Read The Recorder‘s roundup of the stock-option backdating scandal. There won’t be a test later … but there might be a subpoena.
Task forces with 30 to 40 lawyers from several disciplines have been formed by many firms with Bay Area offices, including Bingham; Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman; Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher; and Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton. Latham & Watkins said they’ve designated 120 lawyers to a similar task force.
“We have an informal task force that sprang up in the spring of this year,” said Gibson, Dunn partner Lee Dunst. “We’ve set a lot of systems in place to coordinate our efforts firmwide.”
Dunst said the firm has about 40 lawyers involved with the timing of stock option grants at roughly 20 companies.
Pillsbury’s 40-lawyer team is working for about 12 companies that are either under investigation or are doing their own probes, said Jeffrey Ross, who is heading up the firm’s stock options team. “I’m proud to say we’ve only had one meeting with this task force,” joked Ross, adding that the task force is a serious endeavor crossing tax, securities, corporate, white-collar defense and SEC regulatory practices.
At Bingham, Gilliam will be joining a much more structured task force of about 30 lawyers working for about 12 clients, Hockett said.
“We have regular meetings and regular conference calls,” he said. “If your task force isn’t having any meetings, it begs the existential question if you really have a task force.”
Gilliam said he’s excited to bring his experience from the other side of the prosecutor’s table to Bingham. Not only will it be a position that utilizes his expertise, it will also be a homecoming.
Gilliam was an associate at the firm from 1995 to 1998. He said he always thought he would return and was recruited back “informally” over the past few years.
“I had been [at the U.S. attorney's office] for eight years, and I got some tremendous experience,” he said. “The time was right to move on.”
