Offering a glimmer of hope that the U.S. Department of Justice has the ability to go after big fish in a meaningful way, former Credit Suisse First Boston Technology Banking Group president Frank Quattrone is found guilty on all counts of obstruction of justice, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required). What makes this a landmark case is that it’s the second trial Quattrone has had for these charges after the first jury ended “hung” and a mistrial was declared.

In case you’re wondering about the core charge, here’s how the WSJ phrases it: “Mr. Quattrone is accused of urging colleagues in the Dec. 5, 2000, e-mail message to destroy documents that had been subpoenaed as part of government probes into CSFB’s allocation of hot initial public offerings.”

There’s a writing opportunity here too. Apparently the jury foreman asked the judge for some sort of “jury handbook”, just to be told that one used to exist, but that it’s out of print. Legal writers, are you listening? I dunno, though, “Being on a Jury for Dummies” might not be the right tone…

Not only that, it’s interesting to note that Credit Suisse is one of the two underwriters for the Google IPO expected this week (the other is Morgan Stanley). The webs we weave…