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Law.com - Newswire
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The day's top legal stories accompanied with summaries.
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Microsoft Lawyers Map Out the Bid for Yahoo
In the days after Microsoft's bid for Yahoo, the players in the merger drama had their legal teams beating the antitrust drums. Google, which hit the blogosphere to bash the deal as anti-competitive, has a team of antitrust veterans. Microsoft, too, has a connected advocate in Charles "Rick" Rule, who worked with Thomas Barnett, the head of Justice's Antitrust Division, while the two were at Covington & Burling. The antitrust lawyers may be key to hammering out a deal -- and their work is cut out for them.
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$4.1 Million Fees Award Upheld in Kia Class Action
The Pennsylvania Superior Court has upheld $4.1 million in plaintiffs attorney fees awarded by a Philadelphia judge in a Kia Motors faulty-brake class action. The Superior Court panel found there was no palpable abuse of discretion by Common Pleas Judge Mark I. Bernstein, and echoed his reasoning that the plaintiffs attorneys' award was reasonable considering the rates the defense counsel charged, which topped out at $595 per hour for partners -- rates higher than those requested by plaintiffs' counsel.
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9th Circuit: No Sovereign Immunity for DA Contractors
Private companies that run diversion programs administered by dozens of California district attorneys are now open to legal attack. A 9th Circuit panel ruled Wednesday that state sovereign immunity does not extend to a private contractor hired by the Santa Clara County DA's office to go after individuals who passed bad checks. Public Citizen Litigation Group's Deepak Gupta, who argued the plaintiff's case, said the opinion is important in an age of increased privatization of governmental functions.
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Small Law Firm Thrives as Real Estate Market Swoons
Meltzer, Purtill & Stelle is benefiting from shifts in the real estate and legal industries even as the U.S. economic downturn takes a toll. The 24-lawyer firm specializes in real estate, related lending work and general corporate and business law. And it's content to stay its current size since larger firms refer "less lucrative" work to Meltzer Purtill. "It doesn't make economic sense" for larger firms to do general corporate work on employee matters and other day-to-day issues, says Brian Meltzer.
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Fulfilling Expectations at LegalTech
LegalTech conference attendees' expectations of finding products and services to reduce costs and control workflow for e-discovery were met head-on by vendors and consultants. But EDD wasn't the only concern at the show, where BI, document management, VoIP and other technologies shared the floor.
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