Lawyer Blog

Most things are not good in the extreme, and that goes especially for work. Despite that fact, employees are working too hard, and that’s not good for business. So what’s a company with exhausted employees to do? It’s the general counsel, the adviser and counselor to the company, who’s often in the best position to put the work lives of the executives, managers and employees into better balance. With that in mind, Ford & Harrison managing partner Michael P. Maslanka provides tips to help stop the madness.

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Things are looking up for the San Francisco U.S. Attorney’s Office’s first stock options prosecution. The situation had been a bit touchy for a few weeks in the case against two former Brocade Communications executives, after Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Steskal — who investigated and indicted the case and was preparing it for trial — decided to move to Fenwick & West. Now the case has been transitioned to AUSA Tim Crudo, in time for the next scheduled status hearing before Judge Charles Breyer.

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When Pentagon official Charles “Cully” Stimson rattled off a list of firms representing Guantanamo Bay detainees in a now-infamous radio interview, he predicted that businesses would shun their outside counsel. But instead of getting dumped, those firms are largely enjoying support from Fortune 500 clients. General Electric GC Brackett Denniston, for one, says GE will not discriminate based on a firm’s pro bono choices — good news for the more than 120 corporate firms handling detainee cases.

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California biotech giant Genentech has shuffled its top legal ranks, creating a two-pronged management structure. The company announced Wednesday that Stephen Juelsgaard will pass the title of general counsel to longtime in-house intellectual property attorney Sean Johnston. But Juelsgaard remains the company’s top legal officer. A Genentech spokesperson downplayed the significance of the move, saying it “does not signify a change in the structure of the organization” of the 51-lawyer department.

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At the end of this month, Marc Gary will be leaving his post as general counsel for BellSouth Corp., which became a division of AT&T after the two companies completed their merger on Dec. 29. “With the AT&T takeover, the position of GC for AT&T is already taken,” Gary said. He added that the new general counsel at AT&T Southeast — as BellSouth is known now — will have a more regional focus, noting, “The nature of the job changes dramatically when you become a subsidiary.”

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Two things set the investigation of Apple apart from other backdating probes: the indispensability of the company’s CEO and the fact that in-house lawyers are getting the most scrutiny, even though HR staff were also involved in options grants. Steve Jobs last week took the risky step of talking to prosecutors and SEC lawyers. But with turmoil in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and no joint defense agreement among potential defendants, the probe looks more uncertain than ever for all parties involved.

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You thought the misery was over when the hordes of lawyers and accountants cleared out after completing the option backdating investigation into your company. You may have been relieved to find a small number of grants incorrectly awarded as “in the money” options, due more to ignorance than fraud or greed. Well, you may want to get back to work, because the tax man (or woman) cometh, and there are several issues to address. Holland & Knight’s Tracy Nichols provides a heads up on the three major ones.

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Outsourcing is an important focus of every large business, including banks. White & Case’s Kathleen A. Scott provides a number of international standards and U.S. regulatory requirements applying to banks that outsource business operations. Even better, she also explains the important general principles that banks should glean from all of that guidance. Scott includes practical tips, like a due diligence checklist and help on important contractual provisions to avoid subcontracting problems.

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Christopher Steskal, the federal prosecutor leading a criminal probe into Apple’s options grants, will leave the San Francisco U.S. Attorney’s Office next month to head Fenwick & West’s white-collar practice. Also the lone prosecutor in the Brocade backdating case, Steskal has been especially busy of late — Apple CEO Steve Jobs was interviewed by prosecutors and SEC lawyers last week, according to sources. Dozens of options cases are now in limbo, with U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan on his way out as well.

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Building stronger client relationships seems to be one of the New Year’s resolutions at Reed Smith. In the past few weeks, the firm has changed its slogan to “Reed Smith: the business of relationships,” added a marketing group and hired former Sunoco Chemicals general counsel Martha E. Candiello as the new director of GC relations. Candiello says that her independent role will allow clients to avoid the discomfort of talking about problems with a law firm attorney who may be creating them.

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