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Filing Shines Light On Expert-Witness Payments
Attorney Career |
2008/03/02 12:37
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| p class=timesCourt papers filed recently suggest two partners at one of the nation's most active firms for shareholder lawsuits asked a federal court to approve expenses that were improperly inflated./pp class=timesThe documents were filed in federal court last week as part of a guilty-plea agreement for John Torkelsen, a former expert witness on damages who was used by Milberg Weiss LLP and other plaintiffs class-actions firms in the 1980s and '90s. Mr. Torkelsen agreed to plead guilty to perjury for making false statements in federal court./pp class=timesIn connection with the plea agreement, the government submitted a statement, which Mr. Torkelsen attested to as true, saying that on at least three occasions he submitted inflated fee requests to courts, and that the law firm he worked with knew the requests were inflated. That firm, which the plea papers refer to only as a New York firm, was Milberg Weiss, according to a person familiar with the situation./pp class=timesTwo partners at the law firm now called Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman amp; Robbins LLP, which spun off from Milberg Weiss in 2004, were involved in a lawsuit mentioned in the plea statement while they were lawyers at Milberg Weiss. Filed in 1995, the lawsuit alleged that Sunrise Medical Inc., a medical-product manufacturer, fraudulently overstated its income. In 1996, Mr. Torkelsen filed a sworn statement that his firm incurred $420,000 in fees in the case. But according to the plea statement, that amount was inflated by $130,000, a discrepancy that both Mr. Torkelsen and the law firm knew about, according to the plea papers./pp class=timesIn 1996, Coughlin Stoia lawyer Keith Park, then at Milberg Weiss, filed a sworn declaration in the Sunrise case that asked the court to reimburse its expenses for experts. Mr. Torkelsen's firm was one of Milberg's experts in the case. Mr. Park asserted that Milberg Weiss had kept an accurate record of its expenses./pp class=timesCoughlin Stoia name partner Patrick Coughlin, then a Milberg Weiss lawyer, filed a sworn statement asking the court to approve the settlement and to reimburse Milberg Weiss for its expenses in the case. Mr. Coughlin described Mr. Torkelsen's firm and other experts in the case as instrumental in developing the evidence and quantifying the damages suffered by the class. The expenses were approved, as was the settlement of the case, for $21 million in damages./pp class=timesIt isn't known whether Messrs. Park or Coughlin knew fees were inflated. They aren't named in Mr. Torkelsen's plea papers. Any suggestion that anyone here did anything improper in this matter is inaccurate and irresponsible, said Coughlin Stoia in a statement. A firm spokesman declined to provide specifics. Through a spokesman, Messrs. Coughlin and Park declined to comment./pp class=timesNeither of the lawyers, nor the firm, has been accused of wrongdoing, and prosecutors are unlikely to charge any lawyers in connection with Mr. Torkelsen's criminal conduct, according to people familiar with the investigation/pp class=timesWe are not aware of any partner of Milberg Weiss LLP having knowledge of any of the misconduct detailed in Mr. Torkelsen's plea agreement, Milberg Weiss said in a statement./pp class=timesThe government's investigation of Mr. Torkelsen was part of a broader investigation of Milberg Weiss, which was charged in 2006 with paying improper kickbacks to clients. Milberg Weiss and its senior partner, Melvyn Weiss, are fighting the charges. Three other former Milberg Weiss lawyers, including William Lerach, who moved to what is now the Coughlin firm at the time of the 2004 split, have pleaded guilty./pp class=timesAs part of Mr. Lerach's plea agreement, reached last fall, the government agreed not to prosecute Messrs. Coughlin or Park in connection with various matters, including the work of a Princeton damages expert for Milberg Weiss or Coughlin Stoia. Mr. Torkelsen's firm was called Princeton Venture Research Inc. No other lawyers were specifically named in Mr. Lerach's plea agreement./pp class=timesThe government said Mr. Torkelsen's inflated fees were part of a broader scheme to help conceal the true nature of the New York law firm's payment arrangement with the expert. A person familiar with the matter identified the firm as Milberg Weiss. Mr. Torkelsen would present himself to courts as an independent expert when in fact he was paid on a contingent basis, with his payment depending on the plaintiffs prevailing in the case, the government said. Securities lawyers say that kind of payment arrangement creates a potential conflict, because it could encourage an expert to exaggerate the extent to which plaintiffs have been harmed./pp class=timesPlaintiffs lawyers typically must front their expenses, such as expert fees, in contingency-fee suits, and they recoup them if the suit is successful. By paying an expert on a contingent basis, a law firm wouldn't have to take that risk./pp class=timesInflating fees in successful cases allowed the New York firm to make up for fees not paid out to Mr. Torkelsen in unsuccessful cases, the plea papers say. The costs of these makeup payments were borne at least in part by class-action plaintiffs, who in some instances paid for work that Mr. Torkelsen didn't perform in their cases./pp class=timesMr. Torkelsen is in federal prison after being convicted on unrelated charges. His lawyer didn't respond to a request for comment./pp class=timesMr. Torkelsen once was one of the top damages experts in the securities-fraud field, according to securities lawyers. From 1993-96, he billed class-action firms more than $60 million, according to the papers accompanying his plea agreement./pp class=timesCoughlin Stoia is one of the nation's leading firms in securities class actions, in which shareholders typically blame stock losses on misleading statements by corporate executives. The firm topped the charts in terms of total settlements in such cases in 2006, the most recent year for such data, according to RiskMetrics Group Inc./pp class=timesCoughlin Stoia has been particularly active of late in the area of securities class actions related to the subprime-lending meltdown. According to a report last month by Navigant Consulting, it has filed more such suits than any law firm -- more than a dozen. Mr. Coughlin is the lead lawyer in the Enron Corp. securities-fraud litigation, in which Coughlin Stoia seeks almost $700 million in fees for itself and other plaintiffs lawyers in the case./p |
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Fulbright Jaworski L.L.P. Announces 11 New Partners
Press Releases |
2008/03/02 12:35
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HOUSTON - Fulbright amp; Jaworski L.L.P. has selected 11 lawyers from within the international firm to join Fulbright's global partnership. pFulbright's new partners include: Michael Thomas Clark, Antony James Corsi, Denise Webb Glass, Richard D. Hill, Matthew H. Kirtland, Christopher J. Lallo, Michael S. McCoy, Oscar Rey Rodriguez, David A. Rosenzweig, Bryn Alan Sappington and Paul Trahan. pWe are delighted to welcome this outstanding group of lawyers to join us as partners during an exciting time in our firm's history, said Steven B. Pfeiffer, Chair of Fulbright's Executive Committee. We are strategically adding talented and experienced lawyers to our worldwide offices. Our newest partners have long been a part of our core practice areas, including corporate, IP, energy, health, litigation and tax. They share in our culture of placing the utmost importance on client service and anticipating our clients' needs. Through them, we know the future is bright for our firm and our clients. pAUSTIN: pPaul Trahan is Austin's newest partner. Trahan handles complex commercial litigation in a variety of industries including the technology, construction, motor vehicle, real estate, and health care industries. He has first chair jury trial, bench trial, and arbitration experience. Before joining Fulbright, Trahan was a commercial banker in Houston, serving as a lender in Bank One's Energy Group. He later joined the team at Southwest Bank of Texas (now Amegy), where he served as a Vice President in Commercial Lending. Trahan received his J.D. in 1997 from The University of Texas School of Law. He received his M.B.A. in 1988 from The University of Texas and his B.A. cum laude in 1985 from Texas Aamp;M University. pDALLAS: pDenise Webb Glass is a new partner in Dallas. She has worked in Fulbright's health law section since 1997. She concentrates on operational, business and related regulatory issues affecting the health care services industry. In addition to receiving her J.D., cum laude, from the University of Houston Law Center in 1996 and her B.A., cum laude, from The University of Texas at Austin in 1993, Glass has completed the course work for a Masters of Public Health from the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston. She was admitted to practice law in Texas in 1996 and is certified in health law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. pOscar Rey Rodriguez also is a new partner in Dallas, where he previously served as senior counsel. As a member of Fulbright's appellate practice group and litigation department, Rodriguez focuses on state and federal appellate and trial litigation. He graduated as his law school class valedictorian from Southern Methodist University's Dedman School of Law in 1993 and went on to work as a judicial clerk to Justice Nathan L. Hecht of the Supreme Court of Texas. Among other honors, Rodriguez holds the distinction of having earned the highest score on the July 1994 Texas Bar Examination. He received his B.B.A., Honors Program Certificate in 1989 from The University of Texas at El Paso, where he received numerous honors. Admitted to practice law in Texas in 1994, Rodriguez is certified by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization in Civil Appellate Law. pBryn Alan Sappington also joins the partnership in Dallas, where he was a senior associate. Sappington advises publicly and privately held companies in mergers and acquisitions, offerings of securities and other corporate matters. He received his J.D. cum laude in 1998 from the University of Michigan, where he was the over-all runner up in the 1998 Campbell Moot Court competition. Sappington received his B.A. in biology from Baylor University in 1992 and was admitted to practice law in Texas in 1998.
HOUSTON: /ppChristopher J. Lallo joins the partnership in Fulbright's Houston office, where he had been a senior associate in tax. Lallo has been associated with the firm since 1999. He concentrates on domestic and international tax matters, has broad-based experience in the area of tax planning related to domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions, and advises clients on the U.S. federal income tax consequences of various transactions, including merger and acquisitions, tax-free reorganizations, spin-offs and other divestitures, cross-border investments, and financing structures. Lallo received his J.D. in 1999 with honors from The University of Texas School of Law, where he was a member of the Order of the Coif and an editor of the Texas International Law Journal. He received his B.B.A. in accounting, magna cum laude, from Texas Aamp;M University in 1996. pMichael S. McCoy also is a new partner in Houston. McCoy handles intellectual property and technology-based litigation. Additionally, he counsels a varied clientele about securing, managing and maximizing profit from intellectual property, in addition to identifying and protecting intellectual property assets through filing and prosecuting patent, copyright and trademark applications. McCoy received his J.D. from the University of Houston Law Center and his B.S. in aerospace engineering in 1989 from Texas Aamp;M University. McCoy is registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. pLOS ANGELES: pMichael Thomas Clark joins Fulbright's partnership in the Los Angeles office, where he has been a senior associate. He handles corporate and securities law matters with an emphasis on mergers and acquisitions. He received his J.D. in 1998 from George Mason University School of Law, where he was Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of International Legal Studies. He received his B.A. in 1994 from The Master's College in Santa Clarita, California. Clark was admitted to practice law in California in 1998. pLONDON: pAntony James Corsi is a new partner in Fulbright's London office, where he has been a senior associate since 2006. Corsi handles dispute resolution - primarily complex commercial litigation, alternative dispute resolution, risk assessment and internal and regulatory investigations. His international dispute resolution experience involves diverse locations, including North America, the Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. As a member of the London Solicitors Litigation Association and the Solicitors Association of Higher Court Advocates, Corsi is a qualified solicitor advocate with rights of audience in the civil High Court. Corsi received his LLB with honours from the University of Bristol in 1994 and completed his legal practice course at the College of Law in 1995. He was admitted as a solicitor in England and Wales in 1997. pRichard Hill joins the partnership in Fulbright's London office, where he had been a senior associate since 2005. He practices in Fulbright's international arbitration group, and handles commercial litigation and alternative dispute resolution. Hill has been involved in major international arbitrations in England, Ireland, France, Switzerland, Italy, the Czech Republic, the United States, Mexico, Hong Kong, Singapore and China, and provided counsel under the ICC, ICDR, ICSID, LCIA and UNCITRAL rules. Additionally, Hill has extensive litigation experience in the English High Court, Court of Appeal, House of Lords and Privy Council, and in the courts of certain commonwealth jurisdictions. He is also experienced in mediation and other forms of ADR. He is co-editor of the Leading Arbitrators' Guide to International Arbitration (Juris, 2003) a new edition scheduled to be published in March 2008. Hill received a post-graduate diploma in law from City University, London, in 1995, and graduated with honours from Cambridge University in 1993. He was admitted as a barrister in England and Wales in 1996, receiving the Prince of Wales Award, and as a solicitor-advocate in 1999. /ppFulbright amp; Jaworski L.L.P. Media Relations Manager Pam Easton, 713-651-8480 peaston@fulbright.com/p |
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FSUPD, local law firm host Bike-A-Thon
Press Releases |
2008/03/01 14:05
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pThe Florida State University Police Department and the law firm of Brooks, LeBoeuf, Bennett, Foster amp; Gwartney is hosting the free Stop DUI in 24 Hours Bike-A-Thon from noon today to noon Sunday.
/ppFSU PD Maj. Jim Russell invites FSU students and staff and concerned community members to grab their bikes and helmets and meet at FSU's Westcott Plaza between 10:30 a.m. and noon today to participate. According to event founder Major Jim Russell, this is the second year, the FSUPD is leading the bike-a-thon to raise awareness concerning impaired driving with a goal of reducing the number of DUI related offenses and fatalities./ppA public send-off ceremony will be held at noon Saturday at Westcott Plaza; also from noon until 5 p.m. a free safety village will be staged on the Plaza by the fountain with entertainment and a chance to make donations of $10 per lap to individual or teams hoping to win with the most laps. Dean LeBoeuf, one of sponsoring attorneys, stressed this is not a race but a safe, escorted three-mile circuit through campus that anyone may enjoy. Cyclists may ride as much or as little as they choose during the 24-hour time period. Throughout the ride, events will be held to raise awareness concerning impaired driving, traffic safety, and drug and alcohol abuse./ppThe first responder and law enforcement cyclists will stop at FSU residence halls between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. to offer DUI awareness presentations. The ride will conclude with a public awards ceremony on the steps of the Westcott Building on Sunday at 1 p.m. Cyclists are asked to bring a helmet and bike with lights if they plan to ride in the dark. All riders will be provided with a free set of head and tail lights, however they must bring a set of batteries. Registration forms are available on-site or may be downloaded at the FSUPD website at a href=http://www.police.fsu.edu/ target=_blankwww.police.fsu.edu/a, click on the FSUPD Stop DUI in 24 Hours logo in the right hand column. Cyclists under 18 must have a signed release from a parent or guardian or they will not be permitted to ride./p |
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Williamsburg estate law firm is renamed
Press Releases |
2008/03/01 14:00
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A decade-old Williamsburg estate law firm is changing its name and Web site, effective today. Williamsburg Legal Associates, founded by John Sadler and the late Joseph Abdelmour, will now be known as Williamsburg Estate Planning.
The new site is a href=http://www.williamsburgestateplanning.com/ target=_blankwww.williamsburgestateplanning.com/a.
Sadler also announced that free quarterly educational planning workshops would continue, and the firm is establishing a speaker's bureau offering education on estate-planning topics.
Columbia Gas is reducing the cost of gas for its customers in March about 7 percent, dropping the average customer bill from $161.77 to $150.66. Natural gas costs in Virginia are passed on with no markup.
The utility gets a regulated profit margin on the cost of delivering gas to homes. Columbia said the price decrease was spurred by a plentiful supply of natural gas industrywide and a winter in Virginia that had been 10 percent warmer than average.
The new price applies to March, April and May.
Natural gas use is measured per hundred cubic feet, or Ccf. The average customer uses about 100 Ccf in March, then drops off to 35 Ccf in May.
The $150.66 estimate of the average bill will deviate higher or lower, depending on whether people use more or less than 100 Ccf of gas.
The peanut industry is poised for an uptick in 2008, in light of higher contracts.
The industry fell on hard times after the 2002 Farm Bill ended a federal peanut program that guaranteed high prices to some farmers.
But this year, contract prices are the highest since 2002, Dell Cotton, executive director of the Virginia Peanut Growers Association, told the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation.
Contract prices might be higher because peanut buyers are competing for acreage with wheat and soybeans, which are selling at 10-year highs.
Prices for the jumbo-sized Virginia peanut have been reported in the range of $555 a ton, compared with last year's $470, the Farm Bureau said.
The state's peanut acreage bottomed out in 2006, when only 16,000 acres were planted. In its heyday, peanuts were harvested from 164,000 acres in 1948. Last year, farmers planted 22,000 acres.
Now is too early to tell how many acres will be planted this year. |
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ANNOUNCEMENT - Bennett Jones LLP
Press Releases |
2008/03/01 12:33
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pBennett Jones LLP is pleased to announce that John Cordeau, Q.C., has been appointed Vice-Chair of the firm./ppJohn also serves as the firm's Lead Director. He has extensive litigation experience representing clients on matters including commercial disputes, administrative law, professional regulation, insurance matters, insolvency and enforcement actions./ppJohn is a member of the board of directors of Synenco Energy Inc., a foundation member and governor of St. Mary's University College, and a member of the Leaders of the Way, United Way of Calgary and Area./ppWith over 340 lawyers based in Calgary, Toronto and Edmonton, Bennett Jones LLP is an internationally recognized Canadian law firm founded and focused on principles of professional excellence, integrity, respect and independent thought. Our firm's leadership position is reflected in the law we practice, the groundbreaking work we do, the client relationships we have, and the quality of our people.
/p |
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Court Looks At Internet Limits
Court News |
2008/03/01 12:24
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pThe dispute over a Burlington, Conn., teenager's Internet journal gave rise on Tuesday to a wide-ranging and contentious federal court hearing about free speech, whether schools can regulate students' language off campus and how the Internet blurs the boundaries of a school campus./ppAvery Doninger, the 17-year-old high school senior at the center of the case, sat in the front row as a three-judge panel of the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals lobbed questions at the attorneys. Lawyers for both sides described the hearing as uncharacteristically lengthy and suggested that the duration underscored the case's position in new legal territory./ppIn simplest terms, the hearing Tuesday addressed whether Doninger should be allowed to serve as senior class secretary at Lewis S. Mills High School and, as a class officer, speak at her graduation./ppThe principal had barred Doninger from serving on the student council because of derogatory comments she made about school officials in an Internet blog. A lower court judge denied an injunction that would have allowed her back on the council.
U.S. District Court Judge Mark Kravitz ruled in August that Doninger had not shown a substantial likelihood that she would succeed in challenging the constitutional validity of her principal's decision.
The appeals court did not rule Tuesday, but the judges raised questions ranging from the specifics of the high school's student council election procedures to how the Internet changes students' rights to free speech.
The attorneys staked out opposite positions on the free-speech question.
Asked whether schools should be allowed to regulate anything students write on the Internet, Doninger's attorney, Jon L. Schoenhorn, argued that the Internet should not give schools more cause to regulate off-campus speech. It's just a bigger soapbox, he said.
The school officials' attorney, Thomas R. Gerarde, argued that the Internet has fundamentally changed students' ability to communicate, allowing them to reach hundreds of people at a time. If a student leader makes offensive comments about the school on the Internet, the school should have the right to act, said Gerarde, who represents Mills Principal Karissa Niehoff and former Region 10 Superintendent Paula Schwartz. We shouldn't be required to just swallow it, he said.
Doninger's case began with a dispute about the school's annual Jamfest, a battle-of-the-bands-type program that Doninger had helped coordinate. Frustrated that Jamfest was not going ahead as scheduled, Doninger wrote on her livejournal.com weblog that Jamfest is canceled due to the douchbags [sic] in central office. She also encouraged others to write or call Schwartz to piss her off more, and included an e-mail her mother wrote as an example.
In fact, Jamfest wasn't canceled and was rescheduled. After administrators found the blog entry, about two weeks after Doninger wrote it, Niehoff told Doninger to apologize to Schwartz, show her mother the blog entry and remove herself from seeking re-election as class secretary.
Doninger agreed to the first two, but refused to withdraw her candidacy. Administrators did not allow her to run, though enough students wrote her name on the ballot that she won. She was not allowed to serve.
In his August ruling, Kravitz suggested that while Doninger wrote her blog entry off school grounds, she could be punished for it because the blog addressed school issues and was likely to be read by other students.
The issue of on-campus and off-campus speech was a key theme Tuesday as attorneys and judges grappled with how the existing legal framework for school-speech issues applies to the Internet.
Student-speech issues have long been governed by a 1969 U.S. Supreme Court case. It established that disruptive conduct by students is not constitutionally protected, but that schools can prohibit expression only if they can show that not doing so would interfere with schoolwork or discipline.
A 1986 Supreme Court ruling added another cause for schools to regulate speech, allowing them to prohibit vulgar and lewd speech if it would undermine the school's basic educational mission. em class=b/em
em class=b/emBut those cases involved speech that took place on school grounds or during a school activity.
Much of the discussion Tuesday involved another 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals case, Wisniewski v. Board of Education of the Weedsport Central School District in a title=New York State href=http://www.courant.com/topic/us/new-york-state-PLGEO100100800000000.topicNew York/a. A student was suspended after he created an instant-messaging icon, visible to his friends, that suggested his English teacher should be shot. The court upheld the suspension last year, saying it was reasonable to expect that the icon would come to the attention of school authorities and could create a risk of substantial disruption to the school environment.
Gerarde, the school officials' attorney, argued that the Wisniewski case extended the boundaries of school discretion to the Internet and allowed Lewis Mills to sanction Doninger's blog, which he said was as potentially disruptive as the Wisniewski case.
Doninger's post caused administrators to receive numerous telephone calls and e-mails — including offensive ones, according to court records — and prompted students to consider staging a sit-in. That forced Schwartz to disrupt a presentation she had been scheduled to make to a visiting Chinese delegation.
Gerarde said speech off campus can affect the school. But Judge Sonia Sotomayor challenged his argument, noting that Pedagogical rights can't supersede the rights of students off campus to have First Amendment rights.
Schoenhorn, Doninger's attorney, offered a different interpretation of the Wisniewski case. The suspension was allowed in that case not because the Internet could be considered on-campus, but because the student's behavior clearly created a risk of disruption, something the school would be able to regulate under the 1969 Supreme Court ruling. In Doninger's case, he said, there was no similar risk of disruption, particularly by the time administrators found the blog post.
The judges asked several questions about the implications of each attorney's views on schools' regulating Internet speech.
If students are free to say offensive things about administrators on their home computers, chaos will rule, Judge Loretta Preska told Schoenhorn.
They already say offensive things about their teachers, Schoenhorn replied, noting that whole websites are devoted to rating teachers.
Sotomayor asked Gerarde how far school regulation of Internet speech could go. What if a student made false and offensive posts about the mayor and then wanted to run for student council, he asked. Would a principal be able to bar the student from running because she had not shown good citizenship?
Gerarde said it would depend on how likely it was that the school administration would see the blog. But Sotomayor said that would suggest the consequences would be related to how active a student was.
Gerarde posed another situation: What if a class president drove a mile off campus and e-mailed vulgar comments about the principal to hundreds of students? Should the student be able to say he's off campus and the school can't do anything about it? That's wrong, Gerarde said.
If vulgar speech relates to the school or a public event, the school should be able to regulate it, Gerarde said.
/p |
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