Law

We received the jury verdict after our nearly month-long trial earlier this week, and unfortunately, the jury went against us. We were disappointed, needless to say, especially because we had been optimistic about the result. I hate to be too cynical, but an important lesson I learned is this: South Texas is South Texas.

For those of you that aren’t lawyers, at least not here in Texas, you may not know that state court in South Texas, and especially the Rio Grande Valley, is reputed to be an extremely plaintiff-friendly environment. Juries routinely award large verdicts on thin proof, and the appellate courts see a constant stream of appeals from the trial courts down South. Many of those large verdicts come in personal injury cases, like refinery explosions or medical malpractice cases.

We thought our case was different; it was a business case, not a personal injury case. It involved a group of local businessmen that wanted to partner with a national company to form and operate a local facility. They negotiated with several large companies, including our client. The negotiations with our client fell through, and the businessmen ultimately moved on and formed a very successful relationship with another company. Nonetheless, the businessmen sued our client for fraud and tortious interference. It turns out that for the jury, at least, the case wasn’t so different—small local plaintiffs versus a large out-of-state corporation. The end. The jury, without much consideration given to the evidence we presented, awarded plaintiffs exactly the damages they sought.

We were convincing enough to one of the jurors, though, to avoid punitive damages. Although she did join the jury verdict on fraud liability, she would have awarded only minimal damages and refused to agree to punitive damages—a decision that has to be made by a unanimous jury. So, despite our disappointment, the verdict was much less than it might have been.

The upside, at least on a personal and professional level, is that now I get to work on an interesting and meritorious appeal. Despite our optimism about the case we worked diligently to preserve error, and now we get to see that effort bear some fruit.

Our hearings generally don’t get this interesting or contentious:

HUNDREDS of Pakistani lawyers in business suits hurled stones at police after officers fired tear gas to disrupt a meeting at Lahore’s High Court to protest moves to sack the country’s top judge. … Today’s unrest began when police fired tear gas outside the court and hit out with batons to stop a group of lawyers getting to the meeting, witnesses said. Suited lawyers poured out of the meeting and hurled stones at police who threw them back. Police chasing stone-throwers ransacked nearby offices.

We know by now that the new market rate for starting associates in NYC and DC is $160,000. At least some of the East Coast firms have raised starting salaries to $160,000 in their Texas offices as well, including Fish & Richardson, Skadden Arps, and Weil Gotshal. Others have partially matched the NYC raises in Texas, including Gibson Dunn, Patton Boggs, DLA Piper, and Jenner & Block, all paying $145,000 to new Texas associates—a $10k raise.

Will Texas firms be next? Probably not. Last year, the Texas firms did not move until after the Chicago and Atlanta firms raised. The good news, though, is that Jones Day, Alston & Bird, and King & Spalding have all raised salaries in their Atlanta offices. Although K&S has a Houston office, word on the street is that K&S considers salaries for associates in each of its offices independently, and we should not expect K&S to be a first mover in the Texas market. Alas.

It seems like just a few months ago that I was writing about the raises for associates in Texas law firms. Now, several New York and California firms have raised the bar again. Abovethelaw has a roundup this morning of the firms that have matched, with salaries now starting at $160,000 for first-year associates and ranging as high as $310,000 for eighth-year associates. How long before Texas firms must raise salaries again?

In Kansas v. Marsh, the Supreme Court split over an important issue sure to have repercussions in many future cases: does the possessive form of a singular noun ending with the letter s require an additional s after the apostrophe? LegalTimes.com reports:

Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the Court (and joined by Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justices Samuel Alito Jr., Anthony Kennedy, and Antonin Scalia), concluded that the Kansas statute was not unconstitutional. In reaching this conclusion, Thomas repeatedly referred to the relevant law as Kansas’ statute. In response, Justice David Souter wrote a dissent that was joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and John Paul Stevens. The dissent revealed Souter’s bitter disagreement with both the substantive conclusion of the majority and the grammatical philosophy of the opinion’s author. Whereas Thomas apparently believes that whenever a singular noun ends in s, an additional s should never be placed after the apostrophe, Souter has made equally clear his conviction that an s should always be added after the apostrophe when forming a singular possessive, regardless of whether the nonpossessive form already ends in s.

It’s not surprising that lawyers so often disagree over grammar and usage, given that most lawyers spend a large portion of their working days writing. What is surprising, perhaps, is that those disagreement are often quite vociferous. For example, one partner for whom I work insists on a number of grammatical and typographical idiosyncrasies, such as requiring two spaces after a period, or the use of a double dash with a space on either side instead of an m-dash.

I thought I should surface long enough to break the long silence here on the blog. As you may know, I finished my gig as a law clerk for a federal judge back in August, and in September I returned to my position as an associate at [BIG LAW FIRM]. The difference in intensity between the two jobs has been astonishing. I had forgotten just how fast-paced litigation in a big law firm can be. I am glad to be back at the firm, however, despite the added stress and longer hours. Stockholm Syndrome, perhaps.

I have obviously had trouble finding time to blog; indeed, it’s been hard finding time for just about anything besides work. However, now that I’ve gotten settled back in at the firm, I hope to be able to start writing here again, and I plan on writing a few posts on what it means to be a junior associate at a large law firm and how to do it well. Stay tuned!

In addition to opinions, the Seventh Circuit puts transcripts and recordings of oral arguments on its website. Just recently, the court added RSS feeds of both new opinions and oral arguments. You can even get a podcast of the most recent arguments. [via] Hopefully other circuits will follow soon (I’m looking at you, Fifth Circuit). In the meantime, I’ve created two feeds for Fifth Circuit opinions: one for published opinions and one for unpublished opinions.

Ken Lay passed away early this morning, apparently due to a massive heart attack. Lay, of course, had been convicted of securities fraud in relation to the Enron debacle, but had not yet been sentenced. Interestingly, it appears that because of his death, which occurred while his appeal was pending, the entire criminal case against him is voided ab initio. In other words, it is as if Lay had never been indicted or convicted. Petter Henning of the White Collar Crime blog opines that this will have the effect of shielding Lay’s family against the government’s forfeiture case, and possibly estopping civil plaintiffs from using the conviction as evidence in any civil case against Lay’s estate.

More analysis and reporting from the Houston Chronicle, the Denver Post, and Peter Lattman of the WSJ Law Blog.

Technical Glitch Opens Window Into Leak Case. A defectively-redacted .pdf was filed by the DOJ in federal court related to a grand jury’s investigation into steroid use in baseball. Although the 8 pages of blacked out material appeared to be redacted, the text was of course still present in the file, and could be revealed easily by copying and pasting. Whoops. This is the kind of thing that makes junior associates and legal assistants wake up in the middle of the night in cold sweats.