The Salt Lake Tribune is reporting that Lance Starr says he and other immigration attorneys in Utah had heard complaints about The Alcala Law Firm but didn't have evidence until recently of any possible illegalities in how it handled cases.

But then two former employees of the Glendale firm asked him last year to review their applications to legalize their presence in the United States, which had been prepared by principle attorney James Hector Alcala but rejected by the government. Starr spotted what appeared to be forged letters verifying that one of them had worked for Mexican employers.

The American Fork attorney -- who had worked for the Alcala firm for less than a year beginning in 2006 and now has his own practice -- knew his former colleague had been living in Utah during the time he supposedly worked in Mexico. Starr felt ethically obligated to report his suspicions to the US Attorney's Office.

The evidence likely was included in a federal investigation that resulted in an indictment unsealed Tuesday against Alcala, his law firm, seven current or former employees and a property management company.

According to The American Lawyer, three firms have landed key advisory roles on one of the most significant non-M&A commercial transactions in recent months: the 10-year Internet search deal announced on Wednesday between Microsoft and Yahoo that seeks to scuttle Google's market dominance.

Under the terms of the deal, Yahoo will use and promote Microsoft's new Bing search engine on its site. Yahoo will also keep 88 percent of revenue from all search ad sales for the first five years and have the right to sell ads on select Microsoft sites.

While the lack of an up-front payment by Microsoft caused shares of Yahoo to sink early Wednesday, the deal is a clear shot across the bow of Google, the dominant force in online search and advertising.

Yahoo turned to a team of lawyers from Skadden, Arps, Slate & Flom and Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton for the agreement with Microsoft.

The JD Journal reports that Florida’s Holland & Knight is cutting salaries for associates and senior counsel. The firm says the cuts average 7% across all those effected; 10% for associates.

This salary reductions are effective immediately.

Holland & Knight is reviewing its associate compensation scheme, and intends to implement changes next year.

Holland & Knight cut 70 lawyers and 173 support staff positions in February.

Holland & Knight is a law firm with more than 1,150 lawyers in 23 US offices. Foreign offices include Beijing, China, and Mexico City, Mexico, with representative offices in Caracas, Venezuela, and TelAviv, Israel.

According to the Fulton County Daily Report, Morris, Manning & Martin has joined the growing ranks of Atlanta-based firms cutting associate pay. The firm announced Friday that, effective Aug. 1, pay in the real estate, lending and tax groups will drop by 15 percent and pay for other associates will drop by 10 percent, according to its managing partner, Robert E. Saudek. Bonuses are not affected.

Saudek said a decline in legal work plus the readjustment of the associate salary market prompted the cuts. "Clients are not generating as much legal work, particularly in the real estate and corporate areas, as they do most years," he said in a voice mail. "Billable rates are receiving a lot of pressure, and billable hours are not as high as in prior years."

Saudek added that the market salary for associates is resetting at lower rates. He noted starting salaries increased 45 percent between 2005 and 2008, but now are declining by about 10 percent. "We feel we need to be with the market, but not above it," he said.

Starting pay at Atlanta's big firms jumped to $145,000 at the beginning of 2008. That has been followed by waves of layoffs this year.

Morris Manning has 156 lawyers, with 55 associates, according to the Martindale-Hubbell Web site.

According to The National Law Journal, a federal judge on Friday revived the discrimination suit filed by former Covington & Burling staff attorney Yolanda Young against her old firm. Last we reported, Judge Reggie Walton of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia had dismissed the case after Young and her attorney, Latif Doman of Doman Davis, failed to show up in court.

Young asked the judge to reconsider, saying that Doman had simply written down the wrong time for the conference on his calendar. She pointed out that although the judge had dismissed the case without prejudice, more than 90 days had passed since she received a right-to-sue notice from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Therefore, she would not be able to file another claim under Title VII or the D.C. Human Rights Act. That was far too harsh a penalty for a small oversight, Young contended.

Walton seems to have agreed. The case is back on, with the next status conference scheduled for Dec. 18.

Young, for those who don't recall, is the writer who after leaving Covington, published a long essay on the Huffington Post comparing conditions at her erstwhile employer to the Jim Crow South.

The Business Review reports that the Attorney General’s office has filed a lawsuit against 35 law firms and two debt collectors as the latest stage in an ongoing process of legal action.

The lawsuit alleges that the firms did not properly notify people that they were defendants in a lawsuit. As a result, the complaint states, they were unable to appear in court on their own behalf, and the cases often resulted in default judgments against those identified as debtors.

According to the suit, the listed firms and debt collectors hired a process server, American Legal Process, to provide notification to defendants. However, the lawsuit alleges that the server failed to do so — a tactic known as “sewer service.” Instead of serving the defendants, the complaint claims American Legal Process (ALP) falsified documents, certifying that the people had been notified.

“ALP’s scheme undermined the foundation of this (legal) system and denied thousands of individuals their day in court,” New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said.

The lawsuit is an attempt to throw out the default judgments made when defendants failed to show up in court, and to return the money lost by those defendants, Cuomo said.