Legal Pad

George's Career Memorialized With Building, Bobblehead

[Kate Moser]

Chief Justice Ronald George was surprised by two honors at Friday's Judicial Council meeting.

The first was Supreme Court Justice Marvin Baxter's report that the state legislature is working on a bill to rename the state office building in San Francisco where the Supreme Court resides. Its new name: the Ronald M. George Justice Center.

"Since assuming office as California's 27th Chief Justice in 1996, Ronald M. George has provided visionary, inspirational, and collaborative leadership that has been pivotal in the transformation of California's court system into a truly statewide system with the unifying goal of equal access to fair and consistent justice for all in every venue in the state," the bill reads, in part. 

S.F. City Attorney Wants Mayor Gig

[Kate Moser]

Dennis Herrera is running for mayor of San Francisco.

Herrera, who was sworn in last January for his third term as city attorney, announced his candidacy and made a fundraising pitch on his campaign website.

"My record shows I know how to fight for San Francisco every day," his announcement reads. "It's the leadership I've demonstrated in cracking down on corrupt contractors and politicians; curbing the gang violence, drugs, graffiti and intimidation that plague our neighborhoods; taking on the big insurance companies and the predatory payday lenders; protecting our air and water quality by securing the agreement to shut down the Mirant Power Plant; and negotiating settlements that delivered safer housing, access to healthcare, and better schools."

Chinese Ventures Look to U.S. for IPO

[Petra Pasternak]

With all that money sloshing about in China and Hong Kong, it’s a wonder the drooping U.S. stock market still holds appeal. But it does. Am Law 100 lawyers interviewed for a Recorder story (free reg. req.) about doing business in China say they see growing opportunities in representing Chinese companies looking to go public in New York.

One of them is Michael Gisser. The senior partner in Skadden’s China practice said his firm has been ramping up the ability to handle work for privately-owned Chinese companies, particularly in the tech space.

The Hong Kong stock exchange may be a hopping venue for follow-on fundraising – Gisser says it had the largest dollar volume for secondary listings in the world last year – but it sure isn’t easy for companies that hold promise, but don’t have a lot to show for it yet. Gisser said Hong Kong requires businesses to have three years of positive net earnings before filing for an IPO there. “A lot of tech companies don’t have that,” he said. “That closes them out of Hong Kong as an IPO listing venue, so you’re listing on NASDAQ.”

“A U.S. listing is a very effective way for a company to establish itself as a global player,” Gisser noted. Just in July, Skadden advised Camelot Information Systems, Inc., a provider of enterprise application services among other things, in its approximately $150 million IPO on the New York Stock Exchange. The same month, Skadden represented AutoNavi Holdings Limited, which provides digital map content and navigation and location-based sotware, in its July NASDAQ listing.

Sandoval's Wife, Dem Fundraiser in Nasty Spat

[Scott Graham]

A legal fight between a small, politically connected law firm and a former associate who happens to be the wife of Judge Gerardo Sandoval has turned ugly.

Amy Harrington accuses Hallisey & Johnson and its name partners, Democratic fundraiser Jeremiah Hallisey and Charlene Haught Johnson, of breaching their employment agreement with her and blocking her fee petitions. She also says in her complaint she was sexually harassed, though she does not say by whom.

Hallisey and Johnson, meanwhile, say Harrington was removing client files and scheming to set up a competing practice even as Hallisey was raising money for Sandoval’s 2008 judicial election campaign and recruiting political heavyweights for his induction ceremony.

“Plaintiffs were invited to defendant Amy Harrington’s wedding. Later, during the course of her employment, defendant asked plaintiffs to be the Godparents to her second child,” states Hallisey & Johnson's complaint. Then in 2008, “while at the same time secretly arranging for office space for her planned private practice to be in competition with plaintiffs, they prevailed upon plaintiff Jeremiah Hallisey to be master of ceremonies and to speak at Gerrardo [sic] Sandoval’s Judicial Installation and to induce Attorney General Edmund G. Brown to attend and to speak as well.”

Sandoval is not a named defendant and isn’t accused of doing anything wrong. He referred a question about the case Friday to Harrington’s attorney, Robert Moore, who described the litigation as “a simple partnership dispute … nothing more, nothing less.”

The entire San Francisco Superior Court bench has recused from the case, which has been assigned to retired Los Angeles Judge Edward Ross.

The Back and Forth: HP and Dell Spar Over 3Par

[Cynthia Foster]

Curious about what's going on with the Hewlett-Packard and Dell bidding war for data storage provider 3Par? It's been a crazy day.

This morning, our sister publication The Am Law Daily reported that Dell had submitted an offer of $1.6 billion, over 30 cents per share higher than HP's first offer. That bid placed the purchase price at eight times 3Par's annual revenue, according to Bloomberg.  Industry leaders speculated that Dell would match any future offers for 3Par.

Well, the next offer came in this afternoon, with HP laying down $1.69 billion, according to AP.

The bidding war has been going on since last week, when Dell made an initial offer of $18 per share. HP's latest offer breaks down to $27 per share.

Your move, Dell!

SF Superior's CFO Promoted to CEO

[Kate Moser]

San Francisco Superior Court is sticking with familiar territory with its new chief executive, whose name was announced today.

The bench voted unanimously Tuesday to select two-year veteran CFO Michael Yuen after a national search conducted this summer. On Sept. 3, Yuen will replace interim CEO Claire Williams, an attorney with the court who took the reins from longtime CEO Gordon Park-Li last February.

“My vision is to continue to look at ways where we can reengineer the court to the point where we can continue to maintain our existing service levels – possibly even add on to our service levels – with reduced resources from the state,” Yuen said in an interview.

CANTIL-SAKAUYE CONFIRMED

Tani Cantil-Sakauye was confirmed as California’s 28^th chief justice Wednesday by the Commission on Judicial Appointments. The vote by the commission – outgoing Chief Justice Ronald George, Attorney General Jerry Brown and Second District Court of Appeal Justice Joan Dempsey Klein – was unanimous. We’ll have a full story at www.therecorder.com later this afternoon.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pay Raise Time at Orrick?

[Petra Pasternak]

It’s pay raise time at Orrick – for all associates but first-years, that is.

Orrick announced in a memo this week that it’s raising salaries for associates who are not entry-level. First-years will continue to make $160,000 in top markets, Orrick’s spokesman David Schaefer said. But second-year associates will be bumped from $160,000 to $170,000 starting in January and third-years will get a $15,000 raise to $185,000. Managing associates next year will be paid between $210,000 and $250,000, and senior associates will top out at $265,000 in base salary, Schaefer said.

Though it’s a bit confusing for those of us who don’t remember the details of Orrick’s new associate comp plan, the latest move in no way represents a return to lock-step, Schaefer said. It’s not our imagination: The firm’s new pay model, launched last year, does retain a lock-step flavor in the early years, Schaefer said. That’s because the firm doesn’t want to judge lawyers too early in their career development, he said. Once a lawyer reaches the “managing associate” level, though, salaries begin to vary more.

No Third Term for S.F. Supervisor Alioto-Pier

[Scott Graham]

The First District Court of Appeal has termed out S.F. Supervisor Michaela Alioto-Pier.

Barring last-minute intervention by the California Supreme Court, Alioto-Pier will not be allowed to seek re-election election to her District 2 seat this November. The First District reversed Superior Court Judge Peter Busch on Tuesday afternoon, ruling that because Alioto-Pier has served one full term plus three-quarters of another, she is termed out under the S.F. charter.

Alioto-Pier has argued that because she was appointed to part of her first term and elected to the rest, it did not count as a full term for purposes of San Francisco's term limits law. Both City Attorney Dennis Herrera and Roger Arntz, director of the city's elections department, disagreed with that interpretation. So did the First District.

"Twenty years ago the voters of San Francisco imposed term limits on their supervisors, so that 'no person elected or appointed' could serve 'more than two successive four-year terms,' " Justice James Richman wrote, "and a person appointed to complete more than two years 'would be deemed to have served one full term,' with his or her service rounded up." Although voters have amended the language on several occasions, "nothing changed the rounding up provision."

Justices J. Anthony Kline and James Lambden concurred in Arntz v. Superior Court, A129173.

 

 

 

San Diego Firm Finds Beautiful New Space

[Petra Pasternak]

Ned Israelsen gets a kick out of going to the office these days.

His firm, Knobbe Martens Olson & Bear, recently traded its digs in a downtown San Diego high rise – where it had been for 26 years – for a campus setting left vacant by a shrinking biopharma company.

It’s open and airy, with flowing water, said the managing partner of the office. And it’s closer to clients.

Israelsen said the new space, a corporate building and lab at 12790 El Camino Real, was constructed four years ago by Neurocrine Biosciences. The company had downsized and now occupies only the lab area, he said. Knobbe’s 50-some lawyers moved Monday. Its 65,000 square feet feature a 104-seat auditorium and a rotunda-like meeting room with a 12-foot rear projection screen bordered in back by a glass wall with a running water fall and pond. Staffers take their lunch there, he said.

“It has a much more comfortable feel than our steel-and-glass high rise did,” Israelsen said. “I think it’s more conducive to collegiality and creativity.”

The new office is also in a biotech and high-tech business cluster, with firm clients like Qualcomm and Traversa Therapeutics nearby. Asked if Neurocrine was a client, too, Israelsen laughed, and said: “Not yet.”