Last year, law firms chose to buckle down and manage their expenses instead of expanding their businesses with mergers and acquisitions, according to recently released data.

In 2009 there were 53 new law firm mergers and acquisitions in the U.S. That was down 24 percent over 2008’s total, according to a report from legal research firm Altman Weil MergerLine.

About 79 percent of 2009’s deals involved the acquisition of small law firms with 20 or fewer lawyers, per the report.

“This reflects law firms’ cautious approach last year, as most firms spent 2009 focused on internal issues of cost cutting, layoffs, and compensation adjustments in response to the Great Recession,” said Altman Weil principal Ward Bower, in a statement. “But we expect to see an uptick in 2010 as deals currently on hold pending 2009 year-end results are finalized.”

One of the big exceptions to that, which was cited in the report, involved Boston-based Bingham McCutchen, which acquired McKee Nelson, a 120-attorney firm, in August. Another big deal saw K&L Gates, which has a large presence in Boston, acquire Bell Boyd and Lloyd in January.

The biggest deal, per the report, was the merger of the U.K.’s Lovells LLP with Washington, D.C.-based Hogan & Hartson. When that deal is ultimately finalized in May of 2010, it will be the second largest law firm merger ever accomplished, forming a 2,500-lawyer firm, according to Altman Weil.

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A Houston lawyer will serve as a court-appointed ombudsman to monitor a venerable Texas company that has been cited for discriminating against black employees.

Tony P. Rosenstein, an employment lawyer with the Houston firm Baker Botts, will investigate complaints from Lufkin Industries employees and act to resolve them, according to an injunction issued Friday by U.S. District Judge Ron Clark of Beaumont.

The injunction is part of the resolution of a class-action lawsuit brought against the 107-year-old company by black workers 12 years ago.

Clark ruled last June that Lufkin Industries' more than 1,000 current and former black employees are due to divvy up back pay and interest of approximately $5.5 million. The judge awarded the damages as compensation for what he called the company's unlawful discrimination in awarding promotions.

Lufkin Industries, publicly traded since 1990, manufactures oil field equipment and industrial gearboxes. It employs about 1,200 in Lufkin, a city of 33,000 about 120 miles northeast of Houston, making it one of the area's largest employers.

Three real estate investors, two mortgage brokers and a disbarred attorney have been indicted for allegedly participating in a complex scheme to defraud homeowners and mortgage lenders in the Boston area, authorities announced Tuesday.

The six defendants are charged with larceny and making false or exaggerated statements.

State Attorney General Martha Coakley, who announced the indictments at a news conference, said the scheme netted more than $2 million in proceeds.

Those charged were: Joshua Brown, 29, of Brockton; Brian Frank, 32, of New Hartford, N.Y.; and John Sweetland, 28, of Yorba Linda, Calif., all identified as real estate investors. Mortgage brokers Linda Defeo, 28, of Springfield, and Brian Arrington, 39, of Boston, were also charged.

Former attorney Bruce Namenson, 47, of Walpole, was also charged. In unrelated cases, Namenson was disbarred in 2008 for converting clients' money for his own use and sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to motor vehicle insurance fraud.

Authorities allege that Brown, Frank and Sweetland, of Boston Equity Investments, used inflated property appraisals and other fraudulent documents to obtain approximately $12.5 million in loans from more than a dozen financial lending institutions to purchase 26 multifamily homes.

They allegedly arranged for the sellers to receive much less money for the sales than the maximum amount of financing that BEI was able to get from the lenders in the homebuyers' names. At closings, BEI would pocket the difference, which was usually between $50,000 and $100,000, and sometimes as much as $150,000, Coakley said.

A 16-year-old Southern California boy was charged Wednesday as an adult for allegedly starting two arson wildfires in San Bernardino County earlier this year.

Ricky Sean Lukacs will be arraigned in adult court on Dec. 28 and is being held in juvenile hall, said Deputy District Attorney Karen Khim.

He is charged with two counts of arson of an inhabited structure for fires on Aug. 30 and 31 in the Yucaipa area, 65 miles east of Los Angeles.

Lukacs was originally arrested and charged as a juvenile, but the charges were refiled in adult court, said Susan Mickey, district attorney spokeswoman.

The fires did not cause serious injury or death, but one burned about 1 1/2 square miles in the community of Oak Glen, and the other threatened about 400 homes in Yucaipa before it was contained.

A federal judge threw out the fraud conviction of Chicago's former streets and sanitation commissioner Tuesday and granted him a new trial on charges of illegally rewarding political campaign workers with city jobs.

Al Sanchez was convicted at the high profile trial based on testimony from a key witness whose arrest record and gang affiliations should have been disclosed beforehand to defense attorneys but were not, Judge Robert W. Gettleman said.

FBI agents based in Indiana also should have told prosecutors in Chicago that the witness, Brian Gabriel, was under investigation in a gang war between the Spanish Vice Lords and Latin Kings at the time of the trial, Gettleman said.

And the prosecutors could have learned of that investigation if they had performed a records search, Gettleman said in his 22-page opinion.

"Based on these findings, this court has lost confidence in the integrity of the verdict convicting these defendants," Gettleman said in his 22-page opinion.

Gettleman also ordered a new trial for a youthful former aide to Sanchez, Aaron Delvalle, who was convicted of one count of perjury at the March trial.

The trial attracted the spotlight because as streets and sanitation commissioner Sanchez headed a department that for decades was a major pool of patronage jobs for the once mighty Chicago Democratic Machine. That spotlight was intensified because in recent years the U.S. attorney's office has conducted a major investigation of hiring fraud at City Hall.