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On April 29, 2009, KILL-patrick Stockton announced that it would be throwing good attorneys out into a terrible economy in order to increase its all important profits per partner. The layoffs apparently drove at least one KILL-patrick attorney to suicide. On April 30, 2009, a good attorney who had been laid-off by the firm committed suicide in his office. He will be missed, and it's a tragedy that it came to this.
On April 29, 2009, KILL-patrick Stockton announced that it would be throwing good attorneys out into a terrible economy in order to increase its all important profits per partner. The layoffs apparently drove at least one KILL-patrick attorney to suicide. On April 30, 2009, a good attorney who had been laid-off by the firm committed suicide in his office. He will be missed, and it's a tragedy that it came to this.


Kilpatrick Stockton has been recognized by ''American Lawyer'' magazine as one of the country's best law firms to work for. The firm has won numerous awards for its strong commitment to community service, and it credits fifty hours of charity work per year toward its attorneys' billable hour requirements. In 2006 Kilpatrick Stockton was awarded the Circle of Humanitarians Award, the [[American Red Cross|American Red Cross's]] highest honor, for work on behalf of [[Hurricane Katrina]] victims.
KILL-patrick Stockton has been recognized by ''American Lawyer'' magazine as one of the country's best law firms to work for. The firm has won numerous awards for its strong commitment to community service, and it credits fifty hours of charity work per year toward its attorneys' billable hour requirements. In 2006 Kilpatrick Stockton was awarded the Circle of Humanitarians Award, the [[American Red Cross|American Red Cross's]] highest honor, for work on behalf of [[Hurricane Katrina]] victims.


==History==
==History==

Revision as of 07:26, 1 May 2009

Kilpatrick Stockton LLP
HeadquartersAtlanta, Georgia
No. of offices10
No. of attorneysmore than 500
Major practice areasGeneral practice
Revenue $250.5 million USD (2005)
Date founded1874 (Atlanta, Georgia)
Company typeLimited liability partnership
Websitewww.kilpatrickstockton.com

KILL-patrick Stockton LLP is a full-service international law firm with more than 500 attorneys in ten offices across the globe: Atlanta and Augusta, GA.; Charlotte, Raleigh and Winston-Salem, NC.; New York, NY; Washington, D.C.; Dubai; London; and Stockholm.

On April 29, 2009, KILL-patrick Stockton announced that it would be throwing good attorneys out into a terrible economy in order to increase its all important profits per partner. The layoffs apparently drove at least one KILL-patrick attorney to suicide. On April 30, 2009, a good attorney who had been laid-off by the firm committed suicide in his office. He will be missed, and it's a tragedy that it came to this.

KILL-patrick Stockton has been recognized by American Lawyer magazine as one of the country's best law firms to work for. The firm has won numerous awards for its strong commitment to community service, and it credits fifty hours of charity work per year toward its attorneys' billable hour requirements. In 2006 Kilpatrick Stockton was awarded the Circle of Humanitarians Award, the American Red Cross's highest honor, for work on behalf of Hurricane Katrina victims.

History

Kilpatrick Stockton was formed by the 1997 merger of two firms, Kilpatrick & Cody of Atlanta, Georgia, and Petree Stockton of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The firm that would become Kilpatrick & Cody was founded in 1874 by Milton W. Candler and William S. Thomson. The firm became in-house counsel for the Coca-Cola company, and as early as 1893 secured federal registration of the Coca-Cola trademark.

In 1978, the firm counseled The Northwestern Bank in a merger with First Union National Bank. The transaction was a harbinger of the mass bank consolidation that would take place in the next three decades. The next year, the firm took on representation of the town of Triana, Alabama, whose water had been polluted by the pesticide DDT. The firm eventually secured a recovery of $26 million, plus all annual healthcare costs for the injured townspeople.

In 2000, Kilpatrick Stockton successfully represented Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s family in a lawsuit over the CBS network's unauthorized use of the famous "I Have a Dream" speech. In 2001, the firm took on the defense of the Houghton Mifflin Company's parody The Wind Done Gone. In a precedent-setting case, the firm defeated a pre-publication restraining order from Margaret Mitchell's estate.

Also in 2001, the firm participated in a groundbreaking win in the case of Cobell v. Kempthorne.[1] Elouise Cobell brought a class-action suit on behalf of hundreds of thousands of plaintiffs alleging that the United States mismanaged funds held by it in trust for Native Americans. The plaintiffs prevailed in the first stage of the case, proving that the government mismanaged trust funds. The accounting portion of the case has not been resolved (as of July 2006).

In 2002, Kilpatrick Stockton partner Alfred P. Carlton, Jr. was named to a one-year term as President of the American Bar Association. In 2004, the firm opened its newest office, which is located in New York City. Also in 2004, the London office of the dissolving law firm of Altheimer & Gray joined Kilpatrick Stockton.

In late April 2009, in response to the economic downturn, Kilpatrick Stockton deferred the start dates of incoming first-year associates who had been given offers of employment from Fall 2009 to April 2010. As compensation, the firm offered a salary advance of $17,000, to be taken from the associates' pay in their first year at the firm. The compensation plan was significantly lower than what other firms offered similarly affected associates.[2] The following week, the firm announced layoffs of 24 associates and an unknown number of partners.[3]

Key people

Partners

Kilpatrick Stockton has approximately 240 partners,[4] including 79 lawyers who have been listed on The Best of the U.S. 2008 [5] and 71 who have been named in 'The Best Lawyers in America 2006.'[6] Among Kilpatrick Stockton's most notable partners are:

  • Miles J. Alexander is a co-chairman of Kilpatrick Stockton.[7]
    • Alexander was honored in 'The Best Lawyers in America 2006' for his prowess in the fields of Alternative Dispute Resolution, Antitrust Law, Corporate Law, and Intellectual Property Law.[8]
  • Rupert Barkoff was named one of the top 10 franchise law practitioners in the world by the International Who's Who of Business Lawyers for 2006.[9]
  • Joseph M. Beck is known for representing clients in high-profile cases.
    • Beck is lead counsel for Google in the Google Print case, and he has represented the family of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in intellectual property matters.
    • Beck also defended the musical group OutKast in 1999, when OutKast was sued by Rosa Parks over one of the group's most successful radio singles, which bore Parks' name as its title.[10]
    • In 2006, Beck was honored as one of 'The Best Lawyers in America' in the fields of Alternative Dispute Resolution, Entertainment Law, and Intellectual Property Law.[11]
  • William H. Brewster is Kilpatrick Stockton's managing partner,[12] and was named one of 'The Best Lawyers in America 2006' in the field of Intellectual Property Law.[13]
  • Keith Harper is one of the United States' leading Native American attorneys.[14] In 2008, the National Law Journal selected Keith as one of 50 "Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America."
    • Harper has been involved in the Cobell v. Kempthorne case since its inception. He first represented the plaintiffs while working at the Native American Rights Fund, before he joined Kilpatrick Stockton.[15]
    • Harper is a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma[16], and serves as an appellate judge on the highest court of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation.[17]
  • David M. Zacks is a past chairman of the American Cancer Society.[18]
    • Zacks was named one of 'The Best Lawyers in America 2006' in the fields of Alternative Dispute Resolution, Health Care Law, and Personal Injury Litigation.[19]

Prominent alumni

  • Allyson Duncan is the first African-American woman to sit on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.[20]
    • Judge Duncan's nomination to the court received unanimous Senate support.[21]
    • In 2003, Judge Duncan was elected President of the North Carolina Bar Association.[22]
    • Before joining the Fourth Circuit, Judge Duncan was a senior partner at Kilpatrick Stockton's Raleigh office, where she specialized in government relations and utility matters.[23]

High-profile clients

Practice areas

Kilpatrick Stockton is a "full-service" law firm,[24] which means that its attorneys work in essentially all areas of law. Its main practice areas are:

  • Construction & Public Contracts
  • Corporate & Business
    • Complex Commercial Transactions
    • Corporate Finance & Securities
    • Corporate Governance & Special Counsel
    • Customs & International Trade
    • Franchising
    • International Business
    • Investment Management
    • Licensing, Commercial Contracts
    • Mergers, Acquisitions, & Joint Ventures
    • Privacy
    • Restrictive Covenants
    • Securities Compliance
    • Special Committee Representation
    • Telecommunications
    • Transactional Tax Planning & Controversy
  • Employee Benefits
    • Equity Compensation
    • ERISA Litigation
    • Executive Compensation
    • Fiduciary Issues
    • Health & Welfare Plans
    • Privacy
    • Retirement Income Plans
    • RIFs & Severance Programs
    • Tax, Trusts & Estates
  • Environment, Energy & Land Use
  • Finance
    • Capital Markets
    • Corporate Lending
    • Financial Restructuring
    • Public Finance
    • Real Estate
    • Tax, Trusts & Estates
  • Government Relations
  • Intellectual Property
    • Copyright
    • Franchising
    • International Intellectual Property
    • Patent Litigation
    • Patents
    • Patents - Biotechnology & Chemical
    • Patents - Mechanical
    • Patents - Software & Electrical Engineering Systems
    • Piracy
    • Trade Secrets
    • Trademarks
  • Labor & Employment
    • Employment Litigation & Class Actions
    • International Employment Law
    • Labor Management Relations & Union Avoidance
    • Occupational Safety & Health Act
    • Wage & Hour Issues
  • Litigation
    • Antitrust & Trade Regulation
    • Appellate
    • Class Action Litigation
    • Complex Commercial Litigation
    • Consumer Product Safety
    • Employment Litigation & Class Actions
    • Insurance Coverage
    • International Dispute Resolution
    • Litigation & Dispute Resolution (UK)
    • Patent Litigation
    • Products Liability
    • Supreme Court
    • Toxic Torts
    • White Collar Crime

References