Legal News

PM Roundup: Harvard Law Chills Out, Gotham?s Legal Bill, Lord of the Courts?

By Amir Efrati

The Law Blog is tired after a full day that saw a high-profile fugitive caught, a notorious Ponzi schemer spend his second day in prison, and a Madoff associate make an interesting legal filing.

But, alas, other important matters came to our attention. Without further ado (adieu!):

Make it 22: Sam Israel, who was sentenced last year to a 20-year prison term for defrauding clients of his Bayou hedge funds of more than $450 million, will tack on another two years for failing to show up to prison to serve that time. Press release from today’s sentencing is here. (Prior posts here, here and here.)

Harvard Law Doesn’t Panic: It’s scary when HLS students have to worry about future employment. With dreadful news coming out of BigLaw (exhibit A), the school has some advice for its students, according to a memo released earlier this year: "Now is not the time for avoidance, denial or panic. Instead, keep a cool head and focus on the things that you can control." Here’s the Bloomberg story. The school’s assistant dean told the newswire: "If you are looking in D.C., consider Baltimore or Richmond…If you're looking in Chicago, try Milwaukee and St. Louis, too. You need to be casting a wider net in this market."

Tolkien Heirs Want Their Preciousssss: Speaking of Bloomberg, here’s the story about a case that pits the heirs of "Lord of the Rings" author JRR Tolkien and Time Warner. The heirs say Time Warner’s New Line Cinema hasn’t paid them, even though Tolkien sold movie rights to his novels 40 years ago for 7.5% of future receipts. The three films grossed $6 billion. Trial is slated for October.

NYC’s Law$uit Nightmare: John Avlon says it all in the lead sentence of his article in Forbes: New York City spends more money on lawsuits than the next five largest American cities - Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix and Philadelphia - combined. The city's $568 million outlay in fiscal year 2008 was more than double what it spent 15 years ago and 20 times what it paid in 1977. (HT: Overlawyered and ATL)

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on July 15, 2009 (boomark / email).