Legal Pad

Larry Stein Joining Liner Firm, And Its Letterhead

Update: We've also got the goods on corporate partner Bob Kahan, who worked alongside Stein for decades and is now headed to Beverly Hills boutique Eisner & Frank (and adding his name to that letterhead). You can read the full story now on CalLaw.com.

Following the breakup of what was, until recently, Santa Monica's L.A.'s Dreier Stein Kahan Browne Woods George, one more piece has fallen into place: Entertainment lawyer Larry Stein is joining the firm formerly known as Liner Yankelevitz Sunshine & Regenstreif (.pdf). We say formerly, because the firm is simultaneously adding three names to its letterhead. It will now be known as Liner Grode Stein Yankelevitz Sunshine Regenstreif & Taylor. Grode is for Joshua Grode, the partner already heading Liner’s corporate department. And Taylor as in Joseph Taylor, existing head of the Liner firm’s entertainment litigation group, who used to practice with Stein back at Stein & Kahan in the 1990s.

—  Pam Smith

Stein and Browne Popularize the Un-Merger

Larry Stein, back when being affiliated with Dreier meant something ... else.

One big California question in the wake of the Marc Dreier scandal is on its way to being answered: How will L.A. affiliate Dreier Stein Kahan Browne Woods George deal?

Call it an un-merger. To get rid of the Marc Dreier aftertaste, the two firms that in the last two years had each joined forces with Dreier to create the Los Angeles affiliate are dropping Dreier (obviously) and splitting in two. The entertainment and corporate piece headed by Larry Stein and Robert Kahan is looking to join another big firm, while the business litigation piece formerly known as Browne Woods & George has just gone back to being a boutique.

It doesn’t take much anymore to make Allan Browne’s ‘best’ list, after the jump …

Small L.A. Merger Gets D.C. Firm Kicked Off Big Case

Everyone loves the hot new lateral partner — until one of his past clients causes a conflict that gets your law firm unceremoniously booted from a big ol’ case.

Just last Friday, SF Federal Judge Phyllis Hamilton kicked D.C.-based Crowell & Moring off a DRAM price fixing case for that very reason. Crowell lawyers from its Washington, D.C., office were representing All American Semiconductor, Edge Electronics, Jaco Electronics and Unisys in a civil antitrust case against Infineon. Problem was that John Vandevelde — who joined Crowell when it acquired his small L.A. firm, Lightfoot Vandevelde, in the fall — had represented an Infineon exec in a criminal probe into the same price-fixing matter a few years ago.

Crowell argued that Vandevelde wasn’t working on the civil case and had gotten an advance conflict waiver from Infineon. After Infenion wrote Crowell a letter about the conflict, Crowell also erected an “ethics wall” to keep Vandevelde and his colleagues in L.A. from talking with the other Crowell lawyers about the case.

But it wasn’t enough to convince Judge Hamilton that confidential information wouldn’t end up in the wrong hands.

Nixon Names More Names

Nixon Peabody put out some convenient lists to fill in the blanks on the rest of that huge group of lawyers the firm has picked up in the wake of Thelen's dissolution.

For those interested in all the nitty gritty, check out today’s three press releases on the California contingent, for the San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and Los Angeles offices, respectively. (They include some names we'd already reported were Nixon-bound.)

As for those who are news to us today, we’ll point out: Labor and employment lawyers Michael Hallerud and Robert Dolinko were among those, in a story we did in September on CalLaw.com, who were thought to be particularly desirable laterals still with the firm in its final months. Corporate lawyer Jay Margulies happens to be a vet of another firm dissolution -- he was one of the partners in charge of the looooong wind-down that followed Pettit & Martin's 1995 closure.

—  Pam Smith

L.A. Firms Make McCain's, Obama's Top-Donor Lists

Lists of the top 20 contributors to each presidential campaign are up and one California law firm made the cut for each.

Latham & Watkins and its constituent parts contributed $270,000 to Obama.  Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher threw a cool $100,000 to McCain.

The calculations include money from the institutions, individuals and related political action committees.

Sidley Austin, Skadden, WilmerHale and Jones Day also backed Obama, while Greenberg Traurig, Blank Rome and Sidley Austin supported McCain.

The University of California system and Stanford also supported Obama.

The lists were compiled by OpenSecrets.org from data released by the Federal Election Commission on August 20.   

(hat tip to Feminist Law Professors)

—  Niraj Chokshi