Legal Pad

Former GC Leaves Troubled Tech Company

There’s a big ol’ mess going on over at Cadence Design Systems in San Jose — and the company’s longtime former GC has resigned.

Cadence, which makes tools used to produce integrated circuits and the like, announced last week that it had a revenue recognition problem and would have to make a restatement. Apparently, $24 million that the company counted as revenue from sales contracts in the first quarter of 2008 should’ve been recorded over the life of the contracts.

Resignations and class actions, after the jump:

In Which Legal Pad Takes to Public Radio

We’ve been scooped.

As one of the CalLaw/Recorder reporters covering the demise of Heller Ehrman and Thelen, I was on an episode of KQED’s Forum on Thursday morning (listen to it here) and you had to find out from Heller Highwater first. I can’t explain that, no matter how many times you or my editor ask, unless unbridled laziness is a valid excuse.

But I’m here now, with an insider’s perspective to the public-radio experience.

Last-Minute Halloween Costume Rescue

Halloween candy at our front desk! While supplies last!

As we type, it’s not noon on Halloween. Need a last-minute costume, at the office or for this evening? We've killed the whole morning thinking up last-minute ideas for you:

Banker in charge of your firm’s line of credit: Run to the Halloween costume shop, get the grim reaper costume. Scythe in one hand, briefcase in the other. Chortle.

Judge Manny Real: Also at one of the Halloween emporiums that pop up every autumn — Buy the Darth Vader cape and mask, and practice saying things like “motion denied” in your best James Earl Jones baritone.

Laid-off associate, PPP, Alex Kozinski, after the jump.

This Week in Heller Movement

UPDATE: Since we posted this morning, another Hellerite, a veteran IP lawyer, has found a new home at Sonnenschien, and a couple L.A. associates land at Buchalter. See below.

So Matt Larrabee’s move to Dechert grabbed some attention this week, but there are other Heller partners finding new homes, too. Here are the latest Heller moves to cross our desks. There are five announcements: two from Goodwin Procter and one each from Proskauer Rose, Wilson Sonsini and Arnold & Porter.

Here they are by office:

San Francisco Likely To Make Large NRA Donation

Looks like San Francisco voters have unwittingly made their city a huge donor to the National Rifle Association.

On Tuesday, the county board of supervisors will vote on whether to settle a $380,000 attorneys fees claim with the NRA and a host of other plaintiffs. They sued San Francisco in 2005 after voters passed Proposition H, banning handgun possession and the sale of firearms and ammunition in the city.

Since a state appeal court had ruled 13 years earlier that California laws regulating gun ownership pre-empt local rules, San Francisco Superior Court Judge James Warren predictably ruled for the NRA and its fellow plaintiffs.

Funky Cold Sentencing for Card Room's Medina

An unabridged list of those urging Northern District Judge Jeffrey White to accept a 15-month tax fraud deal for Rene Medina, founder of Colma’s Lucky Chances card room and pillar of the Bay Area Filipino community:

• The pinstripe-suited defendant himself, whose name still adorns the club's higher-end dining room (He won't be eating there, though; state gaming regulators have blackballed him from his own club.);
• Medina’s lawyer, Cris Arguedas;
• The federal prosecutor, Cynthia Stier, along with the probation office;
• Two nuns and at least four priests; and
• Three rows filled with Filipino supporters.

How is a judge to say no? White did, in fact, go along with the proposed sentence. But he had some pointed words for Medina.

Halloween Horror: Sales Tax on Services! Boo!

 Heads up, law firms. Just in time for Halloween the bogeyman of expanding state sales taxes to services is back.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger just signed an executive order creating a 12-member commission that will suggest methods for creating a “more stable” revenue stream than California’s current scheme, which is tied heavily to the yearly economic fortunes of the state’s wealthiest taxpayers.

Heller's Larrabee Joins Dechert

Hey, this just in (in our inboxes and probably everyone else’s): Heller’s low-profile chairman, Matt Larrabee, is coming back to San Francisco to work for Dechert.

There’s been a lot of curiosity about where Larrabee would end up, but he’s kept very quiet as the firm has wound down, gone through two rounds of layoffs and a host of announcements as partners found new homes.

There are those blaming Larrabee for the firm’s demise, and those who say he inherited a vulnerable situation that just couldn’t survive a series of business and economic factors beyond anyone’s control.

Thelen Wind-Down Team: Hill, Graybeal, Davidson

Update: The firm confirms these names. We've been on the phone with one of the committee members and will have a story tonight on Cal Law, and in tomorrow's Recorder.

Well, we found out who the partners on Thelen’s three-member wind-down committee are. Probably. We haven’t heard back from the lawyers in question, or the firm’s spokesman — the firm has generally been politely tight-lipped about developments around the dissolution, which was announced on Wednesday.

But a reliable source tells us they’re David Graybeal, Douglas Davidson and Thomas Hill, and some further poking around leaves us pretty sure they're the team. None of the trio responded to e-mails yesterday, and we're waiting to hear back from the firm. (We'll update here as needed.)

So who are these guys?  Follow the jump ...

'Survivors' Board Offers Help to Heller, Thelen

We still haven’t seen any web resources spring up to help out worried and displaced Thelen associates and staff, but a Heller message board popped up yesterday, and the creator apparently has opened it up to Thelen staffers as well. Check out the Heller Survivors board.

Other key blogs resulting from Heller's collapse: Heller Diaspora is tracking where staff and attorneys end up. Heller Highwater continues to look out for staff needs, and Heller No More bills itself as "A Support Group for Formerly Incoming Heller Ehrman Associates."

Anyone know of further resources, or new Thelen-related sites, post a link in the comments. Heller folks have really used the Internet to rally together as best they can.  Will Thelenites do the same?

Related: Thelen's Wind-Down Committee Named, and What's Up With S.F. Firms, Anyway?

— Niraj Chokshi