Inadmissible

Austin litigator Edward Fernandes says he is leaving Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld ‘s Austin office to join Hunton & Williams on Feb. 17. “It’s time for a new challenge,” says Fernandes, who will work out of Hunton’s Austin and Houston offices. Fernandes says he has had to turn down a lot of work over the past few years at Akin Gump because of conflicts; he’s confident that won’t occur as much at Hunton because of the Virginia-based firm’s client mix. He has been at Akin Gump for six years. Fernandes’ clients include Bank of America Corp. of Charlotte, N.C., and Citigroup Inc. and Ernst & Young, both of New York City. Fernandes says he’s looking forward to the challenge of helping Hunton build its strength in Texas. The 1,032-lawyer firm has 151 lawyers in Texas, including seven in Austin, eight in Houston and 136 in Dallas. Fernandes says he expects to spend more of his time in Houston because most of his work tends to be there. Fernandes isn’t the only lawyer to leave Akin Gump’s Austin office this month. A group of nine securities litigation lawyers departed to join Greenberg Traurig in Austin on Feb. 2, including new Greenberg Traurig shareholders Paul Bessette , Michael Biles and Jesse Weiss . [See "HayBoo Moves Into California, Akin Gump Undecided on Raises," Texas Lawyer, Feb. 9, 2009, page 6.] According to its Web site, Akin Gump has 18 lawyers in Austin besides Fernandes.

On With the Show?

On Feb. 12, Harris County Court-at-Law No. 4 Judge Roberta Lloyd ruled that Athens plaintiffs lawyer Jeffrey Weinstein violated a court order she issued in December 2008 that prohibited him from making an excerpt of a deposition available on YouTube and on his firm’s Web site. “You did violate that order,” Lloyd told Weinstein of the Weinstein Law Firm . However, Lloyd said she would wait until a trial in Elizabeth Harper v. Mac Haik Ford Ltd. before deciding if she should impose sanctions against Weinstein. Mac Haik Ford defense attorney Henry Robertson , a solo practitioner in Houston, asked Lloyd to impose sanctions of $2,500 a day for at least 48 days, which is the time he believes Weinstein violated the order. On Jan. 21, Mac Haik Ford filed a motion seeking to enforce the order and for sanctions. The dispute over the video has been ongoing for months. In December 2008, Lloyd ordered Weinstein to remove the video deposition excerpt — which contains some testimony of Mac Haik Ford’s CFO — from YouTube and Weinstein’s firm’s Web site on the ground it wasn’t public record. [See "Video Clipped," Texas Lawyer, Dec. 8, 2008, page 1.] Weinstein followed Lloyd’s order initially, but he put the video excerpt back up on YouTube and his firm’s Web site after his client filed a transcript of the excerpt with the court. Weinstein told Lloyd on Feb. 12 that he disabled the video again on Jan. 26, after he received a copy of Mac Haik Ford’s motion. At the hearing, Lloyd noted that the deposition is now public record because Weinstein’s client filed a full transcript on Feb. 11. She told Weinstein that if he makes the excerpted video available to the public again, it should include a disclaimer noting that it only includes a portion of the deposition. The video excerpt, titled “It’s Not a Kickback, It’s a Fee,” is on Weinstein’s firm’s Web site, but it does not play. Weinstein said after the hearing that he will launch a video of the entire deposition, but he won’t make the excerpt available again unless he works out an agreement with Robertson, or gets specific approval from the judge. When asked after the hearing if he was pleased with Lloyd’s ruling on Feb. 12, Robertson said, “I just wanted the conduct stopped.”

An Unusual Offer