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Melvyn Weiss, the co-founding partner of Milberg Weiss, said his meeting with a representative of a paid plaintiff was "less sinister" than the federal government alleges and that his failure to turn over a subpoenaed fax was bad judgment, not "criminal arrogance," according to sentencing papers filed on Wednesday. Weiss, who pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy, is scheduled to be sentenced on Monday.
New York Gov. David Paterson said Thursday that fairness and fear of legal liability convinced him to direct all state agencies to immediately recognize as valid same-sex marriages solemnized outside of New York. Paterson compared recognizing legal same-sex marriages to the state's policy of recognizing as valid common-law marriages from other jurisdictions. Opponents of same-sex marriage charged Thursday that Paterson was putting the state's imprimatur on gay marriage without consulting the Legislature.
A federal appeals court on Wednesday revived lawsuits against military contractors over a deadly ambush that killed civilian truck drivers in Iraq. The suits accuse Halliburton and former subsidiary KBR of knowingly sending a convoy into a dangerous area where six KBR drivers were killed and others wounded in 2004. A federal judge threw out the lawsuits in 2006, saying the judiciary can't second-guess the military's battlefield decisions, but the 5th Circuit reversed that judge's ruling on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, a federal jury in the Eastern District of Texas gave a big win to Sam Baxter of Dallas-based McKool Smith, awarding his client, Medtronic, $250 million in a patent infringement case against Boston Scientific, which was represented by Howrey. Boston Scientific's loss comes despite a trend toward defense wins in the historically plaintiffs-friendly Eastern District of Texas. In 2007, defendants won seven out of nine trials, but recently plaintiffs have been on the rebound.
Georgetown University Law Center announced Thursday morning that Solicitor General Paul Clement will join its faculty as a visiting professor for the fall. But in an interview, Clement told the position is not a sign that he is heading for academia for good. After arguing 49 cases before the Supreme Court for the government, Clement makes no secret that he hopes eventually to argue there again for a private firm.
W. Mark Lanier, the Houston plaintiffs lawyer who won a $234.4 million jury verdict in the nation's first Vioxx trial, isn't mincing words; he calls Thursday's Texas appeals court opinion reversing a $26.1 million judgment in that suit "judicial activism for corporate America." Lanier says he will appeal the Texas ruling, which he contrasted with a New Jersey court's ruling in a Vioxx case, also handed down on Thursday.
Fairness opinions by investment banks in corporate transactions have come under recent scrutiny. Although there has been considerable academic literature on the subject, cases imposing liability for issuing such opinions remain relatively sparse. Attorney Tariq Mundiya discusses a 7th Circuit ruling that addresses the liability of investment banks for issuing fairness opinions and highlights the importance of the investment bank's engagement letter and the qualifications in the fairness opinion itself.
The art of making an art deal used to involve a handshake, but these days it increasingly involves litigation. With art pieces becoming increasingly expensive, deals crossing more borders and a growing number of people acquiring art, lawyers are seeing more lawsuits. Bryan Cave partner Scott Hodes is assembling a team of two dozen lawyers that will specialize in art-related matters. The lawyers will have expertise in areas such as taxes, estate planning, contracts, insurance and IP, he says.
Lawyers like to lament the passing of their fabled past, when partners knew each other on sight, firms contented themselves to operating in one ZIP code and junior associates were not a menacing anonymous horde threatening to take out their frustrations via the blogosphere. As it happens, in the big-firm world those days aren't gone, they've just moved to the Am Law Second Hundred ranks, where firms are prosperous and growing steadily but retain the possibility of old-fashioned cohesion.
The plaintiffs lawyers bringing the shareholder class action suit over the collapse of commodities brokerage Refco have been receiving assistance from an unlikely source -- Refco's former chief executive officer. John Coffey of Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossman and Stuart Grant of Grant & Eisenhofer disclosed on Thursday that they held "several highly productive meetings" with Philip R. Bennett, who provided them with a "unique opportunity to debrief a former CEO involved in a massive corporate fraud."
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