Monday, March 5, 2007

Miscellaneous Matters

This Washington Post article describes a Connecticut attorney's arrest for destroying a church computer that contained child pornography. The crux of the issue is that the attorney's actions, undertaken as counsel for the church, occurred prior to any formal criminal investigation. The legal issue is that the attorney "was charged under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which Congress passed in 2002 after a wave of corporate accounting scandals to make it easier to prosecute such cases."

The law firm Arnold & Porter has taken to YouTube to explain, in layperson's terms, the legal issues regarding "Ethiopia's attempt to register the marks of their fine coffees." A trend? It certainly shows lawyers in a better light than this old chestnut from YouTube.

When $1,000,000 per partner is not enough. . . . It was reported on the Wall Street Journal blog that Mayer Brown will terminate or demote 45 partners to "boost profits per partner." In 2006, the firm grossed $1,100,000,000 (that's over $1 billion) and earned profits-per-partner of over $1,000,000.