Chinese Imports and Exports Soar in January

HONG KONG — January trade data from China on Friday showed a surge in exports and imports from the levels of a year earlier — a phenomenon largely due to the timing of the Lunar New Year holiday but also supporting the view that the Chinese economy is firming up.

Economic data from China are often severely distorted by the holiday, when many factories shut down for a week or more.

The holiday this year takes place in February — the first day of the Lunar New Year is Sunday. Last year it fell squarely in January, cutting down on the number of working days during that month.

The trade data released Friday reflected this with a large increase, compared with the year before, as analysts had expected. Exports climbed 25 percent from January 2012, according to the General Administration of Customs, and imports rose 28.8 percent.

The increases were much lower when adjusted for the holiday-induced differences in the number of working days, with exports up 12.4 percent and imports just 3.4 percent higher.

Still, the data beat expectations by a wide margin, supporting the view that healthier domestic and overseas demand also had been significant.

“This strong export number cannot be fully explained by the Chinese New Year effect alone,” Zhiwei Zhang, chief China economist at Nomura in Hong Kong, said in a research note. “These data suggest that external and domestic demand are both strong, which supports our view that the economy is on track for a cyclical recovery” in the first half of this year, he added.

Dariusz Kowalczyk, an economist at Crédit Agricole in Hong Kong, said, “We need to wait for February results to have the full picture of trade at the start of 2013.” However, he added, “one trend is clear: exports have been doing very well recently. This may be a sign of improved external demand but is also a testimony to the resilience of Chinese exporters and to their competitiveness.”

Improved overseas demand and a string of government-mandated stimulus measures have gradually propped up growth and dispelled fears of a hard landing in China. While the Chinese economy expanded just 7.8 percent last year — down from 9.3 percent in 2011 and 10.4 percent in 2010 — many analysts expect growth to top 8 percent again in 2013.

Central bank data Friday that showed ample money had continued to flood into the economy also supported this view. Banks extended 1.07 trillion renminbi, or $172 billion, in new loans during January, more than analysts had expected. Total “social financing aggregate” in the economy, a broad measure of liquidity, or the ease of trading assets, more than doubled from a year earlier, to 2.54 trillion renminbi.

That figure, Mr. Kowalczyk commented, was a “blowout number.”

Like other data released Friday, the financing figure was lifted by the Lunar New Year effects, but even without these, Mr. Kowalczyk said, it was a “huge amount of funding” and would sustain solid economic growth in the near term at least.

Longer term, he cautioned, it would also “stoke inflationary pressures,” and could lead the central bank to tighten monetary policy further down the line as it seeks to stave off inflationary pressures.

For now, inflation remains benign. Consumer prices rose just 2 percent in January from a year earlier, a moderation from the 2.5 percent year-on-year increase in December. The low inflation number, released Friday, was in line with forecasts, but analysts widely expect a rebound in February.

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European Central Bank Leaves Interest Rate Unchanged

FRANKFURT — The European Central Bank left its main interest rate unchanged at its current record low Thursday, as expected, amid signs that the euro zone economy could be crawling out of recession.

The E.C.B. left its main rate at 0.75 percent, where it has been since July. Recent surveys of business sentiment have raised expectations that the euro zone could be slowly recovering, although there is also concern that the rising value of the euro against the dollar could undercut the fragile gains.

Recent data have supported the E.C.B. view that the euro zone will emerge from recession later this year. New orders to German industry rose 0.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012.

But the recovery is threatened by the rising value of the common currency, which could hurt exports by making euro zone products more expensive for foreign buyers. In recent weeks, the euro has risen substantially against the dollar, to the highest levels in a year.

Few analysts had expected the E.C.B. to shift its monetary policy Thursday. Some predict that the benchmark rate could stay at its present level for an extended period as the euro zone slowly returns to growth.

“We expect interest rates to be on hold at 0.75 percent until 2017 and only significant changes in the economic environment would trigger a change one way or the other,” Marie Diron, senior economic adviser to the consulting firm Ernst & Young, said in an e-mail before the decision.

Although there was no change in rates, the E.C.B. news conference later Thursday afternoon could prove eventful. Mario Draghi, the E.C.B. president, is likely to face questions about whether the bank will respond to the appreciation of the euro, which was up again midday Thursday, to nearly $1.36. Back in July it was trading just above $1.21.

A stronger euro means that products ranging from cars to wine become more expensive abroad, putting European producers at a disadvantage to foreign competitors.

Analysts do not expect Mr. Draghi to take steps to devalue the euro, but he could remind his counterparts at other central banks outside the euro zone of their promise not to start a currency war. If the value of one currency goes up, another currency must come down, making exchange-rate manipulation by central banks a zero-sum game that economists believe is counterproductive.

Mr. Draghi is also likely to face numerous questions about problems at the Italian bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena, which has required a €3.9 billion bailout by the Italian government. Mr. Draghi was governor of the Bank of Italy, responsible for bank supervision, during the period when Monte dei Paschi was getting in trouble several years ago.

Mr. Draghi’s supporters have pointed out that there was a deliberate attempt by that bank’s previous management to conceal the extent of their losses, and that the Bank of Italy did not have the authority to prevent Monte dei Paschi managers from making foolish decisions. Part of the bank’s problems stem from its acquisition of regional bank Antonveneta in 2008 for €9 billion, a price considered much too high even at the time.

But at the very least, the case of Monte dei Paschi has illustrated the limits of bank supervision, and called into question whether the E.C.B. will be able to do a better job than national supervisors when it begins assuming supreme regulatory authority over banks in the course of this year.

The problems at Monti dei Paschi bank have also been exploited by Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister of Italy, as he attempts a comeback in elections at the end of this month. Mr. Berlusconi has run a populist campaign promising to undo some of the economic changes made by his successor, Mario Monti.

Italian politics aside, international investors are concerned about the new jitters the debacle could create in euro zone bond markets, which have calmed considerably lately.

“A government may well be formed on a platform that rejects some, if not most, of the Monti government’s fiscal reforms,” Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, New York, wrote in a note to clients Wednesday. “As uncertainty grows, the bond markets are becoming increasingly unsettled.”

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Selena Gomez works the front row at Neo show

NEW YORK (AP) — Selena Gomez sat front and center at the fashion show to preview the first collection in her collaboration with Adidas' streetwear Neo label.

But the runway at Wednesday evening's show was a next-gen catwalk: Teenager bloggers were charged with styling the outfits instead of industry professionals.

Gomez thanked them as she stood on stage at the end of the show. She was flanked by models in denim shorts, Bermudas, slouchy sweats and T-shirts that read "Pirate Love." There were a few graffiti prints sprinkled in, and some varsity jackets.

The clothes, mostly in sunny yellow, bright pink and navy, were more surf than sport, which is Adidas' normal niche.

The show was very briefly interrupted by a protester trying to hand out leaflets about sweatshops.

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Well: Think Like a Doctor: A Confused and Terrified Patient

The Challenge: Can you solve the mystery of a middle-aged man recovering from a serious illness who suddenly becomes frightened and confused?

Every month the Diagnosis column of The New York Times Magazine asks Well readers to sift through a difficult case and solve a diagnostic riddle. Below you will find a summary of a case involving a 55-year-old man well on his way to recovering from a series of illnesses when he suddenly becomes confused and paranoid. I will provide you with the main medical notes, labs and imaging results available to the doctor who made the diagnosis.

The first reader to figure out this case will get a signed copy of my book, “Every Patient Tells a Story,” along with the satisfaction of knowing you solved a case of Sherlockian complexity. Good luck.

The Presenting Problem:

A 55-year-old man who is recovering from a devastating injury in a rehabilitation facility suddenly becomes confused, frightened and paranoid.

The Patient’s Story:

The patient, who was recovering from a terrible injury and was too weak to walk, had been found on the floor of his room at the extended care facility, raving that there were people out to get him. He was taken to the emergency room at the Waterbury Hospital in Connecticut, where he was diagnosed with a urinary tract infection and admitted to the hospital for treatment. Doctors thought his delirium was caused by the infection, but after 24 hours, despite receiving the appropriate antibiotics, the patient remained disoriented and frightened.

A Sister’s Visit:

The man’s sister came to visit him on his second day in the hospital. As she walked into the room she was immediately struck by her brother’s distress.

“Get me out of here!” the man shouted from his hospital bed. “They are coming to get me. I gotta get out of here!”

His blue eyes darted from side to side as if searching for his would-be attackers. His arms and legs shook with fear. He looked terrified.

For the past few months, the man had been in and out of the hospital, but he had been getting better — at least he had been improving the last time his sister saw him, the week before. She hurried into the bustling hallway and found a nurse. “What the hell is going on with my brother?” she demanded.

A Long Series of Illnesses:

Three months earlier, the patient had been admitted to that same hospital with delirium tremens. After years of alcohol abuse, he had suddenly stopped drinking a couple of days before, and his body was wracked by the sudden loss of the chemical he had become addicted to. He’d spent an entire week in the hospital but finally recovered. He was sent home, but he didn’t stay there for long.

The following week, when his sister hadn’t heard from him for a couple of days, she forced her way into his home. There she found him, unconscious, in the basement, at the bottom of his staircase. He had fallen, and it looked as if he may have been there for two, possibly three, days. He was close to death. Indeed, in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, his heart had stopped. Rapid action by the E.M.T.’s brought his heart back to life, and he made it to the hospital.

There the extent of the damage became clear. The man’s kidneys had stopped working, and his body chemistry was completely out of whack. He had a severe concussion. And he’d had a heart attack.

He remained in the intensive care unit for nearly three weeks, and in the hospital another two weeks. Even after these weeks of care and recovery, the toll of his injury was terrible. His kidneys were not working, so he required dialysis three times a week. He had needed a machine to help him breathe for so long that he now had to get oxygen through a hole that had been cut into his throat. His arms and legs were so weak that he could not even lift them, and because he was unable even to swallow, he had to be fed through a tube that went directly into his stomach.

Finally, after five weeks in the hospital, he was well enough to be moved to a short-term rehabilitation hospital to complete the long road to recovery. But he was still far from healthy. The laughing, swaggering, Harley-riding man his sister had known until that terrible fall seemed a distant memory, though she saw that he was slowly getting better. He had even started to smile and make jokes. He was confident, he had told her, that with a lot of hard work he could get back to normal. So was she; she knew he was tough.

Back to the Hospital:

The patient had been at the rehab facility for just over two weeks when the staff noticed a sudden change in him. He had stopped smiling and was no longer making jokes. Instead, he talked about people that no one else could see. And he was worried that they wanted to harm him. When he remained confused for a second day, they sent him to the emergency room.

You can see the records from that E.R. visit here.

The man told the E.R. doctor that he knew he was having hallucinations. He thought they had started when he had begun taking a pill to help him sleep a couple of days earlier. It seemed a reasonable explanation, since the medication was known to cause delirium in some people. The hospital psychiatrist took him off that medication and sent him back to rehab that evening with a different sleeping pill.

Back to the Hospital, Again:

Two days later, the patient was back in the emergency room. He was still seeing things that weren’t there, but now he was quite confused as well. He knew his name but couldn’t remember what day or month it was, or even what year. And he had no idea where he was, or where he had just come from.

When the medical team saw the patient after he had been admitted, he was unable to provide any useful medical history. His medical records outlined his earlier hospitalizations, and records from the nursing home filled in additional details. The patient had a history of high blood pressure, depression and alcoholism. He was on a long list of medications. And he had been confused for the past several days.

On examination, he had no fever, although a couple of hours earlier his temperature had been 100.0 degrees. His heart was racing, and his blood pressure was sky high. His arms and legs were weak and swollen. His legs were shaking, and his reflexes were very brisk. Indeed, when his ankle was flexed suddenly, it continued to jerk back and forth on its own three or four times before stopping, a phenomenon known as clonus.

His labs were unchanged from the previous visit except for his urine, which showed signs of a serious infection. A CT scan of the brain was unremarkable, as was a chest X-ray. He was started on an intravenous antibiotic to treat the infection. The thinking was that perhaps the infection was causing the patient’s confusion.

You can see the notes from that second hospital visit here.

His sister had come to visit him the next day, when he was as confused as he had ever been. He was now trembling all over and looked scared to death, terrified. He was certain he was being pursued.

That is when she confronted the nurse, demanding to know what was going on with her brother. The nurse didn’t know. No one did. His urinary tract infection was being treated with antibiotics, but he continued to have a rapid heart rate and elevated blood pressure, along with terrifying hallucinations.

Solving the Mystery:

Can you figure out why this man was so confused and tremulous? I have provided you with all the data available to the doctor who made the diagnosis. The case is not easy — that is why it is here. I’ll post the answer on Friday.

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Rules and Regulations: Post your questions and diagnosis in the comments section below.. The correct answer will appear Friday on Well. The winner will be contacted. Reader comments may also appear in a coming issue of The New York Times Magazine.

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DealBook: Ireland to Liquidate Anglo Irish Bank

LONDON – The Irish government passed emergency legislation on Thursday to liquidate Anglo Irish Bank, one of the country’s largest financial institutions.

The legislation, which was signed into law after an all-night parliamentary session, came after negotiations with the European Central Bank over swapping so-called promissory notes, which were used to bail out the Irish lender in 2009, for long-term government bonds.

The move is an effort to reduce Ireland’s debt repayments at a time when the country is still struggling under a cloud of austerity measures and meager economic growth.

The Irish Parliament rushed through the legislation to liquidate Anglo Irish, which was renamed Irish Bank Resolution Corporation after its failure and bailout, because details of the debt-restructuring plan leaked on Wednesday. Politicians had hoped to announce the deal after agreeing on new terms with the European Central Bank.

“I would have preferred to be introducing this bill in tandem with a finalized agreement with the European Central Bank,” the Irish finance minister, Michael Noonan, said in a statement.

The European Central Bank is considering the country’s latest proposals on Thursday, though European policy makers are concerned that a deal with Ireland could set a precedent for other indebted countries, like Spain, whose local banks also are facing mountains of debt.

As part of the deal to save Anglo Irish, Dublin injected more than 30 billion euros ($41 billion) into the local lender, of which around 28 billion euros is still outstanding.

The bailout has saddled the government with 3.1 billion euros in annual interest payments, or roughly the same amount Irish politicians have said they would cut in yearly government spending to reduce the country’s debt levels. The local government has been eager to reduce that multibillion-euro figure by swapping the high-interest debt into long-term government bonds that can be repaid over a longer period.

Ireland racked up huge debts in bailing out Anglo Irish and the rest of the country’s financial industry, eventually requiring a rescue package of 67.5 billion euros from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund in 2010. The authorities have demanded that Irish politicians slash government spending to reduce the country’s debt burden.

Confusion reigned on Thursday at Anglo Irish’s headquarters in Dublin, a day after employees were sent home early in preparation for the government-mandated liquidation.

Some staff members had returned to work, but the atmosphere remained tense, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

“People have been told it’s business as usual, but it’s anything but that,” the person said.

The accounting firm KPMG has been appointed to oversee the liquidation.

Under the terms of the liquidation, Anglo Irish’s assets will be transferred to the National Asset Management Agency, the so-called bad bank set up by the government, or sold to outside investors.

Anglo Irish has been at the center of controversy since the beginning of the financial crisis. Three of its former executives, including its former chief executive, Sean FitzPatrick, are facing fraud charges in connection with loans that were improperly administered.

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Postal Service to Cut Saturday Mail to Trim Costs

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Postal Service will stop delivering mail on Saturdays but continue to deliver packages six days a week under a plan aimed at saving about $2 billion, the financially struggling agency says.

In an announcement scheduled for later Wednesday, the service is expected to say the Saturday mail cutback would begin in August.

The move accentuates one of the agency's strong points — package delivery has increased by 14 percent since 2010, officials say, while the delivery of letters and other mail has declined with the increasing use of email and other Internet use.

Under the new plan, mail would still be delivered to post office boxes on Saturdays. Post offices now open on Saturdays would remain open on Saturdays.

Over the past several years, the Postal Service has advocated shifting to a five-day delivery schedule for mail and packages — and it repeatedly but unsuccessfully appealed to Congress to approve the move. Though an independent agency, the service gets no tax dollars for its day-to-day operations but is subject to congressional control.

It was not immediately clear how the service could eliminate Saturday mail without congressional approval.

But the agency clearly thinks it has a majority of the American public on its side regarding the change.

Material prepared for the Wednesday press conference by Patrick R. Donahoe, postmaster general and CEO, says Postal Service market research and other research has indicated that nearly 7 in 10 Americans support the switch to five-day delivery as a way for the Postal Service to reduce costs.

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Disney working on stand-alone 'Star Wars' films

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Disney is mining The Force for even more new films.

Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger said Tuesday that screenwriters Larry Kasdan and Simon Kinberg are working on stand-alone "Star Wars" movies that aren't part of the new trilogy that's in the works.

"There has been speculation about some standalone films that have been in development, and I can confirm to you today that in fact we are working on a few stand-alone films," Iger told CNBC.

Iger said the movies would be based on "great 'Star Wars' characters that are not part of the overall saga." The films would be released during the six-year period of the new trilogy, which starts in 2015 with "Star Wars: Episode VII."

Disney confirmed last month that "Star Trek" director J.J. Abrams will direct the seventh installment of the "Star Wars" saga.

Disney bought "Star Wars" maker Lucasfilm last year for more than $4 billion.

The last "Star Wars" trilogy, a prequel to the original films, was released from 1999 to 2005.

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Online:

http://www.starwars.com/

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Ipswich Journal: Paul Mason Is One-Third the Man He Used to Be

Paul Nixon Photography

Paul Mason in 2012, two years after gastric bypass surgery stripped him of the unofficial title of “the world’s fattest man.”

IPSWICH, England — Who knows what the worst moment was for Paul Mason — there were so many awful milestones, as he grew fatter and fatter — but a good bet might be when he became too vast to leave his room. To get him to the hospital for a hernia operation, the local fire department had to knock down a wall and extricate him with a forklift.

That was nearly a decade ago, when Mr. Mason weighed about 980 pounds, and the spectacle made him the object of fascinated horror, a freak-show exhibit. The British news media, which likes a superlative, appointed him “the world’s fattest man.”

Now the narrative has shifted to one of redemption and second chances. Since a gastric bypass operation in 2010, Mr. Mason, 52 years old and 6-foot-4, has lost nearly two-thirds of his body weight, putting him at about 336 pounds — still obese, but within the realm of plausibility. He is talking about starting a jewelry business.

“My meals are a lot different now than they used to be,” Mr. Mason said during a recent interview in his one-story apartment in a cheerful public housing complex here. For one thing, he no longer eats around the clock. “Food is a necessity, but now I don’t let it control my life anymore,” he said.

But the road to a new life is uphill and paved with sharp objects. When he answered the door, Mr. Mason did not walk; he glided in an electric wheelchair.

And though Mr. Mason looks perfectly normal from the chest up, horrible vestiges of his past stick to him, literally, in the form of a huge mass of loose skin choking him like a straitjacket. Folds and folds of it encircle his torso and sit on his lap, like an unwanted package someone has set there; more folds encase his legs. All told, he reckons, the excess weighs more than 100 pounds.

As he waits to see if anyone will agree to perform the complex operation to remove the skin, Mr. Mason has plenty of time to ponder how he got to where he is. He was born in Ipswich and had a childhood marked by two things, he says: the verbal and physical abuse of his father, a military policeman turned security guard; and three years of sexual abuse, starting when he was 6, by a relative in her 20s who lived in the house and shared his bed. He told no one until decades later.

After he left school, Mr. Mason took a job as a postal worker and became engaged to a woman more than 20 years older than him. “I thought it would be for life, but she just turned around one day and said, ‘No, I don’t want to see you anymore — goodbye,’ ” he said.

His father died, and he returned home to care for his arthritic mother, who was in a wheelchair. “I still had all these things going around in my head from my childhood,” he said. “Food replaced the love I didn’t get from my parents.” When he left the Royal Mail in 1986, he said, he weighed 364 pounds.

Then things spun out of control. Mr. Mason tried to eat himself into oblivion. He spent every available penny of his and his mother’s social security checks on food. He stopped paying the mortgage. The bank repossessed their house, and the council found them a smaller place to live. All the while, he ate the way a locust eats — indiscriminately, voraciously, ingesting perhaps 20,000 calories a day. First he could no longer manage the stairs; then he could no longer get out of his room. He stayed in bed, on and off, for most of the last decade.

Social service workers did everything for him, including changing his incontinence pads. A network of local convenience stores and fast-food restaurants kept the food coming nonstop — burgers, french fries, fish and chips, even about $22 worth of chocolate bars a day.

“They didn’t deliver bags of crisps,” he said of potato chips. “They delivered cartons.”

His life became a cycle: eat, doze, eat, eat, eat. “You didn’t sleep a normal sleep,” he said. “You’d be awake most of the night eating and snacking. You totally forgot about everything else. You lose all your dignity, all your self-respect. It all goes, and all you focus on is getting your next fix.”

He added, “It was quite a lonely time, really.”

He got infections a lot and was transported to the hospital — first in a laundry van, then on the back of a truck and finally on the forklift. For 18 months after a hernia operation in 2003, he lived in the hospital and in an old people’s home — where he was not allowed to leave his room — while the local government found him a house that could accommodate all the special equipment he needed.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 6, 2013

The headline on an earlier version of this article misstated Paul Mason’s current weight relative to what he weighed nearly a decade ago. He is now about one-third, not two-thirds, the weight he was then.

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DealBook: Debevoise & Plimpton Drops Trusts and Estates Practice

Last month, the nation’s leading trusts and estates lawyers convened at a Florida resort to discuss the latest in estate planning.

Between lectures and workshops, some of the lawyers exchanged whispers about an unsettling piece of gossip: Debevoise & Plimpton, the prominent white-shoe law firm, was eliminating its trusts and estates practice.

Debevoise’s decision surprised members of the trusts and estates bar. If an institution as prestigious and financially sound as Debevoise was abandoning its practice, were they vulnerable too?

The news also raised eyebrows across the legal industry because it seemed to run counter to Debevoise’s reputation for a strong partnership culture. At a time when many large law firms have discarded the traditional partnership model and embraced a more bottom-line approach, Debevoise has been seen as retaining an old-school ethos — a genteel law firm known for its camaraderie and decency.

“It saddens me to see a great law firm terminate its estates department,” said William D. Zabel, a partner at Schulte Roth & Zabel and one of the country’s leading trusts and estates lawyers. “Although I don’t know the reasons for this decision, it would seem to be a byproduct of the economics of our society, making the law into more of a business than a profession. That saddens me even more.”

In a statement, Michael W. Blair, Debevoise’s presiding partner, confirmed that it was jettisoning trusts and estates, and that the group’s eight lawyers — including Jonathan J. Rikoon, the partner in charge of the practice — were trying to find another home.

“Debevoise supports the group in this process and will work to ensure that in this transition the needs of the firm’s clients continue to be served,” he said.

New York-based Debevoise is the latest big corporate law firm to discontinue the practice. In 2011, Weil, Gotshal & Manges, a 1,200-lawyer firm, got out of trusts and estates, deciding it did not fit the firm’s business model. Another firm, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, with 1,100 lawyers, ended its trusts and estates practice about a decade ago.

Corporate law firms once viewed trusts and estates as a small yet important practice that discreetly advised wealthy families. But drafting wills and trusts, and the legal matters that flow from that, is less lucrative than the primary revenue drivers at big law firms: multibillion-dollar corporate transactions and high-stakes litigation.

And there are problems with trusts and estates within a big law firm model. The practice, to use the law firm management parlance, is not as leverageable as other areas. Corporate and litigation partners generate big fees by assigning armies of junior lawyers to megamergers and complex lawsuits. By comparison, trusts and estates work requires far less manpower, which mean far less profit.

Another issue in sustaining these departments is that individual clients bristle at billable rates that now reach more than $1,000 an hour. While big corporations grudgingly pay those rates, wealthy families often resist them.

As a result of these dynamics, firms’ trusts and estates practices have remained small and, in many cases, decreased. At the same time, firms have aggressively built up their corporate and litigation practices across the globe. They have also embraced hot, moneymaking practice areas like patent law and white-collar criminal defense.

There are some counterexamples to this trend, however. In 2011, seven trusts and estates lawyers from Weil, led by Carlyn S. McCaffrey, moved to McDermott Will & Emery, a firm with about 65 trusts and estates lawyers, one of the larger such practices. Another firm committed to trusts and estates is Katten, which has more than 50 lawyers in the group.

Joshua S. Rubenstein, the head of Katten’s trusts and estates practice, said that his business went well beyond comforting bereaved spouses and children. A successful practice, he said, includes assignments like advising families in the sale of closely held companies, overseeing trust-related litigation or even assisting in the purchase of a yacht or private jet.

“If done right, a full-service, high-end trusts and estates practice can generate a lot of work for other areas of the firm,” Mr. Rubenstein said.

As large firms have de-emphasized their trusts and estates practices, boutiques have sprouted up. Sanford J. Schlesinger, a former partner at the New York corporate firm Kaye Scholer, left in 2004 along with several colleagues to set up an 11-lawyer shop, Schlesinger Gannon & Lazetera.

Mr. Schlesinger lamented the demise of the practice at big firms, and said he thought they were missing a business opportunity.

“Families are going to pass more wealth in the next 10 years than in the history of humankind, and someone is going to have to shepherd that wealth transfer,” he said. “These firms are making a shortsighted, profit-driven decision without a view of the long-term big picture.”

Debevoise, started in 1931 by two young patrician lawyers, Eli Whitney Debevoise and William E. Stevenson, does not see it that way. Three decades ago, the firm’s trusts and estates practice had six partners, including Barbara Paul Robinson, now retired and a former president of the New York City Bar Association, and Theodore A. Kurz, the former head of the department. Today, there is only one, Mr. Rikoon, 57, who declined to comment for this article.

The firm formed a committee to study its trusts and estates practice, which has advised families like the Lauders (cosmetics) and the Dolans (cable television), according to people with direct knowledge of the group. After concluding that the practice did not have enough business to expand, the committee recommended closing it down. The firm will continue to employ Mr. Rikoon and the seven other lawyers while they interview elsewhere, these people said.

One factor contributing to Debevoise’s move to discontinue the group, people say, is its unusual lock-step compensation system, which pays partners in a narrow range strictly according to seniority. That means that Mr. Rikoon is paid on par with a star deal maker from the same law school year, while bringing in less business. This created some discord in the partnership ranks. Debevoise’s profits per partner are $2.1 million, according to The American Lawyer magazine.

Debevoise, with 650 lawyers, recently made headlines away from trusts and estates. The firm advised a special committee of Dell’s board on the $24 billion leveraged buyout of the computer company. And President Obama nominated the Debevoise partner Mary Jo White to run the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Stephen J. Friedman, a onetime Debevoise partner who is now president of Pace University, said that he was unaware of the facts involved in his former firm’s decision to close the trusts and estates practice, but noted that organizations are often faced with business realities that require painful choices.

“It’s sometimes necessary to make a decision that’s in the best interest of the firm but can hurt individual partners and associates,” he said. “That’s not a happy experience, but it’s sometimes the right thing to do.”

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Iran Nuclear Talks to Resume This Month

LONDON – Breaking a deadlock over the location and timing of new talks on its disputed nuclear program, Iran reached agreement on Tuesday with world powers to resume the stuttering dialog later this month in Kazakhstan, according to the official IRNA news agency.

The agreement to meet there on Feb. 26 came in a telephone conversation between senior officials of Iran’s National Security Council and the European Union, representing the outside powers involved in the talks, IRNA said.

The news agency report followed remarks by Iran’s foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, who said on Sunday that his country was open to a renewed offer of direct talks with the United States on its nuclear program and that it looked favorably on a proposal for a new round of multilateral nuclear negotiations in late February in Kazakhstan.

IRNA did not immediately allude to the prospect of direct talks with the United States. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. offered such discussions last weekend in what Mr. Salehi described as “a step forward.” 

Iranian negotiators last met with the outside powers – the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany – for high-level talks in Moscow last June. The powers are represented by the European Union foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, who had suggested resumed talks on Feb. 25 to 26 in Kazakhstan.

In Moscow, Iran demanded the lifting of ever-tightening international economic sanctions as a precondition for discussions about reducing or eliminating its growing inventory of enriched uranium.

But the outside powers want Iran to suspend its enrichment program and satisfy the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear watchdog, that it does not have a nuclear weapons program.

Iran denies Western accusations that its nuclear program is designed to provide access to the technology for nuclear weapons.

The Moscow talks ended in such mistrust and frustration that the negotiators did not commit to another high-level encounter.

Last week Iran told the I.A.E.A. at its headquarters in Vienna that it plans to install more sophisticated centrifuges at its principal nuclear enrichment plant at Natanz, enabling it to greatly accelerate processing of uranium.

Steven Erlanger contributed reporting from Paris.

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