Baker Botts associates are learning this week about potential changes to their pay and bonus packages that become effective Jan. 1, 2011, says Maria Boyce, partner-in-charge of the firm's Houston office. The firm is moving associates from lockstep promotions and pay to a merit-based system, she says. She also notes, "No associate is going to have their base pay cut in 2010 as a result of the introduction of this change."
In an important Second Amendment decision that charts a course for evaluating the validity of gun laws now that the Supreme Court has declared the right to be an individual one, the 3rd Circuit has refused to strike down a federal law that bans possession of guns with obliterated serial numbers. Perhaps the most important lesson to be gleaned from the 3rd Circuit opinion is that courts faced with unanswered questions in the Second Amendment arena should look to the extensive jurisprudence on First Amendment claims for guidance.
The federal government's efficiency in handling discrimination complaints by its own workers is slipping a bit, even as more minorities are landing federal jobs, according to an annual report on the federal work force, released this week by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The report offered good and bad news.
A Suffolk County, N.Y., judge has ruled that a contractor's filing of amended tax returns claiming $1.6 million of additional income on the eve of his divorce trial was simply a malicious attempt to prevent his wife from recovering marital assets, and therefore has refused to apportion the couple's new tax liability. After hearing testimony from a variety of fact and expert witnesses, the court determined that the husband had a single, illegitimate reason for belatedly reporting his business' income.
A bill that would have provided up to $7.4 billion in aid to 9/11 rescue and recovery workers sickened after working in the World Trade Center ruins fell short in the House on Thursday, raising the possibility that the bulk of compensation for the ill will come from a legal settlement hammered out in the federal courts. The bill, which would have provided free health care and compensation payments, failed to win the needed two-thirds majority. The vote, 255-159, fell largely along party lines.
