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The California Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that caregiving under the state's medical marijuana statutes requires consistently providing the "daily life necessities" of patients well before marijuana is considered an option. The ruling is bad news for the average medical marijuana growers who want to sell to ailing friends, but good news for law enforcement officers who would like to rein in a growing number of outlaw caregivers around the state.
Bayer will pay $97.5 million to settle U.S. government allegations that the conglomerate paid kickbacks to medical suppliers to boost sales of its diabetes products. The Justice Department said Tuesday the settlement resolves an investigation into whether Bayer bribed 11 diabetic suppliers into switching patients to its products from competitors' products. Under the settlement, Bayer also agreed to a corporate integrity agreement which requires it to review and update its employee training programs.
With General Motors reportedly having reviewed -- and subsequently ruled out -- the option of a traditional Chapter 11 filing, some observers believe there is another option to consider: a prepackaged bankruptcy. In a "prepack," debtor's counsel negotiate agreements with creditors prior to an actual filing for Chapter 11 protection. The Am Law Daily caught up with Ropes & Gray bankruptcy and restructuring co-head Mark Bane to hear about the possible alternative method of going bust.
Associates at large law firms have too much time on their hands. According to statistics from the West Peer Monitor Index, a measure of legal market conditions, large law firms had their lowest productivity yet this year during the third quarter of 2008. Overall, law firm productivity was down by 4.5 percent in the third quarter, but it sank by 6.5 percent at larger Am Law 100 firms.
Automakers cannot sue to block Rhode Island from enforcing tighter tailpipe emissions standards first adopted by California because the industry has already lost similar lawsuits elsewhere, a federal judge has ruled. U.S. District Judge Ernest Torres dismissed General Motors, DaimlerChrysler and two automakers associations from the case, but his ruling permits several local car dealers to pursue the lawsuit for now.
Spillane Shaeffer Aronoff Bandlow, a Los Angeles litigation shop, has announced plans to merge with Lathrop & Gage on Jan. 1, 2009. The merger gives Lathrop & Gage, a Kansas City, Mo.-based law firm, an office in California -- and will make Lathrop "a truly national firm," says its chief executive officer, Joel Voran. Lathrop hopes to expand the L.A. office to as many as 30 lawyers in the next year or so, including potential additions in employment law, according to Voran.
The widow of a smoker who died from lung cancer brings the nation's biggest cigarette producer to court this week in the first trial spawned by a Florida Supreme Court ruling that decreed smoking is dangerous and addictive and causes disease. But before Elaine Hess can benefit from the landmark decision in the wake of the death of her husband, Stuart, plaintiffs lawyers must prove that he would have been part of a class of sick Florida smokers that was disbanded by the 2006 court decision.
The family of Washington, D.C., lawyer Robert Wone filed a $20 million wrongful death suit Tuesday against three men who were indicted last week for allegedly obstructing the investigation into his death. The complaint accuses Arent Fox partner Joe Price, his partner Victor Zaborsky and their roommate Dylan Ward of conspiring to thwart the investigation and of "intentional, reckless and/or negligent acts" that caused Wone's death. Wone was stabbed to death in the guest room of Price's home in 2006.
On Monday, Linklaters became the latest U.K. firm to announce its revenues for the first half of the current financial year, reporting a slight increase from last year. Linklaters' billings for the period May 1 to Oct. 31 totaled 653 million pounds, or $980 million, a 3 percent increase from last year's 633 million pounds. Compared with other English firms, Linklaters falls into the any-growth-is-good-in-this-market group, but not quite in the double-digit-rise club headed by Allen & Overy and Norton Rose.
Sullivan & Cromwell and Wachtell have gotten the bulk of the publicity for the roles key members of those firms have played in crafting various parts of the Wall Street bailout. But it's time to start mentioning Davis, Polk & Wardwell in the same sentence as those Wall Street titans. Fresh off advising Citigroup in negotiating a $300 billion-plus rescue plan, Davis Polk advised the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in crafting the complicated new $200 billion spending program announced on Tuesday.
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