Sidley adds three M&A-insurance team from Dewey

05/31/07

Sidley adds three M&A-insurance team from Dewey

Chicago-based international law firm Sidley Austin, LLP, has added a three-partner insurance team to its existing group. These three partners - Jonathan Freedman, Jeff Liebmann, and Jonathan Kelly - come from Dewey Ballantine's New York office and are M&A experts within the insurance sector. Sidley's insurance practice has nearly 60 lawyers in its offices in Chicago and New York. It has also launched insurance practice in its London office, recently. They serve clients which include insurance giants such as AIG and CNA.

Meanwhile, the firm has also bagged the second position in the 2007 BTI Power Rankings: The BTI Client Relationship Scorecard. Boston-based BTI Consulting's BTI power rankings is a survey on market position among law firms based on client relationships for large and Fortune 1000 companies. The rankings are based on interviews with corporate counsel that determines exactly the firm-client relationships. Prominent full-service law firm Sidley Austin has more than 1,700 lawyers practicing in 16 U.S. and international offices.

New law firm for wider criminal defense
Prominent personal injury and wrongful death attorneys, Nanda Palissery and Demetrius Fannick, will open a new law firm. The new law firm with the moniker - the Criminal Law Center P.C. - will be operative from June. The firm hopes to give private representation to criminal defendants at lower affordable rates. This will enable these suspects to get the opportunity of availing "a solid defense at about half the cost of a typical private attorney," and at the same time seek justice.

Nanda Palissery, Pennsylvania-based personal injury attorney has more than 13 years of legal experience. The two seasoned defense attorneys will supervise two more attorneys at the firm. This law firm will be the area's first criminal defense firm, handling all types of criminal matters, from drunken driving to homicide. The duo has hired Nicole Bednarek as one of their staff attorneys and will also fill up the second position soon. For the present, the firm will be limited to Luzerne County only. The firm will charge flat fees which could vary from case to case.

BIZARRE NEWS

And now, it's shoes!! What's happening to thieves?
Man stole 1,500 pairs of girls' shoes

Don't laugh! I'm seriously worried about our thieves' health conditions…are they okay? I mean, are they going nuts or something? First, one of their tribesmen runs away with girls' lingerie, then another picks up girls' shoes? Not kidding! Waukesha police picked up this man who has fetish for shoe smell! Yuck! This 27-year-old Kenosha man's home and storage unit revealed more than 1,500 pairs of girls' shoes possibly stolen from three Waukesha public high schools and a middle school over the past two years. And how did he explain the cache? He likes to smell shoes!! The police believe him, because earlier in 2005, too, he was caught for stealing shoes from Kenosha Tremper High School. This shoe-smeller thief, though yet to be identified and charged, worked for a cable company. His modus operandi included collecting keys to the schools after responding to calls, said Lt. William H. Graham. On May 20, he did the same thing. However, little did he realize while leaving with his prized booty of smelly shoes, that his actions were recorded by the security camera, which led to the arrest. Besides shoes, his loot also included school yearbooks, keys, a bolt cutter, and other trinkets. Now he awaits charges at the Waukesha County Circuit Court, said Capt. Mike Babe. Poor Judge!