New York federal Judge Jed S. Rakoff grilled attorneys for the SEC on Monday about a proposed $150 million settlement that would bring an end to two actions against the Bank of America Corp. stemming from its $50 billion takeover of Merrill Lynch in 2008. The actions accuse the bank of failing to disclose to shareholders that it had authorized Merrill to pay up to $5.8 billion in bonuses in 2008 and of keeping shareholders in the dark about "extraordinary" losses Merrill sustained two months before the merger. More

A formidable team of lawyers has lined up to defend Dr. Conrad Murray, who was charged Monday with involuntary manslaughter in the death of Michael Jackson. Murray's lead lawyer is Ed Chernoff, a partner at criminal defense firm Stradley Chernoff, who is handling the case with firm partners Matthew Alford and William Stradley. Also on the defense team: California lawyers Michael Flanagan and Joseph Low. Murray faces up to four years in prison if convicted. More

The largest individual award to a former Florida smoker against the tobacco industry will not stand, a Broward Circuit judge ruled Friday. Calling the $300 million jury verdict "shocking," Judge Jeffrey Streitfeld said he would determine a lower award later against Philip Morris USA. The jury's decision to award $56.5 million in compensatory damages and $244 million in punitive damages stemmed from anger, said Streitfeld, who faulted tobacco company attorneys for putting on a "blame the smoker" defense. More

Electronic privacy in the workplace is a tangled subject, with only a few sure footholds for employers. Attorneys are hoping a Supreme Court ruling will provide unifying guidance on employer monitoring of employee text messages in a case currently under consideration by the justices. More

The three-decade legal career of a former federal prosecutor, Marine Corps Reserve investigator and one-time candidate for Georgia attorney general has turned into a nightmare. James R. Harper III stands accused of racketeering and theft from his former client, international gun maker Glock Inc. A grand jury has charged Harper and two others with conspiring to take $3 million of the company's money while they worked on an investigation of other executives accused of stealing from Glock. More

After the Association of Corporate Counsel launched a rating system that included members-only access to performance evaluations of law firms, some critics cried foul. Now, law firms that have been critiqued by in-house counsel can also see their ratings online. Since the ACC began its "value index" in October, in-house lawyers from dozens of countries have submitted more than 1,800 evaluations of some 600 law firms. More

At the heart of a mortgage fraud trial that opened Monday in San Francisco are millions of dollars in loans that never should have been made, the lawyer for a family estate told the jury in opening statements. U.S. Bank sued on behalf of a mortgage pool to try to recover $1 million from the estate following its sale of a property. The estate, in turn, has countersued the mortgage pool and others, claiming it shouldn't have to pay because the loan was allegedly given under fraudulent circumstances of which it was unaware. More

A California appeals court came down on a Superior Court judge in a strongly worded opinion, criticizing the way the trial court handled the contempt case of an elderly, cash-strapped attorney who failed to pay $10,000 in discovery sanctions and was ordered to serve five days in jail on three occasions. The appeals court wrote that judges need to know the due process rights associated with different types of contempt, and that the court's actions "did not measure up to that law, not by a long shot." More

Three litigation partners have signed on to join King & Spalding's Washington, D.C., and New York offices. The team, which is joining the firm from Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, includes Diana Weiss, James Capra Jr. and James Cusick. Weiss will be based in Washington, and Capra and Cusick will work from King & Spalding's New York office. Weiss said the opportunity to work alongside former Solicitor General Paul Clement, who leads King & Spalding's appellate practice, was a plus for the group. More

Winston & Strawn has expanded its restructuring practice by hiring a three-lawyer team from Dewey & LeBoeuf: partners Lawrence A. Larose, who acted as lead counsel for MBIA Insurance in its restructuring effort last year, and Samuel S. Kohn, who was counsel at Dewey. Associate Sarah Trum also made the move. In addition, Winston has hired a former M&A partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher as senior counsel. The hires come as Winston & Strawn looks to grow its New York office to 300 attorneys from nearly 200. More

Pictures made of "Amy" -- as she's known in court papers -- when she was 8 or 9 are among the most widely circulated child pornography images online. A decade later, the woman is taking aim at anyone who would view the images and seeking restitution in hundreds of criminal cases. Her requests and those from other child pornography victims are forcing judges to grapple with tough questions: Is someone who possesses an abusive image responsible for the harm suffered by a particular child? And how much should that person pay? More

A 9th Circuit panel has slapped the state of California with sanctions after the attorney general filed a fifth meritless appeal in ongoing prison conditions litigation. The $13,500 in sanctions is minuscule compared to the millions of dollars the state has paid to defend class actions brought by inmates over medical and mental health care. But it's also indicative of state leaders' almost automatic inclination to challenge many of the prison-related orders handed down by federal courts and court-appointed receivers. More

Lawyers and litigants are counting days to determine how many dollars are at stake in the case of the music promoters who hijacked the name of The Drifters. A judge set a 90-day deadline Thursday for entrepreneur Larry Marshak and his associates to supply an accounting of their profits from bands with The Drifters name in the title in violation of an injunction obtained by trademark owner Faye Treadwell. Courts have ruled Treadwell is entitled to those profits, which could be in the vicinity of $10 million. More

Sadly for fans of consumer litigation, the great diet-plan advertising war has ended almost as quickly as it started. On Friday, Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig announced a settlement to a false advertising action that Weight Watchers had filed against Jenny Craig in late January. At issue: a Jenny Craig ad in which the company claimed that clinical trials showed Jenny Craig users lost twice as much weight as customers using "the largest weight-loss program." More

Who's getting hired? What practice areas are showing particular strength? Are law firms picking up partners who've been laid off? These were just some of the issues on the agenda during a roundtable discussion involving the chairs of three top firms -- J. Warren Gorrell of Hogan & Hartson, R. Bruce McLean of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld and Thomas Milch of Arnold & Porter -- and prominent legal recruiter Lynn Mestel, who noted that the lateral partner market "is the most robust it's been in 22 years." More

Federal prosecutors have been stepping up their Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement efforts in recent months, and on Friday they landed a big catch they'd been targeting for some time. BAE Systems, the largest military contractor in Europe, has agreed to pay nearly $450 million as part of a global settlement with the U.S. Justice Department and the U.K.'s Serious Fraud Office that will resolve longstanding allegations of foreign corruption. More