The law firm of Locke, Lord, Bissell & Liddell LLP (LLBL), has formed a new Financial Guaranty Insurers Section to aid financial guaranty insurers who will soon be traveling through a maze of legal issues surrounding the securities they insure in the subprime lending sector.

"The housing downturn is threatening to cripple some bond insurers that wrote billions of dollars of guarantees in the past few years on securities backed by risky subprime-mortgage debt because they entered into contracts known as credit-default swaps," said Brian Casey with LLB&L. "These events are also forcing the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) and its constituent insurance regulators to reconsider how bond insurers should be regulated, particularly with respect to the insurer's backing of derivative financial instruments."

The firm says new cases are already surfacing in the marketplace.

"We are currently following over 200 active lawsuits in the United States directly resulting from the collapse of the subprime market, and we have only seen the tip of the iceberg," said Tom Cunningham, LLB&L's Class Actions Practice Group Leader.

"I'm ready for Wednesday to get here," Clemens said, referring to the committee's public hearing next week, when Clemens, McNamee and other witnesses, including current New York Yankees pitcher Andy Pettitte, are to testify.

It was the seven-time Cy Young Award winner Clemens' denials of McNamee's allegations in the Mitchell Report about drug use that drew Congress' attention.

"Because the perception out there was so strong originally that he did it and was lying, he's going to extra steps to try and persuade and make people comfortable with the fact that he didn't do it. He's having to take extraordinary measures because the allegations are extraordinary," one of Clemens' lawyers, Rusty Hardin, said outside Tierney's office.

Hardin said Clemens was meeting with individual representatives "to assure them privately the same thing he's saying publicly — that he didn't take steroids, and he didn't take human growth hormone, and he's here to talk to anybody about it who wants to."

Clemens, who gave a deposition Tuesday, was to visit a dozen congressmen Thursday and Friday, including Rep. Tom Davis, the committee's ranking Republican, according to a schedule released by Clemens' camp. Committee chairman Henry Waxman was not listed on the schedule.

In former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell's report on doping in baseball, released in December, McNamee said he injected Clemens 16 times with steroids and human growth hormone in 1998, 2000 and 2001. Clemens has repeatedly denied those accusations, including, he said, under oath Tuesday.

On Wednesday, word emerged that McNamee's representatives turned over gauze pads and syringes they said had Clemens' blood to IRS Special Agent Jeff Novitzky in early January, a person familiar with the evidence said, speaking on condition of anonymity because McNamee's lawyers did not want to publicly discuss details. The syringes were used to inject Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone, the person said. A second person, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the evidence was from 2000 and 2001.

The California Supreme Court has set arguments in the legal fight over gay marriage for March 4, assuring that a ruling will be issued by June.

The state's high court will hear the legal challenge in San Francisco, where the battle over same-sex marriage first unfolded four years ago when Mayor Gavin Newsom temporarily issued marriage licenses to gay couples.

San Francisco city officials and civil rights groups have challenged California's ban on gay marriage, arguing that it deprives same-sex couples of the same legal rights as heterosexual couples.

A divided state appeals court in 2006 upheld the state ban on same-sex marriage, overturning a San Francisco judge who previously declared it unconstitutional. The state Supreme Court will be reviewing that appeals court ruling.

The justices must rule within 90 days of the arguments.

Hafer, 30, of Cynthiana, told the judge he didn't trust his court-appointed lawyer, Doug Crickmer. As Crickmer began to tell Judge Rob Johnson that Hafer couldn't choose his public defender, Hafer landed the first punch.

"I just couldn't take it anymore and I just snapped," Hafer said later at the Scott County jail.

Hafer hit the attorney several times in the face and stomach. Hafer was restrained on the ground. Crickmer was admitted to Georgetown Community Hospital and released later that day. He said he will not file assault charges.

"I certainly don't fault him or blame him or wish him any ill will," Crickmer said Thursday on NBC's "Today" show. "I think Mr. Hafer was just frustrated. Like I said, he had been in jail for some time. ... I think he just got frustrated, fed up, and he just snapped and I was the nearest target."

Hafer was arrested in August on charges of burglarizing a K-Mart store in June.

As for his request for a new attorney, Hafer apparently will get his way. Authorities said a new one will be appointed.

The New York Observer has answered a burning political question that never occurred to us, at least until now: "If the major presidential candidates were top New York law firms, which ones would they be?"

Lawyers in New York - perhaps enjoying a bit more idle time than usual these days - energetically took up the question, offering all kinds of suggestions and nominations, David Lat wrote. Lawyers nationwide have showered Hillary Clinton with more campaign contributions than any other candidate, federal records show. In Mr. Lat's informal survey, though, when asked which firm most embodies Mrs. Clinton, the common answer from lawyers in her home state was "Not mine."

So how did the pairings shape up?

After some debate, Mr. Lat declared Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison the closest match for Mrs. Clinton. Why Paul Weiss? One anonymous lawyer at the firm suggested that, like the candidate, the firm had a reputation for being a bit, well, hard-driving. (The lawyer actually used a more colorful phrase.) "But those who know her - and us - know we are 'good people,'" the lawyer added.

Another lawyer nominated Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, the boutique firm known for advising in big mergers and defending chief executives under siege, as a match for Mrs. Clinton, suggesting they both had a "thorough command of the issues." This caused a Wachtell associate to snort back, "Can you picture Wachtell crying?"

Many lawyers pitched their employers as the Barack Obama of law firms, but Mr. Lat gave that title to Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, a relatively young business-litigation firm where, according to a recent article in The New York Times, "flip-flops are acceptable footwear."

"Both seem to be the young, upstart contenders, trying to do things a new way," was how one observer put it.

On the Republican side, John McCain got paired with Cravath, Swaine & Moore, but only after plenty of jokes about being old - and at least one reference to torture.

Finding a match for Mitt Romney was apparently a cinch: It was Sullivan & Cromwell, a law firm that consistently ranks near the top of the merger advisory league tables. A former associate at the firm offered these common traits: "Very picture-perfect. Always willing to go with the highest bidder."

Trade secrets are trade secrets, even if they're tucked away in the memory of a former employee, the Ohio State Supreme Court has ruled in a dispute involving a Westerville company.

The state's highest court Wednesday unanimously affirmed an earlier judgment that Al Minor & Associates Inc. was right in taking a former worker to court over the issue of trade secrets ownership. The Westerville business sued Robert E. Martin in 2003 after he had solicited 15 clients following a split with the company to start his own management firm. Martin contacted several of Minor & Associates' clients, relying on his recollection, and eventually signed them with his business.

Martin hadn't signed noncompete or trade secrets nondisclosure agreements when he left the business, but Minor & Associates argued before a Franklin County court that his actions constituted a violation of state trade secret laws. Martin's lawyer argued that because the information wasn't in the form of a physical list or obtained through "studied memorization," it was exempt from the rules.

Martin was fined $25,973 when the court ruled in favor of Minor & Associates but he took the case to the 10th District Court of Appeals. The appellate court affirmed the lower court's ruling but passed the dispute on to the state Supreme Court because it conflicted with a decision in a different district on the same issue.

In the ruling this week, authored by Justice Terrence O'Donnell, the high court said protected information doesn't lose its status just because it isn't in a tangible form. State law defines the nature of a trade secret but doesn't specify if casually memorized information is excluded - and it could have, the court ruled.

"We are not in a position to read such language into the statute," O'Donnell wrote.

As the world awaits Yahoo Inc.'s response to Microsoft Corp.'s bold bid to buy the Internet giant, one analyst has come out with an intriguing take on the proposed marriage: It's probably a ploy. Trip Chowdhry of Global Equities Research speculated Thursday that Microsoft made the stunning $44.6 billion merger proposal as a way to block a possible alliance between Yahoo and another Internet behemoth, Amazon.com.

Chowdry also believes the Microsoft-Yahoo merger will not pass muster with regulators, even if Yahoo accepts the bid.

That analysis runs counter to the predominant view of financial and industry analysts who believe that, while the deal faces many challenges, Microsoft's plan to gobble up Yahoo will likely succeed. More on the Battle for Yahoo.

But Chowdhry said he believes Microsoft made an astoundingly high offer that it knows cannot be matched by other potential buyers and will likely be rejected by US and European regulators. In his view, Microsoft's gambit puts Yahoo in a tough bind.

"I call it strategic deception," he said in an interview. "Now, Yahoo is in limbo. ...If they accept, DOJ will reject it. If they reject it, shareholders will say, 'What are you doing?'"
In his research note, he speculated that "Microsoft's offer to acquire Yahoo was probably a preemptive move to block a potential Amazon.com and Yahoo merger."

Chowdhry said that, based on his checks with contacts in the tech industry, Yahoo was considering shutting down its e-commerce offering and forming a business tie with Amazon.com. He compared this move with Yahoo's decision to shut down its own music store in favor of Real Networks' Rhapsody.

"Contacts feel it is likely that these discussions could be taking a form of an Amazon.com and Yahoo merger, which Microsoft probably did not like," he wrote in the note Thursday.
Yahoo spokeswoman May Petry said the company will not comment on rumors or speculations.

Chowdhry cited Microsoft's failed bid to acquire Intuit Inc. in the mid-1990s which was challenged by the US Justice Department.

"Microsoft has been convicted of past monopolistic behavior - this makes this deal even more tougher to get approval," he said in his note. "Yahoo's management should make sure not to fall into the trap of a potentially fake bid, as Microsoft itself probably may be knowing that the chances of the deal going through is unlikely." Other analysts believe the deal will likely be approved by US and European authorities given Google Inc.'s dominant position in online advertising.

In a research note published Thursday, UBS analyst Heather Bellini said that while the regulatory review will be "complex" in the US and Europe, the proposed could get approved although "the companies could potentially have to divest services such as e-mail or instant messaging to make the combined company more amenable to regulators."