West Virginia Business Litigation : West Virginia Business Litigation Lawyer & Attorney : Law Office of Jeffrey V. Mehalic : Charleston, Huntington, Parkersburg

I have been wanting to address the issue of conflicts in representation, and the post yesterday by Kevin LaCroix, who writes The D&O Diary, entitled "A Case of Divided Loyalties" provides me with that opportunity.   On the surface, the issue is straightforward: the possibility that a conflict of interest could develop when a lawyer or firm represents a corporation and one or more of its officers or directors.  I would expand the scope to include the representation of witnesses who are employees of a corporation.

Kevin's post focuses on a recent California federal court decision in U.S. v. Nicholas, 2009 WL 890633 (C.D. Cal. 2009), which arises from the Broadcom Corporation options-backdating case.  In Nicholas, the law firm of Irell & Manella represented Broadcom and its CFO, William Ruehle. 

As Kevin reports, the Court found "at least" three clear violations of Irell's duty of loyalty to Ruehle: 

• it failed to advise him of the conflict and obtain his written waiver;
• it interrogated him for the benefit of another client (Broadcom, his employer); and
• it disclosed without Ruehle's consent his privileged communications to a third party.

This paragraph from the Court's opinion sums up the situation (I apologize for its length, but it's worth it):

Irell's ethical breaches of the duty of loyalty are very troubling. Mr. Ruehle's confidential and privileged information has been disclosed to numerous third parties, most notably the Government in connection with its criminal prosecution against him.  The Government's case against Mr. Ruehle is a serious one, and Mr. Ruehle faces a significant prison sentence if convicted on all counts charged in the indictment.  It must be disconcerting to Mr. Ruehle to know that his own lawyers at Irell disclosed his confidential and privileged information to the Government, lawyers whom Mr. Ruehle trusted and believed would never do anything to hurt him.  And now the Court has had to intervene and suppress relevant evidence in the Government's case against Mr. Ruehle. The Government's burden is not an easy one, as it has to prove the charges against Mr. Ruehle beyond a reasonable doubt. Suppressing relevant evidence is obviously not helpful to the Government in that regard, but more importantly, it hinders the adversarial process and the jury's search for the truth.  Irell should not have put the parties and the Court in this position. The Rules of Professional Conduct are not aspirational. The Court is at a loss to understand why Irell did not comply with them here. Because Irell's ethical misconduct has compromised the rights of Mr. Ruehle, the integrity of the legal profession, and the fair administration of justice, the Court must refer Irell to the State Bar for discipline.  Mr. Ruehle, the Government, and the public deserve nothing less.

(Emphasis added.)

You read that correctly.  The Court referred the firm -- not just the lawyers involved, but the firm -- to the State Bar for discipline.  How would you like to be the managing partner or ethics partner who has to inform the firm's malpractice carrier about this opinion?

The case I had been thinking about, which Kevin also mentions, involves Laura Pendergest-Holt, who was the chief investment officer for the Stanford Financial Group.  That  company and related entities have been charged in an $8 billion Ponzi scheme. 

As part of the SEC's investigation into the Stanford Financial Group, Pendergest-Holt testified and was represented by Thomas Sjoblom of Proskauer Rose, LLP, who also represented Stanford Financial Group.  After Pendergest-Holt testified before the SEC, she was charged in a criminal complaint with obstructing its investigation by giving false testimony, and was arrested.

She has sued Sjoblom and Proskauer for malpractice, and alleged that she was not informed of her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, nor was she informed that she had no attorney-client relationship with Sjoblom, nor that her interests were adverse to her employer's (Sjoblom's client).  Here is Pendergest-Holt's amended complaint against Sjoblom and Proskauer.

According to Zach Lowe's story from last month in The AmLaw Daily, entitled "Lessons From the Stanford Scandal: Bring Your Own Lawyer," Sjoblom took pains to advise the SEC that he was representing Pendergest-Holt "insofar as she is an officer or director of one of the Stanford-affiliated companies," but did not explain to her that he was not representing her personally.  Sjoblom has since withdrawn from the case.

These cases teach that the safest practice is for an officer or director to request or obtain his or her own counsel.  Some corporations (and their counsel) will simply want to assign another lawyer from the corporate counsel's firm to represent the officer or director, and theoretically that can work (the Chinese wall approach). 

But my opinion is that the individual's lawyer should be from another firm, so that the representation is truly independent.  I think some firms fear that if they refer an officer or director or employee to another firm for representation, the new firm may gain access to the corporate client.  And they may be right.  But that doesn't mean that the officer or director or employee shouldn't have separate, independent counsel.  And if you don't think so, ask William Ruehle or Laura Pendergest-Holt.

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I want to get to a few things that have accumulated on my desk over the past few days, so I’ll start with the ongoing legal problems of a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania law firm that has represented thousands of plaintiffs in asbestos litigation in West Virginia, among other states.  

Peirce, Raimond & Coulter, P.C. is a defendant in a declaratory judgment complaint filed last September by Lumbermens Mutual Casualty Company, in United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.  Lumbermens Mutual Casualty Company v. Peirce, Raimond & Coulter, P.C., Civil Action No. 2:08–CV-1257 (W.D.Pa. 2008).

Here is the complaint, in which Lumbermens, as Peirce, Raimond & Coulter, P.C.’s errors and omissions carrier, asks for a declaratory judgment that it is not obligated to defend or indemnify the firm and its members in a lawsuit filed by CSX Transportation, Inc.  In that lawsuit, which is filed in United States District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia, CSX Transportation, Inc. alleges that the Peirce firm and its members were part of a scheme to prosecute fraudulent or unmeritorious asbestosis claims.  Here are some of allegations from the amended complaint:

 The defendants listed herein are well-organized and financed asbestos personal injury attorneys and medical experts who have orchestrated a scheme to inundate CSXT and other entities with thousands of asbestosis claims without regard to their merit.

Due to the sheer volume of claims filed as well as the number of claimants included in any one particular lawsuit CSXT and others were unable to adequately defend or even evaluate the merits of each claim on an individual basis.  Instead, in an effort to alleviate the stress placed on the judicial system by these mass filings, CSXT was forced to engage in a large scale mediation process with only limited information provided by the claimants’ own attorneys.

This case arises from the successful efforts of the defendants to deliberately fabricate and prosecute objectively unreasonable, false and fraudulent asbestosis claims against CSXT.  Specifically, the defendants orchestrated an asbestosis screening process deliberately intended to result in false positive diagnoses and then knowingly prosecuted claims against CSXT with no basis in fact.  As will be explained more fully below, this conduct violated the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”), 18 U.S.C. § 1961 et seq., and also supports claims for common law fraud and conspiracy.

 CSX Transportation v. Gilkison, Civil Action No. 5:05–CV-00202 (N.D.W.Va. 2005). 

CSXT’s lawsuit has received attention for naming Dr. Ray Harron as a defendant.  Dr. Harron, a retired radiologist from Bridgeport, West Virginia, is alleged to have provided false positive diagnoses of asbestosis in thousands of plaintiffs, which formed the basis for their lawsuits against CSXT. 

Dr. Harron has already been accused of falsifying x-ray diagnoses of silicosis, as described by this 2006 story by Mike Tolson in the Houston Chronicle and this 2006 story by Wade Goodwyn on NPR.org.  And although Goodwyn’s article provides a link, here is the 249–page opinion by United States District Judge Janis Graham Jack.

But back to CSXT’s lawsuit.  The defendants have made several motions to dismiss, which have been granted and denied.  But most recently, the court denied Dr. Harron’s motion to dismiss the remaining claim against him for common law civil conspiracy on the grounds that the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) (the court previously granted his motion to dismiss a claim for civil RICO conspiracy).

in a nutshell, Dr. Harron alleged that the plaintiff had not satisfied the requirement of proving that the amount in controversy is at least $75,000, as required for federal diversity jurisdiction.  Judge Frederick P. Stamp, Jr. disagreed, and in his order found that CSXT’s legal expenses of nearly $68,000 (so far) in investigating and prosecuting its claims, coupled with the possibility of punitive damages, satisfied the amount in controversy requirement.  So it looks like Dr. Harron will remain a defendant for at least a while longer.

Finally, let me offer my belated congratulations to Marc E. Williams, one of CSXT’s lawyers and my law school classmate.  Marc, who practices at Huddleston Bolen LLP, is the 2008–2009 president of DRI, the membership organization for civil litigation defense lawyers. 

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Last week, at LegalTech New York, I attended a program on Twitter, the latest social media phenomenon.  The panel was moderated by Monica Bay, editor-in-chief of Law Technology News, and was made up by Matt Homann, lawyer and author of the [non]billable hour blog; Kevin O’Keefe, CEO of LexBlog; and Chris Winfield, CEO of www.10e20.com.

Robert Ambrogi, a Massachusetts lawyer and technology expert, introduced everyone.  In addition to  his blogs, Media Law and Law Sites,, and wrote an article in the December 2008 edition of Law Technology News entitled “Tweet Sixteen,” in which he gave 16 reasons for lawyers to use Twitter.

Chris Winfield said the goal of Twitter is to be able to answer what you are doing at any one time.  Twitter has a 140 character limit, the same as other text messages, so necessarily the messages are brief.

He explained that when he was preparing his presentation, he Twittered three questions:

1. How would you explain Twitter in 140 characters or less?

2. What is your “one” must-have Twitter tool?

3. How could a lawyer or someone in the legal field use Twitter effectively?

He said that he received 135 responses in 30 minutes and then turned those responses into his presentation.   Chris also discussed the presentation and his research approach in this post on his blog, 10e20 Blog.

Matt Homann explained that although he has been on Twitter for the past two and a half years, he has only used it for the last six months, because it took him that long to understand its utility.

Matt also blogged about his presentation in Ten Tweets about Twitter.  You can read all of them for yourself, but a couple really jumped out at me.

1. It’s easy to learn how to use Twitter, but it’s hard to learn why.  Once you get the “why,” you’ll move from skeptic to disciple overnight.

4. Ever think, “If only I could get 5 minutes with Mr. _____, my biz would explode” moments?  They’re on Twitter, you’ve got 140 characters.  Go!

6. If you fear Twitter will interfere with your ability to get your work done, you’re not afraid of Twitter, you’re afraid of doing your work.

He also said that he thought blogging was the path to instant expertise, which could take six months to a year, but that Twitter is “exponentially faster.” 

(Personally, I think six months to a year is a little ambitious to achieve instant expertise in a field.  Name recognition and credibility are realistic within that time frame, but instant expertise takes longer.)

I think it’s fair to say that Kevin O’Keefe approaches Twitter from a more practical aspect, namely, its ability to enhance other forms of social media.  In fact, he said that social media is more important than search engine optimization (SEO).  (For those of you unfamiliar with the term, SEO refers to the design of a web page or the content of a blog so that it is more easily searched and located and given a higher ranking in search results.)

He pointed out that Twitter differs from Facebook in that Twitter users tend to be older, “the kind of people you’d like to have as clients,” where Facebook tends to appeal to younger people.

Kevin described Twitter as the “single biggest branding tool since TV,” and said he would rather go without his cell phone for a week than go without Twitter for a week.  Although I’m sure a lot of people would be happy to go without their cell phones and Twitter for a week, if not longer. 

In terms of business development, Kevin said that if you want to create a clientele, there’s no better way than to Twitter a trial in your field of expertise.  In fact, he mentioned, as had Matt, that a judge had recently allowed the use of Twitter in his courtroom.  (For more information on the ruling, Social Media Law Student blog has this post.)

Part of the appeal of Twitter is its simplicity; check out its website, which lets you set up an account in just a couple of steps.  I’m not on Facebook, but I understand that its sign-up is more cumbersome, and I know from experience that it takes some time to create a profile on LinkedIn.

Once you have your account, you can find people to follow, i.e., receive their Tweets (Twitter updates) on your Twitter home page or on a mobile device using a program like TwitterBerry for a BlackBerry or Tweetie for iPhone.

Then, it’s just a matter of checking in as little or as much as you want. 

 

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I'm attending LegalTech New York 2009, which started this morning and runs through Wednesday afternoon.  

This afternoon I am going to attend two programs: LegalTech E-discovery Town Hall, which will feature an interactive panel of electronic discovery and and legal technology experts who will answer questions submitted in advance via YouTube. 

The other one is What is Twitter and How Can I Use it?, which, as the title suggests, will explain the ins and outs of Twitter, including its application to lawyers and clients.  I don't Twitter (yet), so I'm very interested in the presentation.

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I'll be attending and blogging from the LegalTech New York 2009 seminar in a couple of weeks.  The seminar will take place from February 2-4 at the New York Hilton in New York City.

If you're in the area and want to attend a first-class program with interesting speakers and presentations and plenty of exhibitors, then LegalTech New York is for you.

And for those of you out west, LegalTech West Coast 2009 will be held on June 24-25, 2009 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

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Because this blog focuses on business litigation, I couldn’t pass up this item from Larry Bodine, who writes the Law Marketing Blog.

According to Larry, if you want to develop more business from corporate clients, emphasize your ability to settle, not litigate, a case.  He explains that corporations want to manage their risk and avoid the exposure that a trial can present, so your skills as a litigator may not be beneficial as you think.

This approach is a sharp contrast to the one taken by many lawyers who represent individuals in personal-injury and consumer actions, and want to emphasize that they will go to court and hold the bad actor accountable.  Many times, that’s what plaintiffs look for in a lawyer. 

Larry also referenced Jonathan Glater’s article in The New York Times entitled “Study Finds Settling Is Better Than Going to Trial,” which reported that a survey conducted by DecisionSet found that plaintiffs were wrong, i.e., they received less from the jury than the defendant's final offer, to go to trial in 61% of cases surveyed, while defendants were wrong, i.e., a jury awarded the plaintiff more than the defendant's final offer, in 24% of cases.  Here is the study, which was published in the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies. 

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    I think I’m going to avoid predicting how an appellate court will rule in a particular matter, and instead focus on the issues presented.  Yesterday, I wrote that Camden-Clark Memorial Hospital’s petition for appeal from a $1.3 million sanctions award was being considered by the Supreme Court of Appeals, and that I thought that the Court would accept the petition.

    According to the Court's website today, the Court refused the petition by a vote of 5-0.

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    Last spring, the Circuit Court of Wood County, West Virginia awarded $1.3 million in sanctions against Camden-Clark Memorial Hospital and its lawyer for their alleged misconduct before and during the trial of a medical malpractice action (which itself resulted in a verdict of $6.5 million).

    The Supreme Court of Appeals today considered the hospital’s petition for appeal from the sanctions award.  The Court did not have the vote posted on its website by the end of the day, but it should be posted tomorrow.  Here are the hospital’s petition for appeal and the plaintiff’s response in opposition, courtesy of plaintiff's counsel, Chris Regan.

    Even though the Court rejected the hospital’s petition for appeal from the underlying malpractice verdict, I think the Court will accept this petition because of the amount of the award and in order to review the alleged (mis)conduct at issue in the case.  It is rare enough in West Virginia for a trial court to award sanctions, but to do so in this amount is startling.  

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    An article in the November issue of Litigation News, published by the American Bar Association Section of Litigation, caught my eye, for obvious reasons.  The article, written by Ruth E. Piller and entitled “Bigger Isn’t Always Better When It Comes to Outside Counsel,” reports that increasingly, corporate clients are relying on small firms and solo practitioners for representation. 

    According to the article, small firms offer flexibility on billing arrangements and an opportunity for a corporate client to be “big fish in a small pond,” which may not be the case when the client is being represented by a large firm, which has neither the ability nor the desire to be flexible about billing, and, because of its roster of clients, can’t give the client the attention that the client may want or expect.  Plus, ever-improving technology means that small firms can enjoy advantages that previously were available only to larger firms.

    Although large firms are in no danger of being replaced by small ones, they no longer represent the only option for corporations seeking representation.  Consequently, as I've written previously, large firms compete not only with each other for business, but with much smaller firms, which is an unfamiliar position for many of them.  Legal marketing guru Larry Bodine has written extensively about the changing climate for legal services, including this post about how to get business from corporate clients.

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    Wal-Mart is known for its willingness to use its buying power and market share as leverage when it negotiates.  And now apparently, Wal-Mart is extending its approach to its relationships with outside counsel.

    As reported in The Wall Street Journal Law Blog today, Miguel R. Rivera, Jr., Wal-Mart's associate general counsel for outside counsel management, issued a memo yesterday to "relationship partners" in Wal-Mart's outside counsel network, in which he announced that Wal-Mart was declaring a moratorium on across-the-board rate increases by its outside counsel, due to its belief that those rate increases are being driven by the "steady, nationwide increases in junior associate salaries."  Of course, in the memo's preceding paragraph, Rivera had asserted that, "[t]he salaries that law firms choose to pay their junior associates are none of our concern," which seems to be inconsistent with linking the associates' salaries to the need to freeze rates.

    All is not lost for Wal-Mart's outside counsel, however.  Although the moratorium will continue "until further notice," Wal-Mart will consider "reasonable, individual requests for rate increases for those attorneys in your firm who are performing at an exceptional level and whose experience and knowledge is adding substantial value toward meeting Wal-Mart's legal objectives."  Those requests must be submitted to Rivera  on or before December 15.

    But I think the most telling part of the memo is at the end.  Remember, Rivera stated in the memo's second paragraph that associates' salaries are none of Wal-Mart's concern.  In the memo's last couple of paragraphs, Rivera asks outside counsel to provide information for their  associates, from the class of 2004 through the class of 2007, who have worked on Wal-Mart matters, and then for the associates in each class, their names, their locations, the Wal-Mart matters they worked on, their billing rates, and the number of hours they billed for each year.  This information is due in spreadsheet format by November 30.  

    For any firm that objects to providing the information, Rivera  wants, by November 12, the specific reasons for the objection.  And if a firm needs more time?   Also by November 12, Rivera wants to know the steps the firm is taking "to gather and provided the requested information in a timely fashion as well as a commitment to provide the information on a date certain."
   
    Should Wal-Mart (or any client) treat legal services the same as any other commodity, such as appliances or tires?  I would like to think the nature of the attorney-client relationship is inherently different than Wal-Mart's relationship with any one of a thousand vendors, but maybe it's not.  In any event, I would view the memo as being less heavy-handed if it had not included the seemingly gratuitous language about associates' salaries being none of Wal-Mart's concern, but then imposing the rate freeze precisely because of the effect of increasing associates' salaries.

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    When a law firm uses a company’s trademark and logo in its advertisements, has the law firm infringed or misappropriated the company’s intellectual property?   That is the issue, among others, raised in a lawsuit filed by Genesis HealthCare, which operates skilled nursing centers and assisted living facilities in several states, including West Virginia, against McHugh Fuller Law Group, a law firm with offices in Hattiesburg, Mississippi and Charleston, West Virginia.  The case was filed in the Southern District of West Virginia on August 3, 2007, and has been assigned to the Honorable Joseph R. Goodwin.  Genesis HealthCare Corporation v. McHugh Fuller Law Group, Civil Action No. 2:07-CV-00481.

    The basis for Genesis' claims is that McHugh Fuller operates a website entitled www.genesisconcerns.com, which discusses nursing home abuse cases and points out that several Genesis facilities have a history of substandard care, as shown by various state inspections.  The site also describes various injuries sustained by nursing home abuse victims.

    Genesis moved for a preliminary injunction against McHugh Fuller in order to have the website taken down, but failed to include a verified complaint with its motion, which caused the Court to deny Genesis' request for an injunction.  Genesis then refiled its motion for a preliminary injunction with a verified complaint. 

    Genesis' more recent filings allege violations of the Federal Trademark Act ("the Lanham Act") and the federal Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, and a state law claim for statutory dilution.   McHugh Fuller has responded in opposition to the motion and has answered the complaint.  The Court has not rescheduled a hearing on the motion for a preliminary injunction.

    I would like to hear from others with experience in intellectual property litigation as to whether Genesis is likely to prevail in its claims against McHugh Fuller. 

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    A few months ago, I wrote about the changing economics that were encouraging, if not forcing, defense firms to take contingency cases that were traditionally the work of plaintiffs' firms.  In this month's issue of Litigation Update, which is published by the American Bar Association's Section of Litigation, Stewart Weltman has written an article entitled Contingency Litigation 101 -- for Big Firms, which identifies several strategies for firms that are considering a move into contingency fee litigation.
 
    As Mr. Weltman points out, "to be more competitive and obtain prime litigation matters, firms that never considered contingency are more receptive to some form of it as part of their compensation for both plaintiff and defense matters."  The significance of this development is that not only are defense firms competing against plaintiffs' firms for work, but they are having to adapt their own compensation structure from hourly fees to contingency work.  The competition works both ways: defense firms can represent plaintiffs, but corporations are frequently turning to plaintiffs' firms for representation in defense matters, because of the client's concern about cost or because the plaintiffs' firm may be more flexible in what it can charge and how and when it gets paid.

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    In June, I wrote about the gag order imposed by Putnam County Circuit Judge O.C. Spaulding in the medical malpractice cases pending against Dr. John King.  The order was prompted, at least in part, by a video that appeared on YouTube, which purported to show one of the plaintiffs pushing a shopping cart, which she apparently had testified she was no longer able to do.  The trouble was the woman in the video wasn't the plaintiff, she was someone unrelated to the litigation.  At a hearing on June 8, the defense lawyers admitted to giving materials to their media consultant, who provided them to (unnamed) third parties.  The court also entered an order, effective June 8, sealing all pleadings filed in the cases.

    Now, according to Associated Press reporter Larry Messina, whose story appeared in yesterday's Charleston (West Virginia) Gazette, on June 26 (more than two weeks after the gag order was entered), another video was posted on YouTube, which consisted of clips from six of the plaintiffs' depositions, followed by clips from surveillance videos of five of the plaintiffs, showing them purportedly engaged in activities they said they couldn't perform.  Messina's attempts to reach the poster were not successful, and I was unable to find the video today on YouTube when I searched for it.  Judge Spaulding is apparently aware of the video, but has not indicated how he intends to proceed.

    Obviously, the video was intended to portray the plaintiffs negatively, but even if its goal was to make them look sympathetic, it is prohibited by the gag order.  Judge Spaulding should make a serious inquiry into how the video ended up on YouTube, and sanction whomever is responsible.  The other Putnam County judge presiding over the King malpractice cases, Edward Eagloski, has already revoked the pro hac vice admission of a Texas lawyer who had appeared on behalf of the defendants, and the same thing could easily happen here.

   

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    Just as there are patent trolls, I have learned, thanks to legal marketing consultant  Larry Bodine, that there are domain trolls, whose business is registering domain names in which someone has shown an interest, but has not purchased, then offering the names for sale, usually at exorbitant prices.  Larry warns that you should not check for the availability of a domain name through sites like www.whois.com, but to use your Web browser or to Google the name to find out if it's available. 

    Larry Seltzer, a columnist at www.eWeek.com, wrote about the practice last year, and identified an entity called Chesterton Holdings, which is a domain squatter (a more polite term for domain troll), and described how Chesterton acquired domain names.  I also came across an outfit called Internet REIT, which is a very sophisticated domain squatter.  According to John Cook, who writes a blog for the online Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Internet REIT has bought up 400,000 domain names.  So don't be surprised if the one you want is among them.
   

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     A West Virginia state court judge has awarded sanctions of $1.3 million against Camden-Clark Memorial Hospital, located in Parkersburg, West Virginia, and its lawyer for their conduct before and during a 2006 medical malpractice trial. Chief Judge Robert A. Waters of the Circuit Court of Wood County found that the hospital and its lawyer engaged in extensive misconduct in several areas.  A copy of the Court’s 54 page order is here. 

    The Court found that the hospital had:

• defrauded the plaintiff, as found by the jury by clear and convincing evidence;
• violated multiple court orders, as found by the Court on December 19, 2005 (at an earlier hearing);
• made numerous material misrepresentations of fact and law to the plaintiff and the Court, both before and during the trial of the action;
• concealed important evidence until the commencement of trial and even in the middle of trial, including the very documents the hospital had been ordered to produce by the Court;
• destroyed, concealed or altered material evidence in advance of trial, including cardiac monitor strip times and nurse's notes;
• advanced frivolous defenses before the Court; and
• wasted countless hours of the Court's time, as well as that of the plaintiff and his counsel, through all of the above misconduct.

Continue Reading...

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    This is a topic that has intrigued me for some time, namely, the phenomenon of firms that have traditionally represented only defendants or insurance companies deciding to represent plaintiffs, sometimes on a contingency fee basis, which has been limited previously to plaintiffs' firms.  In a post last month, the Wall street Journal  Law Blog wrote about a "traditional" Minnesota defense firm that received a contingency fee in excess of $100 million for its work on the Exxon Valdez litigation.

    Obviously, the fees can be huge in contingency fee cases.  But more than that, many defense firms are realizing that their business model no longer works.  A friend of mine who excels at business development and practices law in what remains a more or less traditional defense firm told me that defense firms, including his own, began representing plaintiffs, as a purely business proposition, and not based on any change in philosophy. 


Continue Reading...

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