The court case that revealed the bizarre Long Island lifestyle of the billionaire Jefri Bolkiah, prince of Brunei — lurid statues, an alleged harem, a boat named “Tits,” etc. — has ended. In what The New York Times indicates was otherwise a textbook client-attorney spat, a New York State judge ordered Prince Read More
Since its online publication last night, bloggers have been lambasting a reportorial effort by The Wall Street Journal titled “Niche Lawyers Spawned Housing Fracas.” Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism raked the article over the coals for the logical leaps it makes in an attempt to implicate lawyers as the key instigators of the Read More
New York lawyers, take heed: Judges will no longer tolerate poorly prepared paperwork in their courts, least of all when it comes to legal proceedings that result in the evictions of New York state residents. New York Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman has decreed that attorneys will now have to sign a piece of paper attesting Read More
Sir Allen Stanford, alleged head of a $7 billion Ponzi scheme, will not be allowed to use a $100 million insurance policy to pay for his defense against the charges, Bloomberg reports.
A Houston federal judge said that Stanford probably laundered money, and (this is a little surprising) he should have told his Read More
Bernie Madoff’s victims want to get their money back faster. The New York Post reports that hundreds of Bernie Madoff’s investors are arguing in court that Irving Picard, the court-appointed bankruptcy trustee in the Madoff case, is raking in too much cash for his stewardship of the ill-gotten funds.
The bill for Picard’s Read More
Can money still be tripled and quadrupled in the Manhattan real estate market? Someone seems to think so.
Elliman put a townhouse at 333 East 65th Street on the market yesterday for $15 million, even though records show that the place sold only two years ago for $2,925,000.
The ambitious owner is a Read More
Last week was my worst week ever. Okay, maybe not ever, but definitely my worst week in 2008.
The trouble started on a Tuesday night. Shortly before I entered a bar to meet a friend for drinks, I updated my Facebook status on my BlackBerry, with an opinion about the upcoming Clinton-Obama debate.
Read More
If the major presidential candidates were top New York law firms, which ones would they be? It’s not an easy question to answer. Unlike their Washington counterparts, which are unsurprisingly more political—e.g., WilmerHale skews leftward, Wiley Rein leans right—New York firms generally lack strong partisan allegiances. This city is driven by transactional work and commercial Read More
We’re barely a week into the new year, and you know what that means: almost 12 whole months without a raise for New York’s most beleaguered six-figurines, Big Law associates. Yet despite the jump to $160,000 a year for first-year grunts (and don’t forget those bonuses, kids!), a culture of complaint—and, sometimes, litigation—was the Big Read More
