There were 13 law firm mergers during the third quarter of this year, up from seven deals recorded during the second quarter, according to a new report from Altman Weil Inc.

Most of the quarter's mergers were tiny acquisitions, reflecting "the continuing caution of law firms in response to the recent economic turmoil," said Bill Brennan, principal of Altman Weil.

The meatiest deal reported was Boston-based Bingham McCutchen’s acquisition of McKee Nelson, a 120-lawyer firm with offices in Washington and New York. The merge formed a 1,100-lawyer firm called Bingham McCutchen LLP.

Also during the quarter, Washington-based Howrey LLP acquired Day Casebeer Madrid and Batchelder, a Silicon Valley intellectual property boutique.

While those two deals involved large firms, eight of the quarter’s 13 deals were all small regional combinations. Brennan explains that law firms are not looking to assume the risks inherent with big mergers right now and are instead scooping up small firms or groups of lateral partners with portable business.

There were 25 law firm mergers and acquisitions reported in the first quarter of 2009.

The U.S. Senate, without opposition, on Tuesday night confirmed Seattle attorney Jenny Durkan as U.S. attorney for Western Washington, the Northwest's most important job in federal law enforcement.

"She will do a great job and make us very proud in that job," said Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.

A member of a prominent Irish-American political clan - her father ran twice for governor - Durkan has for years been deeply involved in the intersection of politics and law in the region.

Under both Democratic and Republican administrations, she has co-chaired a
bipartisan panel that screens candidates for federal judicial vacancies, and sends suggested finalists to the state's U.S. Senators.

Durkan was lead legal counsel for Gov. Chris Gregoire in the 2005 Chelan County Superior Court trial that threw out a Republican legal challenge and confirmed Gregoire's narrow election. In fact, it expanded Gregoire's victory margin from 129 votes to 133 votes.

In Wenatchee, on the night before a crucial cross-examination, Durkan learned that her father, former state Sen. Martin J. Durkan, had died.

A co-counsel offered to take over in court the next day. Durkan excused herself, went for a long nocturnal walk, came back . . . and performed a stellar cross-examination the next day.

A Notre Dame alumnus, Durkan once worked for Washington, D.C.'s famed Williams & Connolly criminal law firm. She served as legal counsel to Gov. Mike Lowry in the 1990's.

Polsinelli Shughart PC has completed its move to Lower Downtown Denver, the firm announced Monday in a letter to clients.

Effective Monday, the law firm is now located the newly built 1515 Wynkoop office building in the LoDo Historic District. Before, its offices were in downtown's Independence Plaza at 1050 17th St.

Earlier this year, Shughart Thomson & Kilroy PC, a Kansas City-based law firm with a Denver office, merged with Polsinelli Shalton Flanigan Suelthaus PC, a larger Kansas City firm that did not previously have a Denver presence.

Lawyers for homeowners and homebuilders who used drywall suspected of causing corrosion and possible health risks say they expect Chinese manufacturers to ignore hundreds of lawsuits filed against them.

So, who's going to be on the hook for any court-ordered damages?

That's the pivotal question for lawyers as they pursue about 300 lawsuits in U.S. District Court in New Orleans that allege a flood of defective Chinese drywall was sent to Gulf Coast states after hurricanes in 2004 and 2005. The material is known to decay, creating corrosive chemicals and fumes.

Plaintiffs' lawyers say they are considering action against U.S. investment bankers who financed the companies, and possibly seizing ships that transported the material to the United States.

ALI-ABA and ACLEA Team Up To Host High-Level Summit on Lawyer Education and Development in the 21st Century

ALI-ABA Continuing Professional Education (ALI-ABA) and the Association for Continuing Legal Education (ACLEA) are hosting a high-level summit on lawyer education and professional development in the 21st century, to be held October 15-17, 2009, at the Fairmont Scottsdale in Scottsdale, Arizona.  

The invitational conference, titled Equipping Our Lawyers: Law School Education, Continuing Legal Education, and Legal Practice in the 21st Century, will call together selected continuing legal education (CLE) professionals, practitioners, bar leaders, judges, law school professors and representatives, mandatory CLE administrators, law firm educators, and other experts on lawyer professional education and development.  Over the course of two-and-a-half days, these 150 thought leaders will debate and discuss critical issues facing law schools, continuing legal education providers, and the legal profession in equipping today's lawyers for practice, and will develop specific goals and recommendations for improvement and change. This will be a milestone summit, with an impact on legal training and the profession for years to come.

The summit will open on October 15 with two panels of experts discussing “The Future of the Legal Profession” and “The Role of Technology in Legal Training and Practice.” These panels will also be webcast live from the summit.  The core of the conference will be six participatory breakout sessions, featuring in-depth discussions of trends, best practices, and goals for law school education, bar admissions, CLE, mandatory CLE, in-house professional development, and generational issues. Recommendations emerging from these sessions will be debated by the conferees as a whole, who will craft consensus recommendations for modernizing and improving lawyer education and professional development to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

A detailed agenda for the summit can be found at www.equippingourlawyers.org.

Media who wish to cover the full conference live on-site or the two plenary sessions on October 15 via live webcast can download a Media Credential package online at www.equippingourlawyers.org.  

The summit’s planning committee includes honorary co-chairs JoAnne A. Epps, Dean, Temple University James E. Beasley School of Law, and Thomas Z. Hayward, Jr., Of Counsel, K&L Gates LLP; executive chair Patrick A. Nester, Director, TexasBarCLE; and reporter and secretary Charles C. Bingaman, Charles C. Bingaman Consulting.

The summit would not be possible without the generous support of its sponsors. Platinum sponsors include the ABA Standing Committee on Continuing Legal Education/ABA-CLE, American Law Institute, Association for Continuing Legal Education, LexisNexis, and West LegalEdcenter. Gold sponsors include Continuing Education of the Bar – California, Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education, Inc., NALP-The Association for Legal Career Professionals™, National Business Institute, Inc., Pennsylvania Bar Institute, Practising Law Institute, and State Bar of Texas. For a complete list of sponsors, go to www.equippingourlawyers.org.  

About ALI-ABA

Located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and founded more than 60 years ago as a joint undertaking of the American Law Institute and the American Bar Association, ALI-ABA provides post-admission education for the legal profession. ALI-ABA is dedicated to keeping the legal community abreast of current developments and providing practitioners with the resources necessary to enhance their practice. ALI-ABA offers a national curriculum of continuing legal education featuring traditional substantive CLE courses, litigation and transactional skills programs, distance learning courses, published books and periodicals, online materials, customized solutions for institutions, and in-house services for lawyers at every stage of their careers. Visit the ALI-ABA website at www.ali-aba.org.

About ACLEA

ACLEA, the Association for Continuing Legal Education, is a dynamic organization devoted to improving the performance of CLE professionals. Established in 1964, ACLEA is an international association. Members are primarily from the United States and Canada, but also hail from Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Africa, and Mexico. Administrators, trainers, managers, educators, publishers, programmers and meeting professionals are all members of ACLEA. This diversity in background and outlook makes ACLEA the best source for information on CLE today. Visit the ACLEA website at www.aclea.org.

Manchester-based law firm HL Interactive has announced Chris McSpirit as its operations and finance director. McSpirit was formerly finance director at insurance litigation specialists Keoghs.

“This is a great time for Chris to join the team”, said CEO Matt Wightman. “His in-depth understanding of our market and successful track record for driving performance is ideally suited to the role”.

McSpirit joins a new executive team that includes former RBS Retail MD Mike Hutchins as chairman, which has been put together following Wightman’s MBO of the firm in May last year.

Sands Anderson Marks & Miller, a regional law firm based in Richmond, plans to spin off its workers’ compensation practice group as a separate company.

A name has not been chosen.

“We are looking for more flexibility to follow the market and keep our clients at the cutting edge of the best service we can give,” said Cecil Creasey, chairman of the workers’ comp group and one of four partners that will head up the new firm.
Creasey did not get into financial terms but said that they reached a very “equitable arrangement” with Sands Anderson. He said he expects the law firm to be independent of Sands Anderson by the end of the year.

The firm will employ 25 to 30 people, including attorneys, paralegals and staff, most of whom will come from the existing practice. It will have offices in Richmond and Blacksburg. Creasey said they are searching for office space.

The workers’ comp unit has 10 attorneys, about 13 percent of Sands Anderson’s roster of 75. Creasey said the unit handles hundreds of cases a year.

Companies often spin off into separate entities, but it is fairly unusual for law firms to do so. Typically lawyers leave a firm and start from scratch.

Sand Anderson was formed about 150 years ago in Richmond and has five offices in Virginia and North Carolina. According to Virginia Lawyers Weekly, the firm is the state’s seventh largest.