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Big tech companies like to complain about the glut of low-quality patents clogging up the system. Craig Opperman has a message for them: Take a look in the mirror. The Reed Smith patent lawyer says that companies are trying to file more patents than the next guy, but they're also trying to pay less for the legal work. The consequence, according to Opperman: a backlog at the patent office and wasted money at companies where patents end up being rejected or not worth that much.
When IT pros are thrust into management, how do they make sense of all the options and standards for developing good management skills while drawing on the experience of others? This question led the International Legal Technology Association to develop a knowledge base for managers.
State attorneys general won a major turf war in the Supreme Court Monday as the justices held that states may enforce their anti-discrimination and consumer protection laws against national banks. The Court, in a 5-4 ruling, struck down a regulation issued by the chief federal regulator of national banks that pre-empted the states' power to enforce those laws. The case was followed closely not only by the banking industry but by civil rights and consumer organizations, and public and private state regulatory groups.
Victims of Bernard Madoff broke out in cheers and applause on Monday as Southern District of New York Judge Denny Chin ordered a 150-year prison sentence for Madoff's gigantic Ponzi scheme. "Symbolism is important," Chin said as he hit Madoff with the maximum possible term, imposed for offenses the judge called "staggering" in size and scope. "Here, the message must be sent that Madoff's crimes were extraordinarily evil," the judge said.
In a dramatic ending before its summer recess, the Supreme Court on Monday ruled, 5-4, that the city of New Haven, Conn., violated the civil rights of white and Hispanic firefighters when it tossed out the results of a promotion exam after no African-Americans passed it. The ruling had a quick, if uncertain, impact on the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who was part of the 2nd Circuit panel that upheld New Haven's action. The Court also bade farewell to Justice David Souter on his final day on the bench.
Just two female arbitrators appeared in Focus Europe's first survey of large arbitrations in 2003. Six years after that first scorecard, those two women, Gabrielle Kaufmann-Kohler and Brigitte Stern, have risen to become the second- and third-busiest arbitrators in the survey, with 20 or more cases apiece. But while the highest echelon of the club has clearly been integrated, women have a precarious foothold in the rest of the list, representing only 4 percent of the arbitrators in this year's survey.
Despite the bench's mounting frustration with the senseless, slipshod way keyword search is conducted in e-discovery, lawyers still don't know how to fashion effective, defensible queries. Until better judicial guidance emerges, follow EDD Special Master Craig Ball's step-by-step guide.
As much as he might have liked to see his landmark ruling favoring same-sex marriage stand, California Chief Justice Ronald George knew he was doing the "right thing" when he upheld Proposition 8 late last month. In an interview Friday, he said, "I've been on the bench for 37 years and have had to let the law take me where it had to, regardless of my own personal views." He spoke about his reasoning and the reaction it produced, and noted that the public has the option of returning to the ballot box if it wishes.
A federal judge says he will decide by this afternoon on whether to revoke a bond for Texas financier R. Allen Stanford that would let him be free while he awaits trial on charges he swindled investors out of $7 billion. Prosecutors argued Monday that Stanford's international ties make him a serious flight risk.
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