Top 30 U.K. firm Irwin Mitchell has appointed legal and financial advisers as it continues to move toward becoming one of the first law firms to accept external investment

Two longtime securitization partners weigh in on the potential impact of the Obama administration’s proposal to wind down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a plan that one lawyer calls a “radical departure from where we’ve been.”

In one of the federal government’s biggest legal services contracts ever, the Treasury Department has hired 13 law firms to help run the Troubled Assets Relief Program at a cost to taxpayers of up to $100 million, with the lion’s share going to Cadwalader. But the TARP watchdog, the Congressional Oversight Panel, has faulted the agency for excessive secrecy when it comes to its outside counsel, as well as the potential for conflicts of interest in managing the $700 billion program.

A New York federal judge has refused to disqualify on conflict of interest grounds a defense attorney with deep ties to the Gambino organized crime family. Judge Lewis Kaplan said that the government has not identified any actual conflict of interest arising from attorney Joseph R.

A New York appeals court has handed a major victory to freelance journalist Jim Edwards in a nearly four-year battle to gain access to court documents that he claims contain information about a multimillion-dollar kickback scheme involving international advertising agency Grey Global Group.