I’m a trial lawyer for injured people and businesses at The Beasley Firm. Founded in 1958, we have recovered over $2 billion for our clients through hundreds of verdicts and settlements in excess of $1 million. We’re listed in Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers in America, U.S. News’s Top Lawyers, [...]
Public Pension Funds Complain About Private Equity Fees – Why Not Sue Under Jones v. Harris Associates?
The New York Times reports: Private equity deal-makers, those kings of corporate buyouts, made billions for themselves when times were good. But some of their biggest investors, public pension funds, are still waiting for the hefty rewards they were promised. The nation’s 10 largest public pension funds have paid private equity firms more than $17 billion in fees since 2000, according to a new analysis conducted for The New York Times, as the funds flocked to these so-called alternative investments in hopes of reaping market-beating returns. But few big public funds ended up collecting the 20 to 30 percent returns ... Continue Reading
Why It’s Hard For BigLaw Associates To Start Rainmaking
Two days ago, Ashby Jones at the WSJ Law Blog approvingly cited these remarks in Legal Week by Alex Novarese: [W]hat surprised me was that there appeared to be a consistent anxiety regarding the pressures or expectations of winning business. On one hand, associates want early access to clients; indeed, they resent law firms that don't give them that access. But the idea of bringing in clients doesn't seem to be one that drives young lawyers, at least those at large commercial law firms. In some cases an ambivalence about partnership appears to be strongly connected with the belief that the ... Continue Reading
Small Businesses More Likely To Have Corporate Veil Pierced Than Large Companies
That's the conclusion of new scholarship by law professors Dave Hoffman and Cristy Boyd, in a draft just published here on SSRN, with blogging about it here. After analyzing 690 cases that sought to pierce the corporate veil between 2000 and 2005, they conclude: The part that extra-legal influences play in veil piercing cases should caution corporate lawyers and scholars. Although jurists have focused on the influence of law and lawyers' craft on the likelihood of defending the veil, we find that two previously ignored factors – ideology, and firm size, play as important a role, if not more so. ... Continue Reading
Bank of America / Merrill Lynch Saga Continues: Can Attorney-Client Privilege Be Both A Sword And A Shield?
As you may have heard, Judge Rakoff did not like the proposed SEC settlement with Bank of America (neither did I) in part because it blamed the bank's lawyers while refusing to waive attorney-client privilege and explain what, exactly, went wrong. A week ago, he rejected it entirely: In a 13-page order available here at the New York Times's DealBook blog, Rakoff variously calls the settlement "trivial," "absurd," and "neither fair, nor reasonable, nor adequate." His primary objection seems to be that shareholders would indirectly pay for the alleged failure to disclose the bonuses, since the bank, not the individual executives who struck ... Continue Reading
Court Re-Rejects Bank of America & Merrill Lynch’s SEC Settlement For Failure To Waive Attorney-Client Privilege
On Tuesday, The New York Times reported: The finger-pointing in Merrill Lynch’s bonus troubles shifted to a new target on Monday in two court documents that essentially said: blame the lawyers. Responding to questions posed by a federal judge, Bank of America and the Securities and Exchange Commission said the bank had relied on its outside lawyers to fill in the fine print in that firm’s controversial marriage with Bank of America. That meant that lawyers at two firms — Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz as well as Shearman & Sterling — handled a decision to keep Merrill’s $3.6 billion ... Continue Reading
VC Firm Pushes Zappos To Sell To Amazon: A Good Example Of Framing Contracts Around Likely Future Disputes
Amazon just paid a little under a billion dollars for Zappos, a shoe-company with legendary customer service. Of interest to those of us in the litigation business is this post at peHUB: One of the sources says Zappos was financially strong enough to wait for the IPO market to recover, if it chose to go that route. The source, a Zappos shareholder who has seen the company’s income statement reports, said that the company did over $1 billion in gross revenue in 2008, $625 million in net revenue and had an EBITA greater than $40 million. Zappos had raised $49.1 ... Continue Reading
Contingent Fee Business Lawyers As Venture Capitalists
In the world of venture capitalism, Fred Wilson’s blog, “A VC” is essential reading, and Fred is particularly generous with his insight and information about the field. I read Fred’s blog partly because it’s darn interesting and partly because there are a lot of parallels between venture capitalism and contingent fee litigation. We both take on a lot of risk and invest a lot of time and money for the potential of a big payoff down the road, as compared to regular and steady income. Yesterday, Fred wrote an interesting post about the venture capitalism industry as a whole, and ... Continue Reading
