Nonprofit sues Reed Smith

The Bair Foundation, a nonprofit foster care agency based in Lawrence County, has filed a lawsuit accusing Pittsburgh law firm Reed Smith of overcharging it. Bair said it retained Reed Smith in an employment discrimination case for which it expected to pay legal fees of $50,000. The law firm failed to advise the foundation about the cost of settling the case, which it ultimately lost, and charged Bair nearly $1 million in fees, the foundation alleged. Reed Smith's attorney, Bill Pietragallo, said Bair's insurance "paid most of the legal fees without question or complaint" and that the law firm "will prevail" when the truth surfaces.

Overtime pay for designers

A Strip District engineering firm will pay $48,254 to 35 designers after a U.S. Department of Labor investigation revealed overtime violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act. According to the Labor Department, from September 2005 to September 2007 S/D Engineers Inc. paid designers straight time for hours worked beyond the 40-hour workweek. The company is a designer of equipment and machinery.

AT&T hangs up on pay phones

AT&T Inc. will exit the rapidly shrinking pay phone business by the end of next year, before it becomes unprofitable, the company said yesterday. AT&T will sell 65,000 pay phones, in prisons and in public places, within its original 13-state area before the end of 2008, said spokesman Michael Coe. The pool of pay phones nationwide has shrunk from 2.6 million to 1 million in the past decade. BellSouth Corp., which AT&T acquired at the end of 2006, already exited the business, as has Qwest Communications International Inc.

Health clinics switch stores

Seven Take Care Health Clinics in the Pittsburgh area have relocated to Walgreens drugstores from Rite Aid stores. The clinics, which are open seven days a week, are in Walgreens stores in Mars, Pleasant Hills, New Kensington, Penn Hills, Oakmont, Crafton and Rochester.

Also in business ...

Helen Pomerantz Pudlin, senior vice president and general counsel, PNC Financial Services Group, was named to the 2008 DirectWomen Board Institute, a workshop to support placing female lawyers on corporate boards ... The Girls, Math & Science Partnership, a program of Carnegie Science Center, is the recipient of a $100,000 Innovation Generation grant from the Motorola Foundation. The partnership aims to encourage girls in the sciences and technology ... JetBlue Airways said travelers now can book flights on three online travel sites: Orbitz, CheapTickets and Priceline.