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The past year has been a tumultuous one in the legal industry, but despite the turbulent times, some new lawyers are flourishing. Texas Lawyer is following the careers of five attorneys who graduated from Texas law schools in May 2008 and began diverse full-time careers in different parts of the state. Four are with the same firms or organizations where they started their careers in 2008. Here is the yearly update on how all five attorneys are doing in their new careers.
The New Jersey Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal by a former Curtiss-Wright employee whose $10.6 million sex discrimination judgment was reversed because she shared confidential company records with her lawyer. The issue is whether an employee's acquiring of company information in the normal course of her job, and communicating it to her attorney in her discrimination case, is protected activity for which retaliation is actionable. So far, a trial judge has said yes, and an appeals court has said no.
Plaintiffs lawyers are slapping public companies with securities class actions months or years after the alleged fraud came to light as they turn their attention away from cases related to the financial meltdown. The delayed filings are a shift from the previously common practice of pursuing a securities fraud class action days or weeks after a stock-price decline caused investor losses. Defense lawyers say the plaintiffs bar is grasping at straws amid the recent stock market volatility.
A New Jersey blogger scheduled to go on trial on charges that he threatened three federal judges in hate-filled postings has subpoenaed the state's governor-elect to testify on his behalf. Harold "Hal" Turner claims that he was a federal government informant and that the postings targeting the judges and other inflammatory statements were part of an undercover operation to ferret out violent left-wing radicals.
The federal courts were already divided over the rights of independent contractors to sue for discrimination. The split widened when the 9th Circuit ruled this month that a doctor whose contract was terminated after a hospital learned of his sickle cell anemia can sue under the Rehabilitation Act. The decision creates a 2-2 split in the circuits on the issue.
A New York judge has been censured for following a motorist for more than a mile, pulling the man over by flashing his high beams and using a badge to persuade the driver to turn himself in to police to face two traffic citations. The state Commission on Judicial Conduct announced Wednesday that it was censuring Hudson Falls Village Justice Michael Feeder. Feeder told the commission that he saw the driver fail to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk.
Employment lawyers are hoping the U.S. Supreme Court will resolve a conflict in the federal circuits over the so-called cat's paw theory, which says that an employer is liable for discrimination when a final decision-maker is influenced by a lower-level employee with discriminatory motives to take an adverse action against another worker. The Court earlier this month asked the solicitor general for the government's views on a case that raises the theory, and is now considering whether to hear the case.
In a sign of economic improvement, Chadbourne & Parke confirmed Wednesday that the firm plans to award a lump sum payment in early 2010 that would give back to associates and staff money the firm previously cut from their paychecks. The decision, until now unreported, was announced internally in late September.
Federal prosecutor Daniel Zachem has a lot riding on a pro se civil suit against him that alleges he participated in a conspiracy to violate the rights of a Washington, D.C., grand juror. But the suit has far-reaching implications for all federal prosecutors, so Zachem's lawyer, Crowell & Moring partner Michael Martinez, wants the U.S. Supreme Court to pick up the case and reverse a federal appeals court ruling this year that narrowed the scope of prosecution immunity from the suit.
Fewer associates are winning promotion to partnership this year, a trend industry experts say is a result of the economic downturn. This month, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton elected four new partners firmwide, half as many as in 2008, while Latham & Watkins cut its firmwide promotions 25 percent to 23. Consultants say the trend likely is a reflection of the financial condition law firms have found themselves in, with demand for legal services down and profits falling.
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