After the magazine distributor Anderson News went into liquidation last year, its biggest remaining asset was antitrust claims against the publishers and wholesalers it blamed for its failure. But alas for Anderson, a Manhattan federal judge didn't think those claims were worth much at all.

Corporate Counsel magazine's annual survey of general counsel, out this week, tells a familiar story: A nearly unchanged roster of corporations hired (mostly) the same giant firms, and they made the same demands about alternative billing and reduced fees. But this year, there's a twist--clients actually seem to mean it. Plus: Who represents the Fortune 100?

It's been more than 20 years since Banks and Cooney began representing John Thompson, a Louisiana death row prisoner. In that time, they've overturned his armed robbery conviction, had his murder conviction vacated, won his acquittal at his second murder trial, and won a $14 million jury verdict for him against the D.A. whose office convicted him. In the most recent development in the case, an even split among the Fifth Circuit judges who heard an en banc appeal of the jury verdict means the Morgan Lewis lawyers' client is still due $14 million.

A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that Lonza infringed on patents held by Martek Biosciences for harvesting the essential omega-3 fatty acid DHA. Invoking scientific taxonomy along with patent law, the panel found that one of Martek's patents for raising DHA levels in animals applies to humans, as well.