Legal IndustryRSS

  • December 16, 2009

    South Florida Reclaims Place As Top 'Judicial Hellhole'

    South Florida is this year's top “judicial hellhole,” reclaiming a title that it held in 2007 and then lost in 2008 to West Virginia, according to a report from a tort reform special interests group.

  • December 11, 2009

    Law360 Ranks Firms With Most Female Partners

    McDonough Holland & Allen PC, Davis Graham & Stubbs LLP and Hanson Bridgett LLP came out on top in Law360's ranking of firms with the highest concentration of female partners.

  • November 19, 2009

    Law Departments Get Creative To Rein In Costs: Survey

    From chopping travel budgets and pushing rate freezes to implementing layoffs and salary reductions, law departments are experimenting with a wide range of cost-cutting measures to keep afloat, according to a new survey.

  • October 22, 2009

    Report Urges Firms To Cut Hours, Pay Instead Of Jobs

    In a climate of layoffs, corporate firms should consider reducing attorneys' hours and salaries rather than cutting them entirely, according to a new report.

  • October 19, 2009

    Less Work For Green Associates This Year: Survey

    Corporate legal departments are less likely to work with inexperienced outside attorneys this year, and are more concerned with reducing spending on outside counsel altogether, according to the Association of Corporate Counsel and Serengeti Law's ninth annual Managing Outside Counsel Survey.

  • October 14, 2009

    Rule 502 Not Likely To Reduce Costs For Attorneys

    A new rule intended to reduce the time and cost of document review during discovery by muting the consequences for accidentally turning over privileged documents has had little impact on litigation costs, according to Fulbright & Jaworski LLP's 2009 Litigation Trends Survey.

  • October 14, 2009

    Alternative Fees On Rise, But Billable Hour Still King

    More companies are turning to alternative billing options amid recession, but the traditional billable hour is far from dead, according to Fulbright & Jaworski LLP's 2009 Litigation Trends Survey.

  • October 14, 2009

    Facebook A No-Go Despite Few Discovery Bids

    It remains rare for U.S. companies to be required to produce electronic information from social networking Web sites, but around half of American businesses block employees from using the sites at the office, according to Fulbright & Jaworski LLP's 2009 Litigation Trends Survey.

  • October 14, 2009

    Corporate Attorneys Brace For Jump In Litigation

    Many corporate attorneys are bracing for a swell of new lawsuits in the coming year, in part because the sour economy continues to send companies to court for debt collection and regulatory scrutiny, according to Fulbright & Jaworski LLP's 2009 Litigation Trends Survey.

  • October 14, 2009

    In-House Counsel Pay Takes Hit Amid Cost-Cutting

    U.S. companies continue to be intent on trimming their law department costs, looking to cut back on spending and staffing, and putting the brakes on raises for in-house attorneys, according to a recent survey.

  • October 5, 2009

    Risk Management To Shape In-House Budget In '10

    Corporate litigation spending is set to rise in 2010 after dropping a massive 10.4 percent in 2009, bucking an overall projected decline in companies' legal budgets, according to a new report by the BTI Consulting Group Inc.

  • September 30, 2009

    Opportunities For Regulatory Work To Grow In 2010

    Regulatory issues are the single biggest concern keeping corporate legal officers awake at night, but that's good news for firms desperately seeking signs of growth, with a recent spike in regulatory counsel spending projected to accelerate in 2010, according to a new report on corporate legal spending by the BTI Consulting Group.

  • September 15, 2009

    Social Network Doubts Grow Among Corp. Counsel

    Attorneys of all ages continue to flock to online social networks, although they remain unconvinced of the strategic business value of sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, according to a new study.

  • August 21, 2009

    Yale Survey Names Top 10 Family-Friendly Law Firms

    A Yale Law Women survey has congratulated 10 of the Vault Top 100 Firms for their forward-thinking policies on flexibility, but it said many firms still lag in promoting women and ensuring that part-time associates can advance to partner.

  • August 20, 2009

    Law Firms Steady Ship With Cost Control: Report

    While the demand for legal services is down and rate growth is weak, cost controls and layoffs have allowed law firms to maintain profitability in the downturn, according to a new report.

  • August 20, 2009

    GCs Prepare To Deal With Unwanted New Regs

    General counsel are overwhelmingly opposed to a regulatory crackdown on such things as audit practices and executive pay, but they are prepping for that possibility anyway, according to a survey released Thursday.

  • August 11, 2009

    Top Firms For Women Offer Work-Life Balance

    A survey released Tuesday on the “50 Best Law Firms for Women” features firms — including Sidley Austin LLP, WilmerHale LLP, Jenner & Block LLP and Foley Hoag LLP — that offer lawyers flexible hours and other options to achieve work-life balance, a goal experts say has fallen by the wayside amid the recession.

  • August 3, 2009

    Associate Salaries Peak At $130K: Survey

    In more bad news for associates, median starting pay at the largest firms in many cities has hit a peak of $130,000, down from an average of $160,000 in the past few years, a new survey has found.

  • July 22, 2009

    Law Firms Struggle To Retain Minority Women

    More than three-quarters of female minority attorneys at U.S. law firms will quit their jobs within five years due to challenges in moving up to partner and other leadership positions, according to a report by a women’s research organization.

  • July 8, 2009

    Law Firms Hold Off On Tie-Ups In Q2 Of 2009

    Feeling the squeeze from the recession and credit crisis, U.S. law firms are having second thoughts about merging with one another, according to a recent analysis.