PR Newswire (04/12/13)

Corporate Resource Services Inc. has acquired Temploy Inc., headquartered in Tustin, CA. The transaction closed on March 11, and was announced by Generational Equity, a mergers and acquisitions advisor for privately held, middle-market businesses. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Wall Street Journal (04/15/13) Jennifer Smith

A recent case is putting a spotlight on the practice of law firms using temporary legal help and then billing their clients for that help at a steep markup. Lawyers for a group of plaintiffs who sued Citigroup want to bill the plaintiffs approximately $550 an hour for the temporary workers that mostly did routine legal work, when the law firm likely paid them no more than $60 to $75 an hour.

Law firms increasingly use contract lawyers to wade through the reams of paper generated during the discovery process. Some firms hire the contract lawyers directly and pay them $25 to $40 an hour, or through staffing firms that bill $50 to $80 an hour. The use of contract lawyers saves law firms a lot of money, but the savings aren’t necessarily passed on to the client. This practice is considered legal, so long as certain conditions are met.

Associated Press (04/15/13) Christopher Rugaber

Retail sales declined a seasonally adjusted 0.4% in March, the U.S. Department of Commerce reported, indicating that higher taxes and weak hiring likely made some consumers more cautious about spending. Excluding the volatile categories of autos, gas, and building materials, core sales dropped 0.2% in March. That followed a gain of 0.3% in February. The decline in March shows higher Social Security taxes are starting to affect consumers and could dampen growth in the spring. “The U.S. consumer looks a little less resilient,” says Michael Feroli, an economist at JPMorgan Chase. “It now appears that close to $200 billion in higher taxes may have actually had some impact on consumer spending.”