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Strategies & Market Trends : VOLTAIRE'S PORCH-MODERATED -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cactus Jack who wrote (47957)	2/23/2002 3:28:04 PM
From: elpolvo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 65232

The writer has a certain flair. LOL <SKATEY, SKATE, SKATE... THUD, SLAP, SWWWIIIIISH> so do your nostrils. <he SCORES!>

To: Cactus Jack who wrote (47957)	2/23/2002 7:01:01 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 65232

Attorneys jockey for top job representing employees Judge says she will make the decision if lawyers can't agree by Monday By ROSANNA RUIZ The Houston Chronicle Feb. 23, 2002 Before lawyers can join forces to gang up on Enron, they first must determine who gets to be the big dog in the hunt. One of the big bones has already been won. By order of U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon, the University of California board of regents is the lead plaintiff in the securities-fraud lawsuits filed by various shareholders. It is represented by Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach. Now a second turf war is going on among the lawyers who want their clients to be lead plaintiff in the Enron employee-benefits lawsuits. It's not a small matter. Counsel for the lead plaintiff directs overall strategy and coordinates the process. It also earns the biggest fees, which run 33 to 40 percent of the take. Harmon said if the parties can't agree on a lead plaintiff proposal by Monday, she would make the choice. Whoever it is, she said, must coordinate with Lerach "which should relieve a substantial portion of the burden here." "Furthermore, the court believes that the role of lead counsel includes not only organizing the prosecution of the litigation, but also persuading other counsel to work together in the most efficient manner." Since the firms are working on a contingency-fee basis, the lead counsel must also be financially capable of paying much of the costs of the litigation. Terse filings by various attorneys illustrate their desire for the appointment. Houston lawyer Robin L. Harrison pointed out that "since the meltdown of Enron" he and his colleagues "have spent hundreds of hours speaking with current and former Enron employees both on the phone and in person. Hence, counsel has conducted a massive factual and legal investigation in this case that has and will enable them to provide effective assistance to their clients." The same firm also claims that other attorneys have "refused to consider reasonable offers to work with" them, though those attorneys have done "virtually nothing." Harrison spent much of the day Friday trying to reach agreement with other lawyers before Monday's deadline, said his colleague, Justin Campbell. Harrison has proposed the naming of two lead counsels and a lead counsel committee, composed of himself and four other lawyers. Objecting to that is Randy McClanahan, who represents a group of former Enron employees calling itself Severed Enron Employees Coalition. He says his clients should be one of the lead plaintiffs and that it should be someone closer to home rather than "attorneys from other parts of the country." There has been some grumbling about McClanahan's claim that in representing SEEC he has 500 or more individual clients. Other attorneys note that in a widely circulated Feb. 14 e-mail, SEEC's chairman, Rod Jordan, says "we have 525 plus supportive members, and only 62 signed up and verified members." Since then, Jordan said he's confirmed that he has 219 members who used to work for Enron. Jordan and McClanahan scoff at the notion that either has misrepresented the group's true size. Lonny Hoffman, an assistant professor of law at the University of Houston's Law Center, said McClanahan had simply spoken too soon about the group's membership. "I don't think there's an ethical breach here in the sense there's some line that's been crossed," Hoffman said. "If it can be shown that he actually did misrepresent the number to the court, but I don't think that's going on here." He said the quibbling highlights the gamesmanship among attorneys. "I think this reflects how important financially and strategically this is for the lawyers that you are seeing heated expressions," Hoffman said. "It's an incredibly lucrative position to find yourself as lead counsel."