Legal News

The PM Roundup: MPs Confidence Falls (Again), More . . .

By Ashby Jones

This post has nothing to do with Judge Sonia Sotomayor. If that upsets you, please accept our apology — then click here (and rest assured we’ll have much more to say on her in the days and weeks to come.) If that makes you happy, well, keep on reading.

Managing Partners’ Confidence Down: Dan DiPietro, the client head of the law-firm group at Citi Private Bank, has released his latest Managing Partner Confidence Index, which provides a nice barometer of where the BigLaw industry’s been, and where it’s headed. Coming into 2009, law firm leaders were worried, and they got more worried as the first quarter progressed, according to the Index. Seventy-one percent of the respondents to Citi’s first-quarter MPCI believe that demand for legal services will be flat or down in the next 12 months, compared to 66 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008. Law.com.

Santander Settles Potential Madoff Claims: Banco Santander SA, one of the largest conduits of investor money to Bernard Madoff, agreed on Tuesday to pay $235 million to settle potential legal claims by the trustee of the defunct Madoff firm. If approved by the bankruptcy court overseeing the Madoff firm’s liquidation, the bank’s agreement would would mark the first time a so-called feeder fund has agreed to make payments to the trustee. WSJ.

Lockheed Wins Trade-Secret Trial: Lockheed Martin Corp. won a $30 million jury verdict against L-3 Communications Corp. last week over the use of Lockheed proprietary data to refurbish P-3 maritime patrol aircraft for South Korea. Capping a roughly three-week trial in Atlanta federal district court, the jury found that L-3 violated a Georgia trade-secrets statute and breached a nondisclosure agreement in connection with its work as a subcontractor to Korea Aerospace Industries Ltd. WSJ.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on May 26, 2009 (boomark / email).