The Wired GC: Naming Names
March 17, 2007 | Filed Under Law 2.0, In the News
It’s time to leave the days of an anonymous Wired GC behind.
The new venture I’ve been working on for the past few months is emerging from stealth mode.
It’s Lexvista Partners, an advisory firm focused on improving corporate legal perfomance.
A bit of the philosophy behind Lexvista Partners is outlined here. I’m very excited to work with people who see the law as an important way to achieve business goals, and want to help lawyers be at their best in the process.
It may not be all about Law 2.0, but it is definitely John 2.0.
A few in the know have asked: what about the Wired GC if you’re not a GC? It’s actually full speed ahead, and I’m looking forward to exploring some issues that might have been off-limits before. Consider this new phase The Ex-Files.
So during the start of March Madness, I’ll settle for a bit of today’s Luck of the Irish.
SarbOx, Buffett-Style
March 14, 2007 | Filed Under Regulation, Governance
At yesterday’s Capital Markets Competitiveness conference hosted by U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, there was a chance for many to speak, including the Oracle from Omaha.
The Toronto Star summarized some of the proceedings, including these remarks from Warren Buffett:
Buffett, one of the world’s richest men, said corporate America did not shine during the 1990s and is now working through the regulatory crackdown that followed. “It has no choice but to digest what’s being served up.” One result is that managers and directors are increasingly consumed by regulatory process, said Buffett, who is chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
“We are doing a lot of things that I regard as unnecessary,” he said. “It has changed the complexion of things that go on in our boardroom … Hours and hours get spent on process.
“The process that’s gone through detracts from more important issues that a board should be looking at.”
One benefit of being an oracle is that you can say what many people are thinking. Here’s the full panel that included Mr. Buffett:
Framing the Issues: Markets Perspectives
Moderators:
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson
SEC Chairman Christopher CoxPanelists:
Warren E. Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway
James Dimon, JPMorgan Chase & Co
Jeffrey R. Immelt, General Electric
Charles R. Schwab, Charles Schwab Corp
John A. Thain, NYSE Group
Ann Yerger, Council of Institutional Investors
33 and a Third
March 12, 2007 | Filed Under Litigation, Law Firm Trends
The Wall Street Journal (via the Baltimore Sun) has an interesting look at contingency fees at large corporate law firms.
The featured firm is Faegre & Benson, who represented fishermen in the Exxon Valdez oil spill case. Last year, a federal appeals court upheld a verdict for the plaintiffs that included $2.5 billion in punitive damages. Fees for Faegre and other firms could approach $900 million. The WSJ Law Blog covered the case late last year.
As the paper reports:
Traditionally, the nation’s top corporate law firms have shunned contingency-fee work — often cases that target big corporations for punitive damages — for fear of alienating their core clients. But driven by pressure to boost profits, more such firms are crossing over to what some lawyers call the “dark side.”
There is also plaintiffs work in more pedestrian cases involving antitrust or patent claims.
“Expenses are increasing for firms, while at the same time their clients increasingly seek discounts” on lawyers’ hourly rates, says legal consultant Ward Bower of Altman Weil Inc. “The opportunity for upside at many firms is limited, and these plaintiffs cases provide enormous upside opportunity.”
In my mind, there is a big difference in representing business plaintiffs in commercial disputes, versus representing individual plaintiffs in mass tort (or economic damage) cases. The fact that a corporate firm would be seeking punitive damages (and forced to argue for them on appeal) could rub many GCs the wrong way.
Good luck to Faegre divvying up the spoils; no word on whether this case has affected its energy practice.
One comment provides some context:
Most of the firm’s partners don’t expect a big windfall from the case, Faegre partner John Hinderaker says. “I’m hoping to remodel my kitchen. That is the level of expectation I have.”
Another Skirmish in the Privilege Wars
March 8, 2007 | Filed Under Privilege, Criminal Liability, Investigations
There’s some action in Washington today on the corporate attorney-client privilege front.
As reported in the New Tork Times, the House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the subject (further info is here).
Two former prosecutors, now in private practice, provided written testimony and will testify that the McNulty Memoradum may not go far enough:
But Andrew Weissmann, who oversaw the prosecution of Enron and is now a partner at Jenner & Block, wrote the panel that the McNulty memorandum “leaves completely intact the government’s ability to penalize a company that does not take punitive action against employees for asserting a constitutional right to remain silent, and reward those companies that do take such action.”
Another former federal prosecutor, William M. Sullivan Jr., who is now a criminal defense lawyer at Winston & Strawn, said in a statement to the committee that “rather than eliminating waiver requests, the McNulty memorandum provides a multitiered procedure for requesting business entities to disclose protected materials.”
We covered the other side of this issue last month.
The full witness list:
– Karen J. Mathis
President, American Bar Association– Barry M. Sabin
Deputy Assistant Attorney General
United States Department of Justice– William M. Sullivan Jr.
Partner Winston & Strawn, LLP Washington, DC– Andrew Weissmann
Partner Jenner and Block, NY, NY– Richard White
Senior Vice President and General Counsel
The Auto Club Group, Dearborn, Michigan
Mr. White is also Chairman of the Association of Corporate Counsel.
Microsoft vs. Google: Waging War In-House Style
March 6, 2007 | Filed Under Compliance, In the News
Microsoft takes up the banner of copyright today against Google. It’s lead warrior is none other than one of its in-house lawyers, Associate General Counsel Thomas Rubin.
The New York Times reports that Mr. Rubin will give a speech today to the Association of American Publishers, and draw a bead on arch-nemesis Google:
“Companies that create no content of their own, and make money solely on the backs of other people’s content, are raking in billions through advertising revenue and I.P.O.s,” said Mr. Rubin, who oversees copyright and trade-secret law.
Google responded last night, before Mr. Rubin uttered a word:
David Drummond, Google’s senior vice president for corporate development and its chief legal officer, said in response that Google worked with more than 10,000 publishing partners to make books searchable online and had recently added the BBC and N.B.A. as YouTube video partners.
“We do this by complying with international copyright laws,” Mr. Drummond said, “and the result has been more exposure and in many cases more revenue for authors, publishers and producers of content.”
This copyright-fight by Microsoft against Google was carefully choreographed. The Financial Times seems to have broke the story, since it just happened to have an article by Mr. Rubin dated today on its web site last night (that link only works for FT subscribers). One excerpt:
Google, for example, says its book search technology will one day make available a copy of every book ever published in a vast online database of indexed content. A worthy goal, to be sure. But in pursuit of that goal, Google has taken a unilateralist approach by contending that it is entitled to grab books off library shelves and copy them wholesale without obtaining the permission of the publishers and authors who own the copyrights in those works.
It’s certainly a sign of the pressure that Microsoft feels from Google that it takes a public-service position before a publishers association. While one focus of Mr. Rubin is Google’s book indexing project, certainly YouTube is on its mind and in its cross-hairs.
The text of Mr. Rubin’s speech is here; the related Microsoft PressPass interview with him is here (where he mentions Microsoft’s own Live Search Books initiative).
In fact, this appears to me to be a sign that Microsoft has decided to use copyright as a legal weapon in this one battle as part of its larger war against Google. It’s almost as if Microsoft is taking on the entire business model of Google.
I bet Google already has a war room (or war-wiki?) going on this, as evidenced by the quick response from its CLO, Mr. Drummond. Perhaps ace Google copyright counsel William Patry will take this up on his copyright blog.
Game on! Maybe Microsoft will release “Halo 4 — Copyright Wars” for the XBox 360.
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