With more than 100 million documents in use at offices as far-flung as Shanghai and San Francisco, the law firm Paul Hastings needed a way to store those documents securely, since much of it included privileged data for clients such as Facebook, MetroPCS and Samsung.

FORBES: Client Privilege Drives IT Consolidation

The law firm is the top legal adviser on deals so far this year.

FORBES: Year Of The Deal

Picower is the biggest catch, by far, for Picard, a partner at Baker Hostetler, the law firm he hired to assist him.

FORBES: Magazine Article

Mr Lazar is far from the only person to have served repeatedly as plaintiff in class-action shareholder litigation orchestrated by an aggressive law firm.

ECONOMIST: Class-action lawsuits

In America, says Chris Bright of Clifford Chance, a law firm based in London, price-fixers face two other worries that their British counterparts have so far been spared.

ECONOMIST: Competition policy