Layoffs, salary cuts and deferred start dates for incoming associates — all due to the troubled economy — dominated firm news in Texas last week. Dallas firms Haynes and Boone and Gardere Wynne Sewell each delayed the start date for incoming first-year associates. At Haynes and Boone, the new lawyers will start on Nov. 30, but each will receive a $7,500 summer stipend and have the option of receiving a $7,500 salary advance, the firm announced on May 8. At the 265-lawyer Gardere, incoming associates will start work in January 2010, and receive a $10,000 stipend because of the delayed start date. Gardere managing partner Stephen Good also announced that effective May 1, the firm reduced the base salary of its current crop of first-year associates to $145,000 from $160,000, and moved to a $150,000 base salary for second-year associates. In a written statement, Good says the changes are “necessary to bring some economic rationality back to our associate compensation program.” Also, Virginia-based Hunton & Williams , which has offices in Dallas, Houston and Austin, last week laid off 23 lawyers and 64 staff members. While the firm isn’t providing a breakdown of how the layoffs affect each office, managing partner Wally Martinez says in a written statement that the “reductions are spread among most of our teams and offices.”
Don’t Mention Oprah
On May 8, U.S. District Judge Richard A. Schell of the Eastern District of Texas in Plano issued an order in Eric Albritton v. Cisco Systems Inc., et al. that bars counsel in the case from mentioning defense lawyer Charles “Chip” Babcock ‘s previous representation of media mogul and talk-show host Oprah Winfrey. In his order, Schell granted in part plaintiff Albritton’s Feb. 18 motion in limine. In his motion, Eric Albritton — a Longview lawyer — had requested that the defendants be precluded “from offering evidence, testimony, attorney argument or other comments regarding Mr. Babcock’s representation of Oprah Winfrey (or any other high profile clients), his purported expertise in First Amendment law, or any other puffery. . . . Oprah Winfrey is one of the most powerful, wealthy, and influential women in the U.S., and allowing defendants’ counsel to associate himself with her would cause serious, substantial, and unfair prejudice.” In his order, Schell noted that plaintiff’s and defense counsel are not “permitted to reference the Defendants’ counsel’s representation of Oprah Winfrey” or Babcock’s specific areas of expertise. Babcock, a partner in Dallas’ Jackson Walker , represented Winfrey years ago in Texas litigation filed by livestock owners who alleged her TV program on mad cow disease violated the False Disparagement of Perishable Food Products Act (the “veggie libel” law). Winfrey prevailed in the litigation. Albritton is a defamation suit against former Cisco IP lawyer Richard Frenkel (aka the Patent Troll Tracker blogger) and Cisco. On May 8, Schell set a Sept. 14 trial date; the suit will be tried in Tyler.
