Although major law firm layoffs have seemingly slowed down from the blistering pace set during the first 10 days of March, the end-of-month total is still a stunning figure. Some 3,500 attorneys and staff, and perhaps significantly more, have lost their jobs, and announcements of canceled summer programs, postponed first-year associate start dates and even pay cuts at all levels up to and including partners have lost their initial power to shock. The 3,500 figure for March compares to considerably lower tallies of roughly 2,000 law firm jobs eliminated in February, and 1,500 in January. After last week's round up,…

Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell has confirmed that it laid off associates, counsel and staff today in all 13 of the law firm's offices. Partners were spared, however. Chairwoman Jerry Clements declined to give a total tally of those being eliminated from the firm's roster, Texas Lawyer reports. However, an unnamed "firm spokesperson" says about 6 percent of the firm's associates were laid off, reports Above the Law. A Locke Lord spokeswoman also confirmed this percentage to the Austin Business Journal on Wednesday. "This was a very difficult and emotional day," Clements tells Texas Lawyer. The legal publication says "most…

A once-groundbreaking system of helping injured New York workers obtain treatment and reasonable compensation from their employers is now a struggling $5.5-billion-a-year state-run "subbasement of the legal world" in which delay and questionable results reportedly are commonplace. At some hearings of the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board, judges looked on as lawyers chatted on cell phones and read the newspaper during testimony, reports the New York Times in a magazine-length article resulting from an 18-month investigation. Expert witnesses, the newspaper writes, "seemed biased to the point of caricature." Comparing the state's trial court to its workers' comp system, "is…

The top four floors of a 12-story office building in Oakland, Calif., was evacuated today after a suspicious package was personally delivered to the office of civil rights attorney John Burris this morning by an unknown person. The incident is the latest in a series of disturbing developments as many members of the public apparently draw a connection between his work and an unrelated massacre of four police officers by an at-large parolee 10 days ago. Burris—who represents the family of Oscar Grant III in a high-profile wrongful death case against Bay Area Rapid Transit over the fatal shooting of…

A former judge in south Alabama has been arrested and released on $287,500 bond, concerning a 57-count state-court indictment that accuses him, while still on the bench, of sexually abusing and paddling inmates and a defendant who appeared multiple times in his own courtroom. The charges against former Mobile County Circuit Judge Herman Thomas include kidnapping, sex abuse, extortion and multiple ethics violations. However, a lawyer for the ex-judge says Thomas himself is being victimized by a racist justice system, CNN reports. "Did you ever think of the fact that this is the only black circuit judge we've ever had…

Lawyers battling over funds seized for human rights victims of the late Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos have asked an appeals court to force a controversial federal judge to account for $5 million disbursed from an account controlled by the court while its ownership was being contested. The appeal, filed March 20, claims that Los Angeles-based U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real—the subject of complaints and investigations in other cases over the years—“refused to order a meaningful accounting” for the funds, “or to determine to whom and for what purpose(s) a substantial portion of the assets apparently were disbursed while in…

The American Lawyer has chosen H. Rodgin Cohen as dealmaker of the year for his central role advising or drafting deals for some of the nation’s top financial players during the economic meltdown. Cohen, of Sullivan & Cromwell, “was Wall Street's go-to lawyer during the most important months for the American banking industry since the Great Depression,” the American Lawyer reports in a story about its choice. He advised clients on at least 17 mergers, bailouts and cash infusions related to the credit crisis, according to the magazine. (He was also recently profiled by the ABA Journal in a story…