One former partner in Jenkens & Gilchrist’s Chicago office, Paul Daugerdas, earned $93 million in fees from tax shelter work, making him one of the single wealthiest participants in the tax shelter business, according to the New York Times.

Jenkens & Gilchrist, which will close its doors at the end of April, will also admit to criminal wrongdoing in the shelters, and will cooperate with the government in its continuing investigations. It was not clear whether Mr. Daugerdas and other colleagues were cooperating, the Times reports.

The agreement with Jenkens & Gilchrist is expected to assist in a wider probe of firms, including Ernst & Young, Deutsche Bank, and Sidley Austin Brown & Wood, and former tax partners with KPMG who were involved in the creation and marketing of the tax shelters.

Law firms have paid fines over the years, but have managed to avoid major damage from scandals involving their clients. Arthur Andersen was indicted in the collapse of Enron, but the company’s outside law firm, Vinson & Elkins, LLP, was not charged.

The main reason is that much of what attorneys do for their clients remains out of sight, according to Stephen Gillers, a legal-ethics professor at New York University School of Law, the Wall Street Journal reports. “Documents are kept confidential, . . . and prosecutors – have a hard time discovering potential wrongdoing by lawyers.”

But the fallout from the original Enron indictments continues. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced last week that it is suing two former Enron corporate attorneys for participating in the massive fraud. Jordan H. Mintz, former general counsel, advised the business unit operated by Andrew Fastow, according to the Washington Post. Rex R. Rogers, also named in the suit, is former associate general counsel and a former SEC enforcement lawyer. He reviewed Enron’s public disclosures and securities filings.

The meltdown of Jenkens & Gilchrist, which numbered 600 partners in 2002, has not been as dramatic as the collapse of Andersen, but within a year of the announcement of the investigation in 2004, the firm’s revenue had fallen by 30 percent as partners left taking their clients with them. Only about200 partners remain with the firm, the Journal says.

Gerald Welch, a former Jenkens partner, said that the criminal investigation and the large number of civil lawsuits brought by investors “just became too much of a burden for them to overcome,” according to the Times.

“It became a question of the name,” he said.

A Jenkens’ spokesperson assigned blame to the Chicago office, according to a statement issued by New York prosecutors, the Times reports. “Those responsible for overseeing the Chicago tax practice placed unwarranted trust in the judgment and integrity of the attorneys principally responsible for that practice and failed to exercise effective oversight and control over the firm’s tax shelter practice.”

The firm’s Chicago office issued legal opinion letters blessing the shelters to 1,400 clients according to the IRS. It charged $50,000 apiece for these letters.

But he acknowledges his political opponents will try to exploit recent news that a lawyer with his Houston law firm has been representing Citgo before the Texas legislature.

Citgo Petroleum is a U-S-based company bought in 1990 by Venezuela's national oil company. It employs thousands of people in the U-S.

Chavez has criticized President Bush and is close to Fidel Castro. So Citgo has become unpopular with some Americans.

Giuliani is seeking the Republican nomination for president in 2008.

However, Viacom lawyer, Don Verrilli, has struck at Google's claim of protection under DMCA and at the law itself. Firstly, he said that Google does not fit the criteria needed to take advantage of the safe harbor provisions. He said that under Section 512 of the DMCA, a "service provider" must be unaware of infringing activity and must not make direct financial gain from it.

He believes that Google is aware of the mass-infringement on the site and has no problem filter content for any distribution partners. "YouTube has done a lot of social good that comes with a very significant problem," Verilli said. "And the significant problem that comes along with the good is that there is an enormous, enormous amount of copyrighted video works uploaded onto YouTube and viewed on a staggeringly high level by YouTube users."

He also feels that Viacom and other content companies are in an unfair position under the DMCA. "What that means is we've got to employ an army of people around the clock who do nothing but monitor YouTube, catalog those works, (send takedown requests)...and find out the next day that the works go back up," he said

For more information please visit:
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The Towson law firm Hodes, Ulman, Pessin & Katz has lost a partner and had a name change.

With the recent departure of partner Louis Ulman, the firm has officially become Hodes, Pessin & Katz.

"After 15 years with us, Lou has decided to move on to greener pastures," said founding partner Michael Hodes. "It's not every day that a name person (in a firm) moves on."

Hodes started the practice in Towson in 1988 as a one-man operation called Michael Hodes PA. Today, the firm has nearly 50 attorneys working from offices in Towson, Columbia, Bel Air, Bethesda and Cambridge.

Hodes said that with Ulman's departure, the law required the name of the firm to change.

"Unless a partner either dies or retires, you have to change the name," Hodes said.

"It's very amicable," Hodes said of Ulman's departure. "Lou is one of my closest friends. We were partners at another firm for many years before I started this firm. We have had a very great relationship forever."

On March 2, Ulman, a Howard County resident, became a senior partner in the Howard County offices of Offit Kurman, a firm with offices in Baltimore County, Howard County, Montgomery County, Harford County and Philadelphia.

Ulman, who specializes in estate planning, elder law and asset protection, said he left Hodes, Ulman, Pessin & Katz on friendly terms. He said he wanted to practice law in a larger firm where he could draw the individual areas of expertise of a larger staff of attorneys.

Ulman also cited his own roots and family ties to Howard County as a reason for the change. His son, attorney Ken Ulman, is county executive in Howard County.

"It was very difficult to practice in a small satellite office, and I wanted to be in a bigger office," he said. "We have 25 attorneys here," he said of Offit Kurman's Howard County office."

Even though the Hodes, Ulman, Pessin & Katz moniker has become ingrained in the public imagination through effective marketing, Hodes said, this is just the latest in a string of name changes his firm has undergone as it has expanded from one attorney to nearly 50.

"It seems to happen every January," he said. "Nothing has really changed except our name."

SIMON H. BLOOM has left Powell Goldstein, where he was a partner, to launch his own shop, the Bloom Law Firm. Bloom is bringing along a Powell Goldstein associate, Stephanie E. Dyer, to his firm, which is in the Equitable Building at 100 Peachtree St.

Bloom said his firm focuses on real estate disputes. He represents owners, developers, builders, contractors and brokers. “Our shop will be able to take a piece of dirt from entitlement through any aspect of development of the property and litigation,” he said.

“It’s always been a dream of mine to go out on my own and offer my services to a wider market,” said Bloom, 35, of his decision to open his own firm. He had practiced at Powell Goldstein since 1997. He explained that big firm rates were pricing him out of what he sees as a “huge middle market.”

He said that at Powell Goldstein he billed clients $385 an hour, adding that his rate there was about to increase to $405 an hour. “Only the Fortune 1000 could afford my rates—and there are only so many of those clients to go around that have real estate issues,” he said.

His new rate is $295. “If you want a Powell Goldstein-quality trial lawyer, you’re not going to get a better deal,” he said.

“It used to be that you went to the biggest firms if you had an important case. Now you have other options. … There are specialists in smaller firms who can do just as good a job without the overhead and higher rates.”

Bloom said he brings “a healthy percentage” of his clients to his new firm, but declined to name them.

Ken Mehlman, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, will return to Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, the law firm said Thursday.

Mehlman, who was the RNC chairman for two years beginning in 2005, started his legal career in 1991 as an associate in Akin Gump's D.C. office, where he practiced for three years before entering politics.
 
In his new stint with the law firm, he will work with clients on legislative, regulatory, constituency, corporate and public relations matters at the state, federal and international levels.

"As a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, I am delighted that Ken Mehlman ... will be back at Akin Gump," says Robert Strauss, the law firm's founder, in a statement. "We are a diversified and bipartisan firm, and Ken fits in perfectly."

Mehlman began his political career as legislative director to Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, and later became chief of staff to Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas. From 2003 to 2004 he was campaign manager for George Bush and Dick Cheney as they won a second term.

Akin Gump has more than 900 attorneys in offices in the United States and worldwide

Mahala Ashley Dickerson, the state's first black lawyer, died Monday at her family homestead in Wasilla after a short illness. She was 94.

Dickerson, who was raised in the South before the era of civil rights, blazed a trail for black women in the world of law. Aside from her accomplishments in Alaska, she became the first female attorney in her home state of Alabama in 1948 and the second black woman admitted to the bar in Indiana in 1951. She was also the first black homesteader in the Mat-Su.

Attorney Rex Butler, whom Dickerson convinced to come to Anchorage, said, "I remember one lawyer telling me one time, he said, 'Rex, you see those mountains out there?' He said, 'Those mountains are littered with the bones of lawyers who underestimated M. Ashley Dickerson.' "

Dickerson had a reputation as an advocate for the poor and underprivileged. She argued many cases involving racial and gender discrimination, taking on the Anchorage Police Department and the University of Alaska, among other institutions.

"In my life, I didn't have but two things to do. Those were to stay black and to die. I'm just not afraid to fight somebody big," she told the Daily News in 1984, when, at age 71, she was still working 12-hour days at her Fairview law office. "Whenever there's somebody being mistreated, if they want me, I'll help them."

Dickerson grew up in Alabama on a plantation owned by her father. She attended a private school, Miss White's School, where she began a lifelong friendship with Rosa Parks, who would become a hero of the civil rights movement.

Dickerson graduated from Fisk University in 1935, married Henry Dickerson and had triplets, Alfred, John and Chris. She later divorced, and when the boys were 6, she went to Howard University School of Law, becoming one of four women to graduate in her class of '36. After working as an attorney in Alabama and Indiana, she moved to Alaska with her sons, where she homesteaded in the Valley.

"I didn't know a single person, and there were very few black people in Alaska then, but everyone welcomed me, white and black alike," she said in a 2001 interview.

Dickerson opened her law practice in Anchorage in 1959, and her name is still on the answering machine, along with that of her long-time law partner, Johnny Gibbons. In 1995, she was awarded the Margaret Brent Award from the American Bar Association, an honor also given to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day O'Connor, a justice of the nation's top court who has since retired.

Dickerson wrote a book about her life, "Delayed Justice for Sale," in 1998. She continued to practiced law until she was 91.

In addition to encouraging Butler to practice in Anchorage, she was a mentor to many other young attorneys, Butler said.

Dickerson often took clients who didn't have the means to pay, said Leroy Barker, the historian for the Alaska State Bar Association, who practiced law with Dickerson in the 1960s.

"I don't think anybody thought of her as a black woman lawyer, she was just a lawyer," he said. "I think she worked very hard to get where she was, and she was a strong personality."

Joshua Wright, an Anchorage dentist, was a friend of Dickerson from the time she moved to Alaska. He remembered her as "a fighter."

"When she was younger, oh, God, when she got on a roll, you better clear out the room," he said, laughing.

He and his wife visited Dickerson over the weekend. She'd been lucid until a stroke a few weeks ago that left her without speech, he said. She responded to them in the room, he said, and when they left, she smiled and closed her eyes.

"That's our lasting picture of her," he said.

Dickerson's legacy will be the way she overcame obstacles, giving back to the community, said Celeste Hodge, former local head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who now runs Mayor Mark Begich's office of equal opportunity.

"Once you know her story, especially as an African-American woman, you know that you are able to achieve anything," Hodge said.

Dickerson will be buried on her land near her son, Alfred, who died in 1960. Sons John and Chris will attend a private Quaker graveside service today. A memorial will be held at a later date.