PR Newswire

HOUSTON, Oct. 2, 2014

HOUSTON, Oct. 2, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Acclaimed trial lawyer Mark Lanier and The Lanier Law Firm recently earned top honors from two of the nation's leading legal publications based on the firm's work for plaintiffs in a variety of cases.

Mr. Lanier is acclaimed as a "litigation star" and one of the nation's Top 100 Trial Lawyers in the Benchmark Litigation 2015 guide. The annual publication recognizes the country's leading lawyers based on a six-month research process that includes extensive interviews with other lawyers in private practice, in-house counsel and firm clients. This marks the third consecutive year that Benchmark Litigation has recognized Mr. Lanier for his courtroom expertise.

The Lanier Law Firm also earned recognition from The National Law Journal in the inaugural listing of "America's Elite Trial Lawyers," which includes the country's Top 50 law firms chosen for "big victories in complex cases that have a wide impact on the law and legal business."

In an accompanying profile, The National Law Journal highlighted the firm's $9 billion verdict earlier this year against Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. and Eli Lilly & Co. related to dangerous side effects caused by the prescription diabetes drug Actos. That case resulted in the nation's second-largest verdict of the year when a Louisiana jury found that Actos contributed to the bladder cancer suffered by the firm's client.

The legal journal quotes Mr. Lanier describing the firm's commitment to clients and "what it takes to truly understand the client's heart. You have to go all in and understand each emotion and thought, from every side," he says.

With offices in Houston, New York and Los Angeles, The Lanier Law Firm is committed to addressing client concerns with effective and innovative solutions in courtrooms across the country. The firm is composed of outstanding trial attorneys with decades of experience handling cases involving pharmaceutical liability, asbestos exposure, business litigation, product liability, maritime law, and sports and entertainment law. Visit http://www.lanierlawfirm.com.

For more information on the recent honors for Mr. Lanier and The Lanier Law Firm, please contact J.D. Cargill at 713-659-5200 or johnny.cargill@lanierlawfirm.com.

SOURCE The Lanier Law Firm

Chief Executive Marissa Mayer spent much of Tuesday's earnings call highlighting improvements in Yahoo's mobile business, the benefits from acquisitions and billions of dollars in buybacks.

"This team has now been in place for two years and we’ve achieved much more than many people realize," Mayer said. It was a vigorous defense of her tenure, which has come under fire from activist investor Starboard Value LP.

"I was surprised at the level of detail that she went into," said B. Riley & Co analyst Sameet Sinha.

Mayer never mentioned Starboard by name during an atypically long 80-minute conference call, but analysts said her comments were clearly aimed at parrying Starboard's recent attack and preventing the type of shareholder confrontations that have plagued Yahoo in the past.

"She needed to do this," Sinha said. "People were kind of losing hope," he added, noting a string of analyst downgrades to the company's stock in recent months.

While Mayer is not satisfied with shrinking online display advertising business and promised growth would return in the coming year, she said early results of Yahoo's comeback effort were being overlooked. She unleashed a blizzard of business metrics to prove her point.

To bolster her case, Mayer for the first time offered a peek at Yahoo's mobile business. Mobile revenues exceeded $200 million in the third quarter and she said gross mobile revenue for the year should surpass $1.2 billion.

Tumblr, the social media site that Yahoo acquired for $1.1 billion in 2013, is on track to generate $100 million in revenue in 2015, Yahoo said.

Starboard has blasted Yahoo for wasting money on such acquisitions. But Yahoo noted that the $1.6 billion spent on acquisitions during the past two years was dwarfed by the $7.7 billion it has returned to shareholders during the same period.

Yahoo is a web pioneer, but its revenue growth has persistently lagged rivals such as Google Inc and Facebook Inc. Its revenue in the third quarter is roughly 5 percent lower than it was two years ago, shortly after Mayer took over.

Starboard said last month it had acquired a significant stake in Yahoo and urged the company to cut costs, consider a merger with AOL Inc and quickly "monetize" the Asian assets, which exceed the value of Yahoo's actual business.

Its stake in Alibaba Group Holding Inc remains one of the key areas of investor interest, said JMP Securities analyst Ronald Josey.

But he said that the 80 percent growth that Yahoo said its mobile, video and native ad formats delivered in aggregate during the third quarter was encouraging.

"They are transitioning the business to the modern era," Josey said.

London, United Kingdom

By Toby Melville

As a Reuters Photographer based in London, an average commute to my first assignment of the day – normally covering either a political or business story in the city centre – would take roughly an hour. That’s 60 minutes, to drive all of 8 miles.

These commutes take place in the morning rush hour, when I find myself bumper-to-bumper with thousands of other short-tempered drivers, cyclists, pedestrians, buses and taxis. And I do this journey while trying to get to my first job, usually in a state of tension and anxiety…

But for two weeks a year it is different. Completely different. Commuting is fantastic.

We are in Wimbledon season and I am shooting tennis all day, every day for a fortnight at the height of the (surprisingly dry and sunny!) British summer. And actually, the journey to and from the tennis is just as good as the assignment.

Wimbledon, like the centre of London, is still 8 miles from my home. But now, heading out at 8 in the morning and back again at 9 at night I can take a route through beautiful countryside and along peaceful towpaths, tracks and trails.

I travel along 2 miles of riverside then through 6 miles of parkland, either on a push bike or running: my two favourite recreational pursuits.

No petrol, no car, no traffic, and no traffic jams. Instead, I can hear water, bird song and wind through the long grass and trees.

The sights include herds of deer grazing, herons fishing, swans, geese, foxes and squirrels. Fabulous.

Add an on-site shower at Wimbledon in the press area, a canteen serving Italian coffee as strong as rocket-fuel and lockers to keep all our cameras overnight and the ‘job’s a good un’ as they say!

The pictures in this blog are all shot between my house and Wimbledon. I took them on my compact camera: the lightest way to run whilst still being able to shoot.

Here, a sign points the way by the Thames towpath.

Boats are left moored by the riverside.

Houseboats float by the bank.

Wimbledon Common windmill stands next to the trail. Almost at Wimbledon tennis now…

And I’ve arrived! Staff open gates to the Wimbledon Tennis Championships.