Fahringer, who is known for defending Hustler publisher Larry Flynt, pornographers, sex shops and porn theaters over the decades, recently drew the ire of a federal judge for not disclosing scheduling conflicts regarding two criminal cases of his that are set to go to trial this fall. (For a 1996 NYT profile of Fahringer (Buffalo Law, ‘56), click here.)

According to a six-page order by Manhattan’s U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan, Fahringer took over a case in Sullivan’s court in May of this year, knowing that the trial was firmly set for early September and how much pre-trial preparation would be required. (That case, involving the prosecution of Alberto Vilar, a once prominent art buyer who ran a money-management firm that collapsed in 2005, was the subject of a WSJ Page One story.)

Sullivan said Fahringer assured the court that he was familiar with an order stating that the trial would last about seven weeks. But Fahringer didn’t tell the judge he had another trial set to begin in early October, less than four weeks after the Vilar trial was supposed to begin. Sullivan said he would not have let Fahringer into the Vilar case if he had known that.

Fahringer later asked for an adjournment in the Vilar case until November, saying he needed more time to prepare, though he still didn’t tell the court about the October trial, Sullivan wrote. Three weeks ago, Sullivan grudgingly granted the adjounment–but pushed the trial to late September, less than two weeks before Fahringer’s other trial was about to start.

In a hearing last week before the judge handling that other case, Fahringer, in explaining the scheduling conflict, said that when he took over the Vilar case, he anticipated that trial would take only four weeks. Fahringer had “no reasonable basis” to say that, other than his “apparent desire to explain away his mishandling of the trial schedule,” Sullivan wrote. “It appears to this Court that Mr. Fahringer made a significant gamble, which he has now lost, in hoping that” Sullivan would grant a longer adjournment without knowing about the other trial.

Reached by phone this afternoon, Fahringer said he was disappointed about the judge’s order but didn’t think it was appropriate to comment. A status hearing is set for tomorrow.

A loyal LB reader has alerted us to a recent argument before the the Washington, D.C.-based Federal Circuit in which Delbert J. Barnard, of Barnard Intellectual Property Law in Seattle, pushed the envelope a bit further than our old friend Zier. At oral argument in Brady Construction v. Perfect Wall, Barnard appeared before a three-judge panel without a tie.

Judge Randall Rader called him out: “Next time wear a tie,” Judge Rader instructed Barnard. “This is the Federal Circuit.”

We called up Barnard (pictured) in Seattle, and he graciously provided some context. “I had popped a collar button on my one and only dress shirt,” explained Barnard. “I put it on, and put the tie on to see if it could lay flat even though the collar wouldn’t stay down, and it wouldn’t. I thought to myself, out here on the West Coast a lot of people will wear a suit with a turtleneck. I had a dark polo shirt. So I wore that.”

He continued: “Judge Rader was very polite about it, but I was kind of surprised that he’d make that comment. I didn’t think I should take the time to explain what had happened. I’d come all the way across the United States to go to the hearing.”

We asked Barnard to expand a bit on this divergence between West and East Coast courtroom styles. He said simply: “Well, you don’t have to wear a powdered wig or anything. But it is the Federal Circuit.”

In any event, Judge Rader wasn’t too upset about Barnard’s lack of a tie. The panel unanimously affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of his client.

Here are the highlights:

Too many lawyers: “Because law firms continued to add lawyers to their ranks despite the drop-off in demand,” writes DiPietro, “firms experienced a slowdown in productivity comparable to the second quarter of 2001 and lower than every other second quarter between then and now.”

Unproductive lawyers beware: Among other things, DiPietro advises firms to “consider sending a tough message to unproductive lawyers at every level,” and to “conduct a systematic expense review to eliminate redundant or nonessential support staff and functions.” As for hiring in a soft economy, he writes: “[I]t’s particularly important to vet candidates to differentiate between laterals who are looking to move because they’re not happy and those who are looking to move because their firms are not happy.”

Associate bonuses (a/k/a “the elephant in the room”): DiPietro is paring back earlier estimates for 2008 profits-per-equity-partner. “[W]e now believe PPEP will be flat, or even down by as much as 10%, in 2008,” he writes. “The top-tier firms will have an even tougher year, with profits down by 5–15%. Our reason for providing a range is that there is an elephant in the room: How will firms, particularly the top-tier firms, handle associate bonuses this year? The rational approach would be to pare them back, but, while lawyers display rationality and dispassion in the practice of law, they have exhibited ‘irrational exuberance’ on this issue in the past.”

Most profitable firms hit hardest: Demand drop-off and expenses were accelerated at a more rapid pace at the top firms, writes DiPietro. He explains that top-tier firms tend to rely on high-end private equity deals, securitization, and structured finance, and have more financial service clients. Now, with those markets in decline, top-tier firms “are paying the price,” and the practices that firms typically rely on in a downturn, such as restructuring, bankruptcy, and litigation, haven’t helped “cushion the drop-off in transactional work.”

A silver lining? “A bad year (and the numbers suggest 2008 will be even more trying than 2001, when partner profits were down slightly),” writes DiPietro, “will enable firms to take steps that partners would resist in a good year–winnowing out unproductive lawyers and applying greater discipline to expense control.”

It’s the legal end for Ray Manzarek and Robbie Krieger. The California Supreme Court has denied a petition to review a lower court’s decision that Manzarek and Krieger — the keyboardist and guitarist, respectively, of The Doors — be enjoined from performing, touring, promoting their band and otherwise holding themselves out to be The Doors, The Doors of the 21st Century or any other name that includes the words The Doors without the written consent of all partners of the Doors partnership. Here’s the PR Newswire report.

Members of The Doors. From left: John Densmore, Robbie Krieger, Ray Manzarek and Jim Morrison. (AP Photo)

The court also permanently enjoined Manzarek and Krieger from using the name, likeness, voice or image of Jim Morrison to promote their band or their concerts, and ordered that Manzarek and Krieger return all profits earned by them to the rightful owner of The Doors name, a partnership composed of the three surviving band members and the successors to Jim Morrison, all of who were determined to be partners with a veto right in partnership matters.

The plaintiffs in the litigation were the band’s drummer John Densmore, the third surviving member of The Doors, and the Estates of Jim Morrison and Pam Courson, who was married to Morrison at the time of his death, at age 27, in a Paris apartment. Manzarek and Krieger are each 25 percent partners in The Doors partnership and will therefore share in the profits they’re required to disgorge to the partnership.

The lawyer for Densmore and the Coursons, Jerome Mandel of Mandel, Norwood & Grant, said: “This dispute was about protecting the integrity and legacy of what The Doors stood for . . .All decisions involving the group had to be unanimous, especially when it came to any actions that were inconsistent with Jim Morrison’s strong stand against the commercialism of their name.”

Jeffrey Forer, of Hinojosa & Wallet, repped the Morrison Estate at the trial. On appeal, Forer was joined by Louis A. Reisman and Blake Rummel of Weinstock, Manion, Reisman, Shore & Neumann. (Reisman is the general counsel for the Morrison family.) The defendants were repped by Lavely & Singer.

Quinn Emanuel’s John Quinn, repping Mattel, wasn’t shy. He asked the jury for $2 billion for stealing the conceptual drawings of the Bratz doll — at least $1 billion in Bratz profit and interest, and another nearly $800 million for the complicity of MGA’s CEO, Isaac Larian. Click here for a report on the closings from the L.A. Times.

Quinn reportedly said MGA had never had a hit toy and had lost more than $6 million in 2000, the year before the Bratz dolls and their midriff-baring outfits came on the market — the implication being that the Bratz line has accounted for MGA’s success ever since.

“In history, there have only been two successful fashion dolls — Barbie and Bratz — and Mr. Larian and Mr. Bryant stole one of those,” said Quinn, in the latter case referring to Bratz designer Carter Bryant who previously worked for Mattel. “The numbers are what they are . . . and the law says when you profit by taking someone else’s confidential information, you have to give it back.”

MGA’s attorney, Skadden’s Tom Nolan, reportedly told jurors to make the distinction between the concept drawings and the final toys on store shelves. MGA made crucial decisions about the Bratz look that weren’t included in Bryant’s specs, he said. “The evidence is uncontroverted that the drawings portray older, edgier, sexier dolls,” he said. “The eyebrows were way too aggressive, the lips way too pronounced, the face way too harsh. What [MGA] made is a prettier doll that could compete.”

But between the original verdict and the appeal, the following bizarre events unfolded: The Herald’s publisher, Patrick Purcell, received two letters from Murphy, written on the court’s letterhead, demanding payment of $3.26 million and telling Purcell that the Herald had little chance of winning on appeal. Murphy’s first letter warned Purcell that it would be “a BIG mistake” to show the letter to anyone. Murphy’s second letter said Purcell had “ZERO” chance of winning an appeal.

Murphy won the libel battle, walking away with $3.4 million, but the letters cost him his seat on the bench. The Boston Globe reports that, in a three-page order released yesterday, the Supreme Judicial Court wrote that it has accepted an agreement between Murphy and the state Commission on Judicial Conduct that says he’s “permanently disabled from performing his judicial duties” and will no longer sit as a state judge.

Murphy’s lawyer, Michael E. Mone, declined to comment. But, in an interview with the Globe last year he said the judge had “significant physical and mental problems and significant post-traumatic [stress] disorder,” though he declined to elaborate on the source of the trauma.

According to the WaPo, Stevens’ lawyer, Brendan Sullivan, the Williams & Connolly big wig who’s also repping former Bear fund manager Ralph Cioffi, said at the hearing yesterday: “It’s all about Alaska. It all happened in Alaska.” In court documents and at the hearing, Sullivan (Georgetown, Georgetown law) argued that a trial in Alaska would be more fair to Stevens and less of a burden on witnesses and the court. Sullivan & Co. noted that most of the allegations in the indictment focus on renovations to Stevens’s house in Girdwood, Alaska.

But U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan said pictures of the house would suffice. He sided with Justice Department lawyers in ruling that moving the trial to a federal court in Alaska would cause unneeded “delay and additional expense.” The DOJ lawyers argued that many of the events cited in the indictment, including the filing of the financial disclosure statements, occurred in Washington. Stevens has a home here, they said, which will reduce the difficulty he will face standing trial.

The real issue seems to be Stevens’ re-election bid in November. At 84 years-old, he’s repped Alaska in the Senate for 40 years, making him the longest-serving Republican senator ever, and he’d like to keep the streak going. A trial in Alaska would make it easier for Stevens to conduct his trial by day, and his campaign for reelection by night. Judge Sullivan said he’d consider holding court only four days a week so that Stevens could return to Alaska on the weekends. Tough commute.

Today, in the face of the plaintiffs’ free speech claims, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a grant of summary judgment in favor of the school. Here’s the opinion.

Explaining the rationale for the ban, the court cites the testimony of a Tennessee school director who said that racial tensions at the school comprised the context for the clothing ban. “Relevant incidents,” writes the court, “included racist graffiti that made general threats against the lives of African-Americans, graffiti containing ‘hit lists’ of specific students’ names, physical altercations between African-American and white students, and a police lockdown at the school.” Of the approximately 1,750 students attending William Blount, less than ten percent are African-American.

In its opinion, the Sixth Circuit distinguished this case from Tinker v. Des Moines Ind. Comm School, the landmark First Amendment case that struck down a school ban on armbands to protest the Vietnam War.

In Tinker there were no facts in the record that would ‘reasonably have led school authorities to forecast substantial disruption of or material interference with school activities, and no disturbances or disorders on the school premises in fact occurred’ as a result of students wearing black armbands in protest of the Vietnam War. The facts in this case, however, even when viewed in a light most favorable to Plaintiffs-Appellants, indicate that school officials could reasonably forecast that permitting students to wear clothing depicting the Confederate flag would cause disruptions to the school environment.

Harvey Pitt, the 26th chairman of the SEC, has been named deputy attorney general of Alabama, Investment News reports.

Why is this graduate of Manhattan’s Stuyvesant High School, Brooklyn College and St. John’s law school going to Alabama? According to Investment news, he’ll assist the state in its investigation of naked short selling.

“He will be coming in [to Alabama] on a regular basis,” said Joseph Borg, director of the Alabama Securities Commission in Montgomery. “I went to our [attorney general] and said, ‘I want Harvey; he knows his stuff.’”

Pitt will continue to serve as chief executive of Kalorama Partners, a Washington consulting firm.

The plaintiff, American Needle Inc., had argued that because each of the NFL’s 32 teams owns its logo and trademarks, the exclusive license to Reebok was, in Hallman’s words, “a conspiracy to restrict other vendors’ ability to obtain licenses for the teams’ intellectual property.” In 2007, a federal judge in Illinois granted summary judgment for the NFL. The ruling was upheld on Monday be the appellate panel, which ruled that, at least for marketing purposes, the league could be regarded as a single entity rather than a collection of separate franchises.

Still, the court noted the limits to its ruling. “We have yet to render a definitive opinion as to whether the teams of a professional sports league can be considered a single entity. . . . in some contexts, a league seems more aptly described as a single entity immune from antitrust scrutiny, while in others a league appears to be a joint venture between independently owned teams that is subject to review.”

LB YouTube Videos of the Day: In our excitement over the start of another season, we took a stroll down memory lane yesterday with LB colleague Nathan Koppel about the Houston Oilers of the late 1970s. Bum Phillips. Dante “Dan” Pastorini. And the song. You had to love the song. But for all those kids who think the world ain’t seen nothing as good as LaDainian Tomlinson, check out this video compilation of Earl Campbell, running during his prime.

Photo: Getty Images