Legal Research

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LAWYER CAN PURSUE CEPA SUIT OVER FIRM'S HANDLING OF CASE SETTLEMENT
"A lawyer who claims her firm fired her for threatening to report a violation of ethics rules governing civil case settlements can sue under New Jersey's whistleblower law, a state appeals court says. The Appellate Division held on Thursday that a trial judge erred in throwing out the claim based on his view that the alleged misconduct was not covered by the Conscientious Employee Protection Act and because plaintiff Melissa Morris did not follow through on her threat to go to authorities. The ruling, in Morris v. Greitzer and Locks of New Jersey, allows Morris to pursue her CEPA claim against what is now the Locks Law Firm of Philadelphia over its handling of an aggregate settlement of suits over fen-phen diet drugs. "

OPEN PUBLIC MEETINGS ACT REMEDY CAN BE BASED ON HISTORY OF TRANSGRESSIONS
"A state appeals court on Thursday made it easier for plaintiffs to obtain injunctive relief to redress violations of the Open Public Meetings Act. When a plaintiff alleges a pattern of misconduct, a trial court should consider violations occurring outside the statute's 45-day limitation period to decide whether an injunction is warranted. "[A]lthough plaintiff may be out-of-time to void the unwarranted actions taken, any pattern showing a public body repeatedly ignores the OPMA requirements necessitates imposition of prospective injunctive relief to assure the public that its government will operate in the open the Appellate Division ruled in Burnett v. Gloucester County Board of Chosen Freeholders, A-6131-07."

JUDGE REJECTS PERELMAN'S CLAIMS AGAINST LATE EX-WIFE'S FAMILY
"Financier Ron Perelman's lawsuit against the father and brother of one of his four ex-wives, the late Claudia Cohen, has been a flop. Acting as Cohen's executor, Perelman sued Robert Cohen and James Cohen for allegedly cheating Claudia's estate out of hundreds of millions of dollars. On Wednesday, Bergen County Superior Court Judge Ellen Koblitz dismissed all the remaining claims against the two defendants, including the claims that Robert Cohen, the former CEO and chairman of the Hudson Group, had verbally promised Claudia half of his and his wife's estate and that James Cohen, the current CEO of the Hudson Group, had used "undue influence" to frustrate that promise by having more than $500 million in assets transferred to him."

SURVEY SUGGESTS THAT LAW FIRM ECONOMICS MAY BE STABILIZING
"The legal industry is not poised to make a miraculous recovery in the immediate future, but for the time being things aren't getting any worse. That's the gist of the latest Hildebrandt International Peer Monitor Economic Index, which tracked demand for legal services, attorney productivity, billing rates and direct and overhead expenses at large and midsize law firms during the second quarter of 2009. The index has been on a steady decline since the second quarter of 2008, but it ticked up slightly last quarter ? an indication that the economic situation for law firms may be bottoming out. Demand for legal services and productivity both remained weak during the second quarter compared to one year earlier but those drop-offs were not as large as they were during the first quarter."