A law firm employing the trustee winding down Bernard Madoff's investment firm has won court approval to be paid $20.3 million of additional fees, pushing its total to $50.9 million for 13-1/2 months of work.

In an order made public on Thursday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Burton Lifland in Manhattan authorized the additional payment to Baker & Hostetler LLP, plus reimbursement of $390,200 of expenses, covering the Oct. 1, 2009 to Jan. 31, 2010 period.

Baker & Hostetler has been awarded $59.8 million of fees overall, but is deferring 15 percent, or $9 million, until the liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC is complete, court records show.

Irving Picard, the court-appointed trustee and a Baker & Hostetler partner, has been trying to recover assets for victims of Madoff and his estimated $65 billion Ponzi scheme. He has separately been awarded $1.93 million in fees.

Lifland's order came over the objections of some Madoff victims. They believe Picard either undervalues some claims, allows claims to be paid too slowly, or has a conflict of interest because he also represents the interests of the Securities Investor Protection Corp against the victims.

Hill, Peterson, Carper, Bee & Deitzler PLLC is joining firms who have filed class-action lawsuits relating to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

A Charleston law firm has joined a consortium of 10 law firms filing lawsuits against British Petroleum relating to a recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The law firm of Hill, Peterson, Carper, Bee & Deitzler PLLC is joining firms throughout the country who have filed class-action lawsuits on behalf of people who allege they have been damaged by the spill.

According to a release by the Kennedy Environmental Law Group, or KELG, the oil spill and the inability of BP to contain the spill, has resulted in significant damage to the fishery ecosystem and the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

The consortium has filed suits in Louisiana, Alabama and Florida.

Ed Hill, an attorney for Hill, Peterson, Carper, Bee & Deitzler, said the law firms involved with the cases all have been involved in previous environmental law cases. He said the suits were filed after the firms recognized the enormous environmental disaster occurring in the Gulf of Mexico.

New Jersey law firm Cole, Schotz, Meisel, Forman & Leonard has hired a trio of Fort Worth bankruptcy attorneys.

Michael Warner, Emily Chou and Rachel Obaldo have joined the firm. The three were formerly with the firm WarnerStevens LLP, which is dissolving.

They will open a new office for Cole Schotz in Fort Worth.

The move is the firm's first expansion into Texas. It also has offices New York, Delaware Maryland and Texas.

Over the years, Hogan & Hartson has made no secret about its intention to expand. In 1990, the Washington law firm opened its first international outpost, in London.

After Chairman Warren Gorrell took the helm in 2001, firm revenue doubled as he supervised the acquisition of offices in Munich, Beijing and Abu Dhabi.

But the firm's growth has mostly occurred in fits and starts by snapping up smaller offices in the United States and abroad -- until May 1 when the already big firm doubled in size after formally completing its merger with Lovells, a London-based firm with a similar growth strategy and 29 offices worldwide.

The combination is likely to propel the longtime D.C. firm into the top three among U.S. firms in both the number of attorneys and gross revenue.

Hartford-based Shipman & Goodwin today opened an office in Washington -- and the launch came with a major new client: The Hartford.

The Washington office will start with six lawyers, all formerly with Hogan and Hartson in Washington. It will be led by partner James P. Ruggeri, longtime national counsel for insurance coverage for The Hartford Financial Services Group.

"We join a strong existing litigation group and gain talented colleagues in Connecticut that will allow us to grow the practice and continue to provide first-rate service to The Hartford on a national basis," said Ruggeri.

Shipman and Goodwin, founded in 1919, has 140 lawyers. Besides Hartford and Washington, the firm has offices in Stamford, Greenwich and Lakeville.

"Our presence in D.C. will also be a further boost to other current firm practices with national reach, including health care, government investigations, petroleum marketing, export-import compliance and bankruptcy," said Scott Murphy, the firm's managing partner.

Lanny J. Davis, former special counsel to President Clinton, said last week that he is organizing his own law firm, Lanny J. Davis & Associates, to market his services to other law firms and to do work for communications and political strategists on either side of the political aisle.

In a release, Davis said he will remain closely associated with his former law firm, McDermott Will & Emery, continuing to service its clients and working with its attorneys. He said the new arrangement would allow him to pursue media crisis and public policy work with a variety of firms, including prominent Republican firms. He noted that he once served as a member of President George W. Bush's privacy and civil liberties oversight board.

"In today's Washington, there is usually no clear 'red' solution or 'blue' solution -- almost always, the best solution is a 'purple' or bipartisan solution," Davis said in a statement. "Similarly, there are often no purely legal solutions to legal problems either."

Davis is well known around town, and said he will continue to contribute to the "Legal Crisis Strategies" blog that he started in 2009 with his former colleague at McDermott, attorney Eileen M. O'Connor.

An international law firm says it will bring 187 jobs to a business services center it's establishing in southwest Ohio.

Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP made the announcement Monday at the Miami Valley Research Park in Kettering. The law firm with headquarters in Washington, D.C., and Boston has 1,000 lawyers in 12 cities in the United States, Europe and Asia.

The company will renovate a building to house current and new staff in finance, human resources, information technology and other areas to support the company's offices worldwide.

A grant application says the site is expected to have an annual payroll of $9.1 million.

The city anticipates about $103,000 in annual income tax revenue in the half of a 10-year-lease and $206,000 thereafter.

Tully Rinckey PLLC is pleased to announce the addition of attorney David Myers as an Associate in its Washington, D.C. law office. Myers will focus his practice on federal sector labor and employment law as well as security clearance representation.

David’s practice will provide representation to government employees in all areas of employment law including discrimination claims relating to age, race, gender and sexual harassment. Prior to joining Tully Rinckey, David worked as a Law and Policy Analyst at the University of Maryland Center for Health and Homeland Security in Baltimore, Maryland. There, he researched and developed materials discussing tort liability of emergency responders and potential issues associated with emergency powers for Maryland courts.

David has previously served as a Clerk in the Consumer Protection Division & Department of Human Resources at the Maryland Office of the Attorney General. He also was a Law Clerk with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, collaborating with Administrative Judges and independently writing findings of fact and legal analyses for several published EEO opinions.  

David received his Juris Doctorate degree from the University of Maryland School of Law in Baltimore, MD and was a member of the Labor & Employment Law Trial Advocacy Team. David also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, VA.  He is admitted to practice in Maryland.

For more information about David Myers’ addition to Tully Rinckey PLLC or the firm’s federal labor and employment law practice, please contact Jessica Brociek at 202-787-1900 or via email at jbrociek@tullylegal.com.

Detroit law firm Bodman LLP has opened for business in Dallas by affiliating with Strong & Willcox LLP, a Dallas firm.

Two partners at Strong & Willcox have joined Bodman "of counsel" and will work on transactions requiring a presence in Texas. Staci Strong Heuvel and Misty Willcox will also continue working on non-Bodman work at their own firm.

Bodman, a 140-attorney business law firm based in Detroit, is opening shop in Dallas to follow its clients to Texas.

"Establishing a Texas office positions Bodman to handle more of their local legal needs," said Bodman Chairman Ralph E. McDowell.

McDowell didn't name any names, but Comerica Inc. moved from Detroit to Dallas in 2007.

In announcing the Texas expansion, McDowell said Bodman aims to keep its billing rates low.

Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy LLP, a New York law firm, is opening an office in Sao Paulo, Brazil, joining other U.S. firms that have set up shop during the past year in Latin America’s largest economy.

Andrew B. Janszky of New York law firm Shearman & Sterling LLP, a New York-based law firm, will head Milbank’s new office in Sao Paulo, Milbank said in a statement.

Law firms including Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, DLA Piper LLP, and Mayer Brown LLP have also set up or expanded offices in Sao Paulo in the past six months, taking advantage of an economy that may grow almost 6 percent this year.

“Milbank has developed a very strong practice in infrastructure finance, capital markets and M&A throughout Brazil,” Milbank Chairman Mel Immergut said in the statement. “In Andrew, as the head of our proposed new office, we will have an attorney who has unusual strengths in all these areas.”

Top Wall Street law firm Sullivan & Cromwell is to take the lead in representing Goldman Sachs against the formal investigation brought by the Financial Services Authority.

The investment bank had already retained Sullivan & Cromwell to defend it against fraud allegations brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission and today said the legal giant would at least for now be taking charge of the FSA case.

Goldman has a long-term relationship with Sullivan & Cromwell. Fabrice Tourre, the Goldman trader named as a defendant in the SEC's civil suit, is being represented by Allen & Overy.

The Shuman Law Firm today announced that it is investigating potential breaches of fiduciary duty by certain officers and directors at Ormat Technologies Inc.

The investigation concerns whether the Company's directors and officers caused the Company to issue materially false and/or misleading financial statements. These statements eventually resulted in the Company restating its financial results.

On February 24, 2010, Ormat disclosed that the Board of Directors and Audit Committee of the Company, upon recommendation of management and after discussions with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, had concluded that the Company's financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2008 required restatement and should no longer be relied upon. The Company restated its results because it improperly capitalized costs incurred in connection with the exploration and development of certain properties that it did not plan to develop. Upon this news, the price of Ormat stock declined more than 12.81% over the three days following the disclosure of this announcement.

If you currently own shares of Ormat and are interested in discussing your rights as an Ormat shareholder, or have information relating to this investigation, please contact Kip B. Shuman or Rusty E. Glenn toll free at 866-974-8626 or email Mr. Shuman at kip@shumanlawfirm.com or Mr. Glenn at rusty@shumanlawfirm.com.