These are not easy times for financial institutions, and not the least of their troubles, at least to hear them tell it, is the sheer number of ambitious regulators targeting them. Their plight--such as it is--led to a somewhat testy exchange last Thursday at a New York City Bar panel discussion.

The trial would have been a great spectacle, with Quinn Emanuel for Google and Skadden for Rosetta Stone--and Google's $23 billion online advertising business model at issue. But Quinn will take the summary judgment win, continuing its streak of successes for Google.

After a last-minute counsel switch last October, Smith had just three days to prepare to convince the Second Circuit to revive Viacom's $1 billion copyright infringement suit against YouTube and Google. But it was enough for Smith, who along with Sims persuaded the court to pull Google back into the ring.

It's still early going in the Madoff feeder fund litigation, so it's hard to know for sure how successful burned investors will be in wresting settlements from defendants. But a decision letting a pair of feeder fund auditors off the hook is not a good omen.

SAP Lawyer Greg Lanier gets Oracle's Larry Ellison to admit he can't name a single client that a defunct SAP subsidiary, TomorrowNow, stole from Oracle. And he questions the CEO about the absence of internal communications reflecting any concern about TomorrowNow's activities.