There were precious few bright spots in the newly released Am Law 100 numbers. But speaking parochially, we're happy to report that what good news there was, came, in the main, from firms with strong litigation practices.

After Vice Chancellor Stephen Lamb found that Hexion Specialty Chemicals had willfully breached its merger agreement with Huntsman in September, the company--and potentially its owners at Apollo--were facing the prospect of billions of dollars in damages. So this morning's announcement that Apollo and Hexion will pay Huntsman $425 million to end the litigation looks like a steal for Huntsman's erstwhile merger partners.

The lawsuit stemmed from Citi's massive mortgage-backed asset write-downs in November 2007. Manhattan federal district court judge Sidney Stein dismissed the suit because it didn't name the directors as of September 2009, when Judge Stein allowed the plaintiffs to amend their complaint. "Plaintiffs do not correctly identify the members of that board, an easily verifiable fact," the judge wrote.

Is K-V yet another disappointed ARS plaintiff? Terms of the settlement are confidential, but the timing suggests surrender by K-V.

Did Moody's, Fitch, and Standard & Poor's really need to hire a small army of high-priced lawyers to go up against a pair of California bond investors who filed a pro se complaint?

The trial will serve as a rematch between David Boies and Theodore Wells Jr., who battled before Judge Rakoff in the AIG-Hank Greenberg trial last year. (Boies won that match.)