Legal Research

Selections from National Law Journal Daily Headlines August 4, 2008

By David Badertscher, PLL

Source:NLJ.com, August 4, 2008.

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Review sought on judicial recusals
"The ethical hornets' nest stirred up by the refusal of an acting West Virginia chief justice to recuse himself from a multimillion-dollar appeal involving his major campaign contributor has reached the U.S. Supreme Court in a petition framing today's increasingly unsettling intersection of money and judicial elections. The justices will decide when, in the context of campaign contributions, due process demands a judge's recusal."

ABA to tackle conflict of interest
"The American Bar Association's 131st annual meeting, a six-day event starting Aug. 7 in New York, will take up some controversial issues for the legal profession during the ABA's House of Delegates session. One contentious proposal slated for a vote by organization's policymaking body would ease the conflict-of-interest rules regarding attorneys who switch jobs from one private law firm to another. The proposal would enable a law firm to 'screen' the incoming attorney from the rest of its attorneys and to continue representing its client without the consent of the incoming attorney's former client."

Shot at the courtroom helps firms add talent
"More law firms are giving associates a shot at courtroom action, a strategy that helps with the recruitment of top legal talent, as well as retention. In a world where an associate may work for years at a large firm and never take a deposition, a 75-attorney Chicago firm is promising associates the opportunity to actually get face to face with judges, witnesses and clients."

IN-HOUSE  |  Drug makers look at new ethics code
"Lawyers say a trade group's new sales and marketing code of ethics for pharmaceutical companies that's designed to help companies avoid government investigations and prosecutions will trigger extensive corporate governance work on behalf of participating companies. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America announced a massive overhaul of its ethics code governing companies' interactions with health care professionals, which will become effective in January 2009."

CALIFORNIA  |  Inmate petitions swamp judges
"Thousands of state prisoner petitions have swamped the six federal judges in California's Eastern District, prompting an emergency call this week for judges from throughout the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to pitch in and whittle down the mounting prisoner cases. Judges serving on an emergency committee set up to address the crisis circulated among various judges' meetings during the 9th Circuit's annual Judges Conference to explain why they are asking colleagues to take on some of their work. 'If just 70 judges took 15 cases each, that would be 1,000 cases,' said U.S. District Judge Anthony Ishii, a member of the committee."

SELECTED COLUMNS:

CRIMINAL LAW  |  'Griffin' Errors
"The Fifth Amendment prohibits comment on a defendant's refusal to testify by the prosecution or by court instructions, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the 1965 Griffin v. California decision. Although it is well established that a Griffin error is improper, courts are reluctant to find that a prosecutor's comments warrant a new trial. In fact, there were dozens of appellate cases in which Griffin error was alleged this past year, but very few of them led to reversals. This is partly because improper arguments are rarely as egregious as they were in Griffin."

VOIR DIRE
"Honolulu Judge Richard Clifton gets a taste of how firefighters in the West battle megafires. Plus, the LexisNexis search string used to plumb the political leanings of potential hires at the U.S. Department of Justice. the former White House liason's"

Full post as published by New York Supreme Court Criminal Term Library on August 04, 2008 (boomark / email).