Blawg Search - Law Blogs, Lawyer Blogs, Legal Blogs Directory & Search Engine

... AG Mike Moore started the practice of hiring lawyers as special assistant attorneys general -- continued under current AG Jim Hood -- to prosecute what was in essence private litigation. The scandal stunned the state but it would not have surprised the late Kirk Fordice, ... between Steve Funderburg and Scruggs is a must-read: Jones claims that on March 2, at a meeting of the Scruggs Katrina Group, Barrett offered him six percent, about $1,500,000. Jones claims he turned it down and asked again for ...

... Diaz Dennis, senior vice president and general counsel, only the ones who "agreed to share our pain ... are still with us today." And if refusing to lower prices costs you the wrong client in this challenging economy, it will take a long time to recover. As Steve Barrett, a legal consultant and former CMO, put it: "Once you lose the trusted advisor role, you are on the outside, and it could take five years to get back in." The world is a complicated place, and broad generalizations don't apply ...

... in his blog, the title of his post read "Shock and Awe at LSSO: Sales Training Doesn't Work." Jim Durham, Chief Marketing Officer at Ropes & Gray, says that one reason that the results of sales training are controversial ... competitive environment "It's ridiculously more competitive out there, and lawyers simply must start selling to survive," says Steve Barrett, Chief Marketing Officer at Philadelphia's Drinker Biddle. "Major clients are reorganizing the way they buy legal services. A tectonic ...

... taking a significant risk. When one law firm succeeds in training its lawyers to get new business, it usually takes the work away from a second firm. In this environment, firms may find it difficult to recover. "Once you lose the trusted advisor role," Barrett says, "you are on the outside, and it could take five years to get back in." As Catherine MacDonagh summed it up: "This is do or die, folks…It is an absolute business imperative for law firms to take a serious look at sales and service. ...

Last week in Betz v. Trainer Wortham & Co., the Ninth Circuit clarified that "inquiry notice, and not merely actual notice, can cause the statute of limitations for securities fraud to begin to run." The court also adopted the "inquiry-plus-reasonable-diligence test." Under that standard, the court first determines when a plaintiff has "inquiry notice", i.e., has notice of facts "sufficiently probative of fraud - sufficiently advanced beyond the stage of a mere suspicion . . . to incite [ ...

On October 9, the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral argument in Stoneridge Investment Partners v. Scientific-Atlanta, which many view as the most important securities case in years. At issue is the validity of "scheme liability" and whether third parties, such as financial advisors, auditors, attorneys, or vendors, who engage in allegedly fraudulent transactions with a public corporation, but who do not speak or provide financial statements or other disclosures to investors, can be held liable ...

Last week, the Ninth Circuit, in South Ferry LP v. Killinger, limited the use of the "core operations inference" to meet the heightened pleading standard of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act in alleging securities fraud by a corporation's management. The "core operations inference" is the principle that facts critical to a business's "core operations" or important transactions are known to key company officers when making statements about company operations that later turn out to be ...

... would be temporary or project specific)." What does that mean to you? Less job security, and more need for personal marketing. The trend is up For many lawyers, the idea of selling falls somewhere between undignified and unpleasant. According to Steve Barrett, formerly the Chief Marketing Officer at Drinker Biddle: "The job of lawyers is to help people understand what they can't do. Sales is all about what you can do." And there is no question that law firms now devote more time and money to ...

... 000 by N&M to Scruggs for documentation presented] Ex 7 - interrogatory answer from Barrett Law Office, P.A.. - substantially same as Nutt & McAlister Ex 8 - interrogatory ... "his friends" - described as Judge Lackey to his recollection as "Mr. Scruggs and Mr. Barrett and Mr. Nutt and maybe someone else or two." Balducci explained that his ... in my lifetime." Another of the reasons that he got back into the case was that he knew that Jim Hood had told Lon Stallings that if he didn't go through ...

... avoid disclosure of their communications and true relationship. Included in the attachments are excerpts from the recent court testimony of Attorney General Jim Hood in the Federal Court civil suit, State Farm v. Hood . . . . Contrary to the testimony provided by ... let me close by linking to another exhibit attached to the prosecutors' brief, this January 18, 2007 letter from Don Barrett of the Scruggs Katrina Group to Sheila Birnbaum, of Skadden, Arps, lead counsel for State Farm. I'm not even ...