President Vladimir V. Putin, who is barred from seeking another term, suggested Monday that he might become prime minister next year, seeming to confirm what many analysts had assumed: that he plans to hold on to the power he has accrued over eight years.

Mr. Putin, who spoke at the congress of the United Russia party, the country's dominant political force, said he would lead that party's candidate list in the December parliamentary elections.

The announcement was at once consistent and surprising. The president, who is popular among Russia's citizens and has a centralized lock on his government, has often said he intended to remain involved in politics beyond his second term. He has even said that he may seek re-election after another president holds the office, as the Russian Constitution allows him to do.

But he had not previously suggested a new political office for himself immediately after the presidential election next March, as he did when he said he could become Russia's next prime minister.

"Heading the government is quite a realistic proposal," he said, before adding a qualifier he often uses when publicly discussing his plans for 2008. "But it is too early to think about that."

In Mr. Putin's years in the Kremlin, Russia's economy and international influence have expanded, and many Russians have seen their living conditions improve.

Mr. Putin's speech here elevated the Kremlin's stagecraft to new levels. United Russia's party congress led the national news broadcasts, which featured scenes of Mr. Putin sitting on an elevated viewing stand above each speaker as a crowd looked up toward him adoringly.

One speaker, a weaver from the Ivanovo oblast, or district, pleaded with party officials to find a way to keep Mr. Putin in office for a third term. "I see so many big bosses and just smart people at this congress," said the weaver, Yelena Lapshina. "I appeal to all of you — let's think of something together so that Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin will remain the president of Russia after 2008 as well."

The use of a weaver from Ivanovo borrowed directly from Soviet iconography and the pantheon of state-endorsed heroes of the proletariat. Mr. Putin's managers quickly topped even that clear symbol, as an athlete in a wheelchair rolled onto the stage and praised the president.

"Vladimir Vladimirovich, you are lucky," said the athlete, Mikhail B. Terentyev, a ski champion from the Paralympic games. The crowd broke out in applause.

Mr. Terentyev continued: "And while you are the president, the luck accompanies Russia. You have become a talisman for tens of millions of people, a symbol of the successful development of the country. Of course it is up to you to decide which place in the country's political life you will occupy, but no matter what decision you make, I want you to stay with us, with Russia."

Mr. Putin looked down from his seat, head tilted, eyebrows raised, emanating calm and power.

The day's events ignited a new round of speculation about Mr. Putin's path through the elections ahead.

The prime minister's position in Russia is often viewed as a step toward the presidency; Mr. Putin briefly held the job under President Boris N. Yeltsin before swiftly rising to the seat of power.

Last month Mr. Putin abruptly appointed Viktor A. Zubkov, a confidant of little prior prominence, to the prime minister's post. He then hinted that Mr. Zubkov could succeed him as the president. The president's remarks, taken together, suggested that when his term expires he might step one rung down the government's ladder — and then step back up.

But Mr. Putin's latest speech also accompanied his acceptance of a new type of prominence: as the symbolic head of Russia's dominant political party, United Russia. The party unfailingly supports the Kremlin and Mr. Putin, although the president has never joined it and did not join it on Monday.

By accepting the position at the head of the party's candidate list, Mr. Putin instantaneously lent the party his vast domestic political stature — and, in all likelihood, the resources of the Russian government — to its efforts to extend its dominance in Russia's 450-seat Duma, the lower house of Parliament.

The party had appeared already to bank on its close relationship with Mr. Putin. Its slogan for the parliamentary campaign, even before Mr. Putin agreed to be on the party list, was "Putin's Plan: Russia's Victory."

The party holds a strong majority of the Duma's seats. Its leadership said Monday that Mr. Putin's new public support guaranteed it an unconditional victory in the next round of elections, scheduled for Dec. 2.

The small remaining opposition conceded as much soon after the president's remarks were broadcast on national television. Grigory A. Yavlinsky, the leader of the opposition Yabloko party, said on the Ekho Moskvy radio station that the day's events were further proof of a "one-party system in Russia."

Whether Mr. Putin could serve in Parliament and as president simultaneously is an open question. Russia's Constitution and electoral law allow parties to nominate candidates for the legislature who are not party members, but the Constitution also requires a separation of powers as one of its fundamental principles.

However, Maya Grishina, a member of the federal Central Election Commission, told the official RIA Novosti news agency that "the head of the state is not banned to nominate his candidacy at any election, including the parliamentary election."

"Along with this he can still carry out his duties," she said. "The law doesn't contain any restrictions on this."

Gleb O. Pavlovsky, a political scientist who leads a research institute closely connected with the Kremlin, said that Mr. Putin would give his name to the party as an electoral locomotive, but would not actually seek a seat in the Parliament after the results were tallied in December.

Instead, Mr. Pavlovsky said, Mr. Putin had identified the party and the parliamentary campaign as another possible base of power after he leaves office. "The party may become his main tool after the end of his presidency," he said by telephone. "The new president won't be able to appoint a prime minister without the support of the party leader."

The shareholders, led by the giant bond fund Pacific Investment Management Co., indicated for more than a year that they aimed to go after Mayer Brown, but previously refrained from identifying the firm in a class-action lawsuit against alleged perpetrators of the fraud that led to Refco's collapse. Last year, the shareholders said in court documents they expected to reach a settlement with Mayer Brown.

In their suit, filed with the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, the shareholders also listed Joseph Collins, a Mayer Brown partner, as a defendant. Mayer Brown employs about 1,400 lawyers in six countries. Collins is head of its derivatives group.

Collins wasn't available to comment Monday. In a statement, Mayer Brown said it intended to defend itself "with vigor" and is "confident of a positive resolution." It said it believes securities laws don't allow lawsuits to be brought "against an outside adviser where the company allegedly misrepresented its financial position."

Refco was once one of the biggest commodity brokerages in the United States. It collapsed in October 2005 - just two months after its IPO - amid allegations that its chief executive hid $430 million in bad debt. Federal prosecutors charged the executive, Philip Bennett, with fraud. Bennett, who was ousted from the company, pleaded not guilty. The company sold its key assets and has gone out of business.

Since then, a court-appointed official responsible for collecting funds on behalf of Refco's creditors has sued about dozen investment banks, accounting firms and other "insiders" that played a role in the company's IPO. The official, Marc Kirschner, has sought more than $1 billion in damages from those defendants, including Mayer Brown.

The Refco shareholders' allegations against Mayer Brown are similar to those in Kirschner's lawsuit. The shareholders said Refco's relationship with Mayer Brown began in 1994, when Collins brought the "Refco account" with him from a previous law firm. Because Mayer Brown billed Refco about $5 million a year, Refco was an "extremely lucrative" account.

The importance of that account led Collins to participate in a cover-up of "hundreds of millions of dollars" in bad debt at Refco, the shareholders' lawsuit said. Revealing those debts, by properly accounting for them, would have "threatened the company's survival" - and Collins' fees, the lawsuit said.

Collins became Bennett's "go-to guy" at Mayer Brown, working with him in "devising, documenting and concealing the massive fraudulent scheme that was intended to, and did, result in the false financial statements on which investors innocently relied."

"In return for tens of millions of dollars in legal fees from Refco, Collins and Mayer Brown abandoned their responsibilities as honest professionals and became willing participants in a fraudulent scheme that cost innocent investors hundreds of millions of dollars," the lawsuit said.

Though smaller firms may have a party leaning and plaintiffs' firms usually back Democrats, large firms typically are happy to have their partners meddle in mainstream politics and run for office, no matter the party.

"It's totally encouraged," said Pat Mizell, a former state district judge and Republican activist who is a partner at Vinson & Elkins. "We've been at it a long time here, we've had John Connally, Howard Baker in D.C. and Congressman Mike Andrews." Connally was Texas governor, Baker a U.S. senator from Tennessee and Andrews is from Houston.

That's not even to mention political power broker and former partner Joe B. Allen, 2006 Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Barbara Radnofsky, and former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Part of the synergy is the logical link between lawyers and lawmaking. But it has as much to do with the connections made in politics boosting the bottom line for law firms.

"It's better to know a lot of people as a lawyer. The more contacts you have, the better you can serve your clients," Mizell said.

Individual idealism can be involved, as well. Those ideals may vary within a large firm.

At Bracewell & Giuliani, managing partner Pat Oxford is heavily involved in the Giuliani presidential campaign and has been a Bush family crony for years. But partner Carrin Patman ran for Congress as a Democrat while at the firm a few years back.

Patman said political activity is a part of "the fabric of the firm." Founder Searcy Bracewell was a state legislator himself, she noted. "The firm likes to be represented on both sides," said Patman, who is raising funds for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Chris Bell, a former city councilman, mayoral candidate, congressman and last year's Democratic nominee for Texas governor, now works for Patton Boggs, a Washington, D.C.-based law firm known for lobbying — a profession that requires political activity and savvy.

"Not all professions lend themselves to public service from a scheduling standpoint like the law does," Bell said. He was at Houston firm Beirne, Maynard & Parsons while on the City Council and while running for mayor and Congress. The same firm is now home to former Republican state Rep. Joe Nixon.

A cursory view last week of 2007 federal elections filings for folks who listed their Houston law firms showed a wide variety of contributions within big firms.

As you'd expect, at Bracewell & Giuliani there were a lot of contributions for the name partner. But a few lawyers also gave to the campaigns of Democrats Clinton, Sen. Barak Obama, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, and former U.S. Sen. John Edwards, and on the GOP side, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Fulbright & Jaworski's two biggest presidential contribution beneficiaries as of last week were Obama and Giuliani. At Vinson & Elkins it was Clinton, Giuliani and Obama. And at Baker Botts, the favorites were Romney, Obama and Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

Frank Harmon, a small-firm lawyer and local Republican activist, said one of the places law firms and politics interact the most is in judicial races.

"Right now, every day I receive at least one, and as many as three, invitations to a judicial fundraiser. Nobody could write a check to all these guys," said Harmon.

In the other issue appealed to the nation's highest court, the industry said the generalized jury findings rested on evidence, arguments and theories of liability that were preempted by a federal law, the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act.

A Miami jury ruled in 2000 that the tobacco companies deceived smokers about the dangers of cigarettes and ordered the companies to pay $145 billion to ailing Florida smokers, estimated to number about 700,000.

The case, filed by Miami Beach pediatrician Howard Engle in 1994, was the first smokers' lawsuit to be certified as a class action.

But a Florida appeals court overturned the punitive damages award and decertified the class action, a ruling upheld by the Florida Supreme Court.

Defendants in the case included Altria Group Inc's Philip Morris USA unit; the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co and Brown & Williamson units of Reynolds American Inc; the Lorillard Tobacco Co unit of Loews Corp., which trades as Carolina Group; and Vector Group Ltd's  Liggett.

In the Supreme Court appeal, the companies said the constitutional right of due process "prohibits a state court from giving preclusive effect to a jury verdict when it is impossible to discern which of numerous alternative grounds formed the basis for the jury's finding of wrongful conduct."

They also argued that a plaintiff may not avoid federal preemption under a 1992 Supreme Court ruling by merely invoking characterizations such as "fraud" and "negligence." 

The announcements are the latest from a lengthening queue of banks who have taken hits from a meltdown in U.S. subprime mortgages, which has set off a global liquidity crisis.

UBS said it would write down a net 4 billion Swiss francs ($3.4 billion) in its fixed-income portfolio and elsewhere, resulting in a third-quarter loss of 600 million to 800 million francs, its first quarterly loss in nine years.

UBS also said it would shed 1,500 jobs in its investment bank -- a sharp reversal of its recent buildup.

Citigroup, the world's largest bank by market value, said it was expecting a fall of about 60 percent in third-quarter net income.

Among the main culprits for the profit warning were $1.4 billion in pretax writedowns on funded and unfunded leveraged loan commitments.  

The Washington-based U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, a special patent appeals court, reversed the trial court ruling and opened the door for Apotex.

However, Pfizer's ability to sell Norvasc without competition from other companies expired on Sept. 25, 2007.