From: law.com, November 3, 2008 With boom times up ahead for bankruptcy lawyers, Charles Stanziale Jr. led a five-lawyer defection to McCarter & English last week. The move gives Stanziale a larger supporting cast than he had at 220-lawyer McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter. In return, 390-lawyer McCarter gets a practice group best known for [...]

From: law.com, October 28, 2008 A top bankruptcy partner at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy is leaving that firm to join Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker. Luc A. Despins, well-known in the profession for his representation of the creditors’ committee in the Enron bankruptcy, is the latest marquee name to be poached as firms rush [...]

From: D & O Diary, October 30, 2008 At what point can we declare that the subprime securities lawsuits are not doing particularly well in the courts? It may not yet be time, but there unquestionably are growing numbers of subprime lawsuits that have failed to survive motions to dismiss, at least as a preliminary [...]

From: National Law Journal, November 3, 2008 It’s been a year since Dewey Ballantine and LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae joined forces to become Dewey & LeBoeuf, now one of the largest players on the New York legal scene. With the economy in crisis and the credit crunch drying up deals across the country, one might [...]

From: The Wall Street Journal, October 2, 2008 On Monday, in a move that left colleges scrambling, Wachovia said it was limiting the access of nearly 1,000 colleges to $9.3 billion the bank has held for them in a short-term investment fund. So what’s next for loan-seeking law students? The NLJ reports that, while the [...]

From: The American Lawyer, October 1, 2008  In previous careers, Vinson & Elkins lawyers were roustabouts and roughnecks – petroleum engineers, land men, and oil tanker dispatchers. They anchored pipelines to the Persian Gulf bed and the Atlantic Ocean floor, to the Alaskan tundra and the West Texas plains. Their families were entrenched in this [...]

From: National Law Journal, October 29, 2008  In an effort to cut costs in a down economy, New York-based Chadbourne & Parke has instituted a hiring freeze on lateral associates and legal staff. Managing partner Charles O’Neill informed the firm of the freeze in a memo on Tuesday, which said that attorneys may temporarily be [...]

From: National Law Journal, November 3, 2008 Law firms with public policy and lobbying practices are gearing up for anticipated overhauls in how the nation pays for multibillion-dollar infrastructure projects and regulates financial services. They are hiring lawmakers and top congressional staffers who lack law degrees but bring connections and expertise.   “Clients want government relations, communications [...]

We will expand this section to provide more links for cities across the country. But to start:   Washington, DC The Alliance Francaise in DC offers courses in French.  You can go on their website and take a placement exam.  After the test, someone from AF calls you for a conversational bit and then they [...]

We received 80+ responses from Posse members concerning our request for information on professional liability insurance.  We’ve summarized the responses as follows:    1.         Many Posse members suggested that you start with your state bar associations which sometime offer good deals. 2.         Most used/recommended the Minnesotal Lawyers Mutual, Zurich American, and ALPS. 3.        Several members pointed out that Minnesota Lawyers [...]