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The three-year-old controversy over whether New Jersey lawyers can tout their inclusion in Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers or other ratings publications is again before the state Supreme Court. Six lawyers have signed up to speak at a hearing today as the court weighs a proposed easing of Rule of Professional Conduct 7.1, which bans advertising that compares a lawyer's services with others. The revision would allow comparisons if the "basis" for them "can be substantiated."
Najibullah Zazi, the former New York coffee cart vendor accused of planning a "Madrid-style" subway bombing in New York, was arraigned in Brooklyn federal court on Tuesday. Chief Judge Raymond J. Dearie, who took the case after three other judges recused themselves, ordered Zazi held without bail. As evidenced by Tuesday's hearing, in which the lead prosecutor referred to the Classified Information Procedures Act at least a half dozen times, the federal statute will play a prominent role in the prosecution.
The watchdog of the Securities and Exchange Commission has recommended a new system for handling the thousands of tips and complaints the agency receives to prevent another breakdown like the one that allowed Bernard Madoff's massive fraud to go undetected for 16 years. The proposals from SEC Inspector General David Kotz for the agency's enforcement and inspections operations also include making it easier for junior-level enforcement attorneys to bring their concerns to top managers.
Stephen Larson, the federal judge who recently announced that he could no longer afford to sit on the bench, will join plaintiffs firm Girardi & Keese in Los Angeles as a partner. The opportunity to work for the firm -- and not just Congress' refusal to raise federal judges' base pay of $170,000 -- prompted his career change, he said. "I spent nine years as a prosecutor, prosecuting cases, prosecuting wrongdoing, and that is essentially what Girardi & Keese does. They prosecute wrongdoing."
After 18 years of decidedly un-cuddly court battles, Walt Disney Co. and the estate of Winnie the Pooh licensee Stephen Slesinger are right back where they started. On Friday, Los Angeles federal district court Judge Florence-Marie Cooper granted Disney's motion to dismiss all of Stephen Slesinger Inc.'s remaining infringement claims, committing the parties to continue a business relationship that began in 1961 when Slesinger's widow transferred the Pooh rights to Disney in exchange for royalties.
Townsend and Townsend and Crew has announced it will reduce the pay scale for attorneys in 2010, which includes cutting first-year associate salaries from $160,000 to $145,000. The 200-lawyer firm also said that it would ditch lockstep compensation altogether in 2011 and move to merit-based pay, a system popularized by national intellectual property firm Howrey. Townsend is exclusively an IP firm. The latest move shows that the once-abundant supply of patent litigation is drying up in the recession.
This is the year the recession hit the legal profession. Lawyers and support staff were cut by the hundreds. Law firms went belly up. Court dockets burst with foreclosures and bankruptcies while budgets everywhere went bust. Buried under the statistics are those most affected by it all: the overworked judge, the unemployed paralegal, the laid-off associate and the law firm manager. The National Law Journal talked to people across the profession to find out how the downturn changed their lives.
A Georgia jury found in favor of a man who sued an Atlanta men's clinic after its erectile dysfunction therapy caused permanent damage to his penis, awarding him $750,000 in compensatory damages and $8.5 million in punitive damages. W. Fred Orr II, attorney for plaintiff John Henry Howard, called Howard "the most courageous client" he's ever had. "He was willing to take the stand and testify in an open courtroom about his private life," Orr said.
In what could become a first-in-the-nation test, a young woman injured by a drunk driver is challenging the sovereignty of Connecticut's Mohegan American Indian tribe. She is arguing the tribe should be liable in state courts if it lets patrons get so dangerously drunk at its casinos that they then injure or kill other people. Currently, the Mohegan and Mashantucket Pequot tribes are immune from being sued in state court for ordinary negligence matters, including so-called "dram shop act" violations.
Chadbourne & Parke told half of its incoming associates on Monday that the firm will extend their deferrals indefinitely and pay them an additional stipend of $60,000, according to a firm spokesman. The class of 25 associates from the graduating class of 2009 was initially supposed to start at the firm in January. Instead, about half the class will start on that date, while the other half now has no certain starting date.
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