Librarians caught between bosses, vendors

Each week at a large East Coast law firm, LexisNexis and Westlaw representatives come in for 90 minutes or so to answer questions, and let the lawyers and staffers use their research sites for free.

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Two equity partners making exit from Ruden

Ruden McClosky has lost two equity partners, leaving the firm below the 40 equity partners required by its bank line of credit, according to several sources.

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Service provides lawyers for routine hearings

Attorney Ronald Kaniuk had a routine foreclosure mediation hearing scheduled in Miami on behalf of his defendant client. The problem was his office is in Boca Raton, and he would have spent much of his day on the road, waiting or sitting in court for a five-minute hearing.

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Pot law practices grow as medical marijuana debate rages

The universe of marijuana laws may be devolving into chaos, but Bill McPike remains a mellow man. For 30 years, the Fresno, Calif., attorney has defended clients against pot charges and counseled entrepreneurs on setting up shop to legally grow and sell the substance that spawned a thousand slang terms.

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Detroit firm leaves Palm Beach County as Akerman moves in

For more than 150 years, Michigan law firm Butzel Long has been a major player in Detroit politics and the automotive and publishing industries, with its partners advising President Grover Cleveland, serving as postmaster general and representing the Chicago Tribune against a libel suit by Henry Ford.

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Adorno & Yoss loses key part of Atlanta office

The founding partner of Adorno & Yoss’ Atlanta office, Tracey Walker, has left the firm with two lawyers and two staffers to launch an office for another minority-owned firm, Gonzalez Saggio & Harlan, which also expanded nationally.

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Dechert announces new firm leadership

After 15 years at the helm of Dechert, Barton Winokur will step down as chairman and CEO of the firm in mid-2011. The new leadership will include, for the first time in the firm’s history, a chairman who is based outside of the firm’s base in Philadelphia.

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Tales from the front lines of small firm practice

Lawyers are followers, seldom leaders and probably not cut out for entrepreneurship. So insinuated Carleton S. "Carly" Fiorina in a New York Times interview prior to her celebrated ouster as C.E.O. of Hewlett-Packard in 2005.

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Katrina experience helped firm bear recession

If there’s any upside to Hurricane Katrina, it’s that it forced New Orleans’s Adams and Reese into belt-tightening mode two years before the global economic crisis hit. The firm was forced to start reducing staff and other expenses shortly after the hurricane struck in 2005, long before other Am Law 200 firms began instituting mass layoffs, cutting salaries and delaying associate start dates.

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More billable hours? Don't count on it

Warning to outside counsel: Don't look for increased billing opportunities from in-house clients during the coming months.

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Shutts & Bowen adds 4 lawyers to Lauderdale office

Shutts & Bowen is expanding its Fort Lauderdale office with the addition of four health-care lawyers. The new hires, on top of the firm’s snagging new corporate and securities head Robert Brighton last month from Ruden McClosky, make Shutts a substantial player in the Fort Lauderdale legal market with about 30 lawyers.

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Cooley aids its brand by shorting its moniker

What’s in a name? For Cooley, the answer is about two-thirds shorter than it was two months ago, when the firm whittled its name down from Cooley Godward Kronish. Cooley registered its new name with the New York Division of Corporations in March.

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Greenberg Traurig hits goal in San Francisco office

When Greenberg Traurig opened its San Francisco office in February, the firm pledged to have 12 to 15 lawyers within two weeks of the launch.

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Jeffrey Schneider named managing partner of startup law firm

Attorney Jeffrey C. Schneider has been named managing partner of startup law firm Levine Kellogg Lehman Schneider & Grossman in Miami.

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Two Orlando partners leaving Ruden McClosky

 The departure of Scott Callahan and Cory Taylor leaves the firm’s Orlando office with just one partner, David Wood, along with two of counsel and two associates.

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Veteran firm administrator hired at Rumberger

Veteran law firm administrator Joseph Mulé has joined Rumberger Kirk & Caldwell as administrator and chief operating officer. Mulé, who is not an attorney, will oversee the firm’s nonlegal operations, including financial operations, human resources, information technology, marketing and facilities, and work with the firm to develop business strategies.

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Flat is where it’s at for revenue

Flat is the new up. That was how L. Gray Geddie Jr. of Ogletree Deakins Nash Smoak & Stewart summed up 2009 for big law firms. The assessment by Geddie, the firm’s managing partner last year, was borne out by Citi Private Bank’s 2009 survey that reports an almost 5 percent drop in hours billed and a 4 percent drop in revenue last year for 87 participating major firms. That compared to a steady 4 percent increase in work every year from 2001 to 2007 for large firms.

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Berger Singerman hires Bilzin attorney

Berger Singerman has hired veteran corporate attorney Daniel H. Aronson from Bilzin Sumberg Baena Price & Axelrod.  Aronson joins the firm as a Miami shareholder, leader of the firm’s corporate and securities group and a member of the firm’s business finance and tax team. He had been an equity partner and co-chair of Bilzin’s corporate and securities group in the firm’s Miami office for three years.

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