internal probe focused on a business Mr. Rothstein started that involved selling purported legal settlements to investors. He said the firm has contacted the U.S. attorney's office in Miami. At least one of the investors—Banyan, a Fort Lauderdale investment firm—has also contacted the U.S. attorney's office, which declined to comment on the matter.