Breach of fiduciary duty class actions under the Employee Retirement and Income Securities Act ("ERISA") are as common as the day is long. If an employee pension plan loses a lot of value, odds are good there will be a lawsuit.

Unsurprisingly, the federal courts have clamped down on these lawsuits over the years. As

Carolyn Elefant kicks off a discussion on “The Deterioration of Legal Writing,” beginning with a Financial Week story, concluding:

While I believe that both factors — the informality of e-mail and lack of quality teaching — have contributed to the decline of legal writing skills today, I think the main problem is  the

We’re aiming for new heights of nerdom here at Litigation & Trial, combining comic books, movies, old law school contract cases, equitable principles, permanent injunctions, and recent circuit splits in one post. The Watchmen lawsuit — which is less copyright infringement and more commercial litigation, since the dispute is largely over contract terms —

I spotted this intriguing entry with regard to the Bear Stearns indictment and the duty of corporate counsel to employees:

[Defendant Tannin] raised the issue of whether to approach a lawyer regarding his doubts about the market. “Who do we talk to about this?” wrote Tannin in an e-mail, sent from his private account, to co-defendant Ralph Cioffi. “Outside counsel? (And here we have to be careful because our outside counsel is [Bear Stearns Asset Management’s counsel] NOT our counsel — This is another very big issue we at least need to think about.)”

He was right — if he had talked to Bear Stearns’ lawyer, they would not have told him what was in his best interest. They would have told him what was in the best interest of the company. More below the fold.Continue Reading “In-House Counsel” Represents the Company, Not the Workers