LAWYER OR LAWYER-ZOMBIE? . . . Seth Aronson, managing partner of O'Melveny & Myers' office in Los Angeles, had this to say about the speculation swirling around class-action securities lawyer Bill Lerach: "It won't be the first time that people have claimed Bill Lerach was dead. He still manages to bring lawsuits."

That's from an article in Business Week titled "Payback Time for Bill Lerach?" The article's sub-head goes like this: "The king of shareholder lawsuits against Silicon Valley firms may be caught up in a federal probe of allegedly improper payments to plaintiffs."

As the article points out, "there is no evidence that Lerach is a target of the case." Even if not, it would seem that Lerach's firm is clearly the unnamed law firm that's been implicated in an indictment of a man who served as lead plaintiff in many Lerach securities cases. 

The speculation has caused one of Lerach's opposing lawyers to say of him, "He's been an adversary, but I feel badly for a guy who has always been honest with me, and who is a good, strong advocate."