Slashdot Mirror
SCO's Lawyers Analyzed
byteCoder writes "Today's Wall Street Journal has an article (subscription required) which highlights the arrangement disclosed by this freely available SEC filing made between SCO and its law firm (run by lawyer David Boies) giving the law firm of Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP 20% of the proceeds from the settlement or of "a sale of SCO during the pendancy of litigation." (Search down for "Arrangement with Counsel".) Apparently, if SCO is taken over while litigation is pending, Mr. Boies' law firm could stand to earn 20% of yesterday's market cap of $247M = $49.4M plus the premium associated with the increase in stock price due to the takeover. Of course, if SCO is successful in getting any part of their requested $3Bn in damages from IBM, the payday to the lawyers would be much greater."
The reason its newsworthy is that contingency is usually had from any winnings in the court, the lawyers recokon up their chances, knowing their skillz, and decide its worth a try seeing as how good they think they are.
The SCOmbags have had to effectively pawn part of their company to the lawyers for several months to get them to do the work.
And if the company is bought out, the lawyers see their money regardless of the half-assed job they have done (see Groklaw).
SCO - SCO is evil
Lawyers - Lawyers are evil
Money - Money going to Lawyers funds evil
Or maybe it's all those solar flares are having effects on the editors? I don't know, I just post here...
To write a haiku - all you need is the correct - number of syli...
I think that parallel is the whole point. Most of the lawyers who work in that fashion are the type that advertise during daytime TV ("Have you been injured in an auto accident? On the job? Have you slipped and fallen in a Burger King? Then call XXXXXX. He gets you Justice!"). Not your most reputable lawyers.
Honestly, I used to have more respect for Boies. Law firms are allowed to turn down cases, and now his firm is just like all the other ambulance chasers. When you're working for a client whose net worth is miniscule compared to the extortion they're attempting, you don't find reputable companies.
And all that ignores the blatant pump-n-dump angle - if SCO settles for $1, Boies' firm gets the $50M for FUDding the stock up. Sound legit to you? Doesn't to me.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Except why on earth would IBM buy SCO unless they thought they were going to loose the case?
If IBM thought that the uncertainty about Linux from the lawsuit would cost them more in sales than the cost of buying out SCO, IBM would buy SCO in the short term to prevent those future losses.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
Quiet down people! This is not a particularly astonishing thing to have in such a contract. Boies's firm would frankly be nuts to take a case of this magnitude without some guarantee that if they are successful, but there is no judgement, that they will still get a payoff. This doesn't mean that the firm is motivated to encourage SCO getting bought out, since in fact that could quite possibly hurt them. What this really means is that the firm knows, like the rest of us, that SCO would jump at any buyout offer, and they're making sure they don't get completely screwed out of their contingency fee if it happens.
Don't take this as a sign that SCO has lots of friends in low places. Really all this means is that people who ought to know aren't confident that they'll be around much longer.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your