Selections from National Law Journal Daily Headlines November 3, 2008
By David Badertscher, PLL
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<p><font size="2"><strong>Source: </strong><em>NLJ.com, </em>November 3, 2008.</font></p>
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<p><a class="headline" href="http://alm.rsys1.net/servlet/cc6?HtuYQSRWWRQSVKIHKLjlkxJhmjlkQklHlLQgPQmkVaVS" target="_blank"><font size="2">Prosecutors' liability tactics under review</font></a><br/><font size="2"><font color="#333333">"Jailhouse snitches and error-prone crime labs
problems that continue to bedevil the nation's criminal justice system
form the backdrop to two U.S. Supreme Court cases with huge implications for the rights of defendants and the role of prosecutors. Counsel representing former California attorney general and Los Angeles district attorney John Van de Kamp and his former chief assistant in the DA's office will urge the high court on Nov. 5 to give his two clients absolute immunity from a civil rights lawsuit whose roots are in the 1970s and 1980s jailhouse informant scandal in Los Angeles."</font><br/><br/><!--commentsListSize 0--><!-- siteDateFormat MMMM d, yyyy --><!-- November 3, 2008 --><!--commentsListSize 0--><!-- siteDateFormat MMMM d, yyyy --><!-- November 3, 2008 --><!-- Style = headlineSummaryKickerNewsletter --><font color="#336699"><b><a class="headline" href="http://alm.rsys1.net/servlet/cc6?HtuYQSRWWRQSVKIHKLjlkxJhmjlkQklHlLQgPQmkVaVT" target="_blank">As building projects collapse, suits pile up</a></b></font><br/><font color="#333333">"Litigation is cropping up across the country over multimillion-dollar hotel, condominium and manufacturing building developments that unraveled as U.S. financing tightened during the past year, leaving financiers, developers and contractors to fight over who should pay for the failed deals."</font><br/><br/><!-- Style = headlineSummaryKickerNewsletter --><font color="#336699"><b><a class="headline" href="http://alm.rsys1.net/servlet/cc6?HtuYQSRWWRQSVKIHKLjlkxJhmjlkQklHlLQgPQmkVaVU" target="_blank">Online law grads: older, no slackers</a></b></font><br/><font color="#333333">"A growing number of people are working toward law degrees over the Internet, through what are known as 'distance education' programs. Short of a desire to learn the law, most online law students have little in common with their 20-something counterparts who flood into lecture halls at prestigious brick-and-mortar schools each year in hopes of landing a job at a top firm."</font></font></p>
<p><font color="#333333"><a class="headline" href="http://alm.rsys1.net/servlet/cc6?HtuYQSRWWRQSVKIHKLjlkxJhmjlkQklHlLQgPQmkVaVY" target="_blank"><font size="2">MICHIGAN
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'FOIA abuse' a topic after mass release of e-mails</font></a><br/><font size="2"><font color="#333333">"A legal controversy over a Freedom of Information Act request in Michigan is fueling that question of whether there is such as thing as FOIA abuse. Two FOIA requests led to the release of 12,000 e-mail addresses of parents in the Bloomfield Hills School District, an area near Detroit, which wound up in the hands of two school board candidates who used them for campaign purposes."</font><br/><br/><!--commentsListSize 0--><!-- siteDateFormat MMMM d, yyyy --><!-- November 3, 2008 --><!-- Style = headlineSummaryKickerNewsletter --><font color="#336699"><b><a class="headline" href="http://alm.rsys1.net/servlet/cc6?HtuYQSRWWRQSVKIHKLjlkxJhmjlkQklHlLQgPQmkVaVA" target="_blank">CALIFORNIA
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Credit-rating crisis triggers suits by cities</a></b></font><br/><font color="#333333">"The $2.6 trillion municipal bond market has been brought to its knees by the loss of triple-A credit ratings on the bond insurance sold to cities, rendering the policies worthless and prompting a wave of lawsuits by California cities against their bond insurers. Some believe the litigation is almost certain to mushroom nationally, given the number of municipalities, utility districts and others hit by the public bond rating crisis."</font></font></font></p>
<p><font color="#333333"><font color="#333333" size="2">SELECTED COLUMNS:</font></font></p>
<p><font color="#333333"><font color="#333333"><a class="headline" href="http://alm.rsys1.net/servlet/cc6?HtuYQSRWWRQSVKIHKLjlkxJhmjlkQklHlLQgPQmkVaVSS" target="_blank"><font size="2">DISCOVERY
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Baying at the Rule</font></a><br/><font color="#333333" size="2">"For millennia, dogs have bayed at the moon, without all that much affect upon the moon. For what seems nearly as long, the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(b)(6), has been yapped at, with even less impact. The rule neither compels nor permits an entity to simply produce the person with the most knowledge; rather it requires the entity to designate someone ? anyone, even one who knows nothing ? to assemble and communicate the entirety of the entity's knowledge. Some recent cases us give hope that we have finally arrived at the right tree up which to bark. These cases give substantial guidance on how the rule should be followed and should give substantial pause to those who do not do so."</font></font></font></p>
<p><font color="#333333"><font color="#333333"><font color="#333333">
</font></font><a class="headline" href="http://alm.rsys1.net/servlet/cc6?HtuYQSRWWRQSVKIHKLjlkxJhmjlkQklHlLQgPQmkVaVSU" target="_blank"><font size="2">VOIR DIRE</font></a><br/><font size="2"><font color="#333333">"A California man's Halloween yard display featuring a noosed mannequin dressed like Republican vice-presidential hopeful Sarah Palin draws the attention of the Secret Service. Plus more offbeat news in this week's column." </font><br/><br/></font></font></p>
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