If you believe the in-house lawyers at a recent marketing partner forum in Arizona, nobody is reading client alerts. One general counsel said he gets more than 50 client alerts in the e-mail with each legal development, according to Adrian Dayton, a social media consultant writing for the National Law Journal. Another GC said he has no time to read them. Another does read them, but only if he personally knows the author. Dayton recently shared those complaints with his subscribers, and heard from some marketing directors who said client e-mail alerts are being read—if they are done right. The…

Sullivan & Cromwell partner James Carter was facing the prospect of being forced out of his law firm when he reached its mandatory retirement age of 67, but he wasn’t ready to give up law practice. Carter, an international arbitration and dispute resolution expert, jumped to Dewey & LeBoeuf, one of the few large law firms without a mandatory retirement policy, the American Lawyer reports in a story reprinted by the New York Lawyer. "I like to think my experience and expertise provides an advantage to Dewey," Carter told the publication. The two firms that merged to create Dewey had…

After his Long Island, N.Y., home burned in 2008, attorney George Guldi received an $853,000 check from his insurance company. But it was made payable both to the former Suffolk County legislator and the lender that held a $1.4 million mortgage on his home, reports the East Hampton Star. Now, in a trial in Suffolk County Supreme Court this week, Guldi is defending himself, pro se, against charges that he committed insurance fraud by endorsing the check to himself and cashing it. The experience could come in useful in his next case, an unrelated $82 million mortgage fraud in which…

We've all seen the downbeat headlines—surveys show as many as half of all lawyers wouldn't enter the profession if they had it to do over, wouldn't recommend their children become lawyers, would rather be digging ditches or breaking rocks. As the profession struggles to recover from the Great Recession, it's certainly not easy being an attorney. But what about the other half of the profession—the half that doesn't grab the headlines, that finds satisfaction in their jobs? There's still much to recommend the practice of law, starting with serving clients and the public good. This story is a valentine to…

Faced with a $4.2 million claim by a deceased name partner's widow, a Florida-based asbestos law firm has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy seeking respite. Kelley & Ferraro filed in Miami this week, as Lynn Kelley was pursuing a Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas case against the firm in Ohio concerning the amount she is allegedly owed by the firm after her husband's death five years ago, reports Crain's Cleveland Business. Although James Ferraro prevailed at trial on all counts and the firm prevailed on all counts but one, Kelley won a $4.2 million judgment on that one count.…

Faced with a lawsuit over a "profit" of nearly $48 million purportedly earned on a $523 million investment with record-breaking Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff, the owners of the New York Mets are considering selling a minority share in the team. Fortunately, the market for selling fractional interests in sports franchises has never been better, former deputy baseball commissioner Steve Greenberg tells ESPN. He has been retained by Fred and Jeff Wilpon, who own the Mets, to explore the possibility of a sale. A lawsuit against the Wilpons and corporate entities associated with them was filed last month under seal in…

Justice Sonia Sotomayor admits she is a “dinosaur” when it comes to social networking, but she is apparently doing better than some of her Supreme Court colleagues. Speaking at an appearance at Kansas State University, Sotomayor said several justices still haven’t mastered e-mail, the Associated Press reports. She didn’t name names. Sotomayor drew laughter when she talked about the difficulties of trying to reach agreement with other justices, according to a report on the speech by KSN.com. "If you think that making decisions among nine people is easy," Sotomayor said, "remember what you go through at home when you want…

A Philadelphia-area lawyer who punched his opposing counsel in a courthouse stairwell will serve six months of probation and 75 hours of community service for the assault. Michael Rausch, a 46-year-old Cherry Hill, N.J., lawyer, was accused of throwing three punches at a Scranton lawyer who reportedly called him stupid and bald. Rausch was placed on probation under a program that results in dismissal of the charges when the conditions are completed, the Times-Tribune reports. "I truly regret the incident," Rausch told the judge. It occurred in July at the Lackawanna County Courthouse during a civil suit over a car…

Updated: Plans for three new law schools in New York have hit the skids or slowed considerably. Plans for two of the schools have been “shelved indefinitely,” the New York Law Journal reports, in an article reprinted by the New York Lawyer. They would have been built by the State University of New York at Stony Brook and by the private St. John Fisher College. A proposal for a third law school—by SUNY at a Binghamton location—faces "serious challenges," its provost told the publication. At the earliest, the school would open in 2017. The New York Law Journal says the…

A divorce lawyer’s retainer agreement that included an optional “success bonus” isn’t unethical, a judge has ruled in an ethics case filed by Connecticut disciplinary officials. The success fee collected by lawyer Gary Cohen of Greenwich, Conn., amounted to $1,200 an hour in one case, according to statewide disciplinary counsel Mark Dubois. His ethics grievance against Cohen cited that instance, along with two other client complaints that were based solely on the language of his retainer agreement, the Connecticut Law Tribune reports. The agreement reads: "In addition to the hourly charges described, we may request an additional reasonable charge for…