Legal News

The Law Blog Law Firm of the Day: Davis Wright Tremaine

By Ashby Jones

When a huge firm like Latham & Watkins winds up in two stories on the same day, we sit up and take notice. But when a mid-sized firm like Seattle’s Davis Wright Tremaine (which ranked 179th in profits-per-partner in this year’s AmLaw 200) notches three headlines in the same day, well, we sit up and start writing.

That’s right, even though not all of it is good news — and not all of it happened today — still, to paraphrase ESPN’s Stuart Scott, today it’s Davis Wright’s world and we’re just living in it. Here’s the rundown:

DWT . . . Secures $500 Million more in Valdez Case: On Monday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that plaintiffs who sued Exxon Mobil over the massive Valdez spill that occurred off the coast of Alaska in 1989 were entitled to approximately $500 million in interest on a $507.5 million punitive award. Click here for the Recorder article; here for the ruling.

As the Recorder notes, the ruling provides some consolation to the plaintiffs, who saw their 1996 award of $5 billion cut to about $508 million at the Supreme Court last year. Davis Wright represented the seafood and fishing company plaintiffs. O’Melveny & Myers represented Exxon.

DWT . . . Goes to Court for J.D. Salinger: We blogged a couple weeks ago on this lawsuit involving Catcher in the Rye author J.D. Salinger and the author of a new book, 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye, by an American living in Sweden named John David California. Salinger claims the book rips off his own work; J.D. California says it’s fair game.

The NYT weighs in on the suit today in advance of a hearing on Salinger’s request to halt California’s book from hitting the shelves. Repping Salinger: Davis Wright’s Marcia Paul. According to this AmLaw Litigation Daily piece, Paul’s client relationship with Salinger, which dates back to the 1980s, began through her partner Andrew Boose, Jr., who’s counsel to Salinger’s literary agency.

DWT . . . Hit With $400 Million Suit over SunWest Work: It can’t all be good news, can it? Last week, Davis Wright was sued by the receiver for the firm’s former client, Sunwest Management, which developed a host of senior living facilities.

The court-appointed receiver for the company alleges that Davis Wright helped Sunwest engage in a Ponzi scheme, and is seeking more than $400 million in damages. Click here for the story, from the AmLaw Litigation Daily’s Susan Beck.

A lawyer representing Davis Wright told AmLaw that it wasn’t “the lawyering that caused the business to fail,” rather “the economic conditions in the real estate market. It's miscasting blame to blame Davis Wright for the collapse of the Sunwest entities."

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on June 17, 2009 (boomark / email).