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Legal News

Legal Blog Watch

Tracks the daily musings of Law.com bloggers.
By Lisa Stone

Post Frequency: 34.5/day

Last Entry: March 31, 2011 at 17:07:51

Supreme Court Rejects Argument That Due Process Requires Access to DNA Testing

Posted on June 18, 2009
There is no federal constitutional right to post-conviction access to DNA evidence ruled the Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote in Third Judicial District v. Osborne. Justice Kennedy delivered the swing vote, according to the Blog of the Legal Times. As discussed at The New York Times, the Court's decision reverses a 9th Circuit ruling, which held that the defendant, Osborne, was entitled to access DNA evidence under the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process clause, notwithstanding that his lawyer had failed to request DNA testing at trial...

How to Lose a Career Over $1,000

Posted on June 18, 2009
Granted, Michael Gisriel did a bad, bad thing. Gisriel cashed a $1,000 check made out to his former clients by forging the client's name, then deposited the funds into his firm bank account. That's theft, pure and simple. But does it justify disbarment? Yes, affirmed the Maryland of Court of Appeals in Maryland Attorney Grievance Committee v...

Does Alternative Billing Mean Lawyers Can Tear Up the Time Sheet?

Posted on June 18, 2009
This past week, both Philadelphia-based Saul, Ewing and Chicago-based Kirkland & Ellis announced alternative fee arrangements (described here and here) for their respective clients. So does that mean that lawyers at those firms can toss their time sheets out the window, or clear those electronic billing programs off their hard drive? Maybe not...

Court Withdraws Ruling Over Judge's Conflict

Posted on June 17, 2009
The Washington Supreme Court has withdrawn a landmark ruling in a public records case in response to complaints that the opinion could benefit a separate lawsuit filed by one of the justices who decided the case. The court issued a one-page order withdrawing its earlier ruling and saying that the case will be scheduled for a new round of oral arguments "in due course...

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Cloak-and-Dagger Justice

Posted on June 17, 2009
Perhaps it was a dark and stormy night when Scott W. Stucky was sworn in as a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. It took place on a rain-slicked pier outside an abandoned warehouse. He wore a trenchcoat and a fedora with its brim turned down...

The One in Which Sonia Sotomayor Reverses Herself

Posted on June 17, 2009
This is a tale of two class actions filed in one court, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In the first, Judge Sonia Sotomayor wrote the opinion that set a new standard for class certification. In the second, she joined the three-judge panel that expressly disavowed her first decision...

Shielding Doctors From Med-Mal Doesn't Help the Bottom Line on Health Care Costs

Posted on June 16, 2009
In a speech yesterday at the American Medical Association's annual meeting, President Obama told doctors that his plan to reduce medical costs and increase coverage can't succeed without tackling the problem of medical malpractice liability and out-of-control jury awards...

Concerns Raised About Offshoring Legal Services to India

Posted on June 16, 2009
While legal process outsourcing to India has gained traction in recent years, many firms in the United States and the U.K. still refuse to consider offshoring because of concerns over data security, reports The Times of India. Although the LPO industry grew to $225 million in revenues in 2008, that represents just 5 percent of the potential market, according to the story...

BigLaw Reluctant to Respond to Open Casting Call

Posted on June 16, 2009
Large firms may be suffering in this economy, but apparently not so much that they're willing to respond to open casting calls. Last month, I posted about how Houston-based FMC Technologies turned to social media site Legal OnRamp to find innovative law firms willing to offer alternative billing arrangements...

Welcome to the Bay State, Judge Kent

Posted on June 15, 2009
Massachusetts gets a dubious distinction today -- it becomes the new home of the first federal judge to go to prison since 1991. Samuel Kent, who sat as a federal district judge in Galveston, Texas, before pleading guilty to obstruction of justice, has been ordered to report by 2 p...

This Law Clerk Brought to You by ...

Posted on June 15, 2009
What with all those deferred law firm associates sitting around wondering what to do with themselves, why not put them to work in the courts? Well, one obvious reason not to might be to avoid compromising judicial independence by having law firms pay the salaries of court staff...

Violent Threats to One Lawyer Did Not Forfeit Right to Another

Posted on June 15, 2009
A defendant who sent a blood-smeared letter threatening to harm his court-appointed lawyer if he did not withdraw from the case did not lose his right to a new court-appointed lawyer, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has decided. While concluding that a defendant's conduct could conceivably be so serious as to forfeit the right to counsel, the court said that a judge cannot make that decision without first following certain procedural safeguards...

In U.S. Territory, a Constitutional Face-Off

Posted on June 15, 2009
A lawsuit was filed Friday in U.S. District Court in the U.S. Virgin Islands seeking to compel the territory's governor to forward a draft V.I. constitution to President Barack Obama. The lawsuit is the latest salvo in a face-off between the drafters of the proposed constitution and opponents who say it is at odds with the U...

Former BigLaw Attorney Dishes on Cravath

Posted on June 12, 2009
Bitter Lawyer carries an interview today with Pulitzer Prize finalist Gerald Posner (no relation to the other Posner), an investigative reporter and former associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore. He's written books on Nazis and the global heroin trade, but what's most interesting about the interview is what Posner has to say about his life at Cravath...

Lawyers Brace as Facebook Makes Usernames Available to 200 Million Users

Posted on June 12, 2009
Gentlemen, start your search engines. The race to grab your Facebook user name starts at midnight this coming Friday, reports The National Law Journal. At that time, Facebook will allow an estimated 200 million users to select their "usernames," which can include a trademark, brand name or personal name...

Washington Post Sues to Disqualify WSJ From Publishing Legal Notices

Posted on June 12, 2009
Even in the Internet Age, most courts require litigants in probate, foreclosure or other legal proceedings to provide notice in newspapers of "general circulation." So with commercial ad revenues on the decline, legal notices remain one of the few dependable sources of cash for newspapers -- so much so that at least one newspaper is willing to go to court to protect its legal-notice publication turf...

U.K. Lawyers Get the Message: 1-800-U-R-Fired

Posted on June 12, 2009
Imagine dialing into your voicemail and hearing a message that you've been terminated. That's how 14 trainee solicitors learned they wouldn't be receiving permanent offers from London-based global law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, reports The Daily Mail...

Minow Named Dean of Harvard Law

Posted on June 11, 2009
Harvard Law School announced today that it has named Martha Minow as dean to replace Elena Kagan, who left to join the Obama administration as solicitor general. A member of the Harvard Law faculty since 1981, Minow is described in the announcement as a "distinguished legal scholar with interests that range from international human rights to equality and inequality, from religion and pluralism to managing mass tort litigation, from family law and education law to the privatization of military, schooling, and other governmental activities...

Your Fianc�e Can Get You Fired

Posted on June 11, 2009
Your employer cannot fire you because you pursue your rights under Title VII. That is unlawful retaliation. But can you get fired because someone close to you -- to wit, your fianc�e -- filed a Title VII claim? That is the unique issue decided this week by the 6th U...

Spence: I Am Famous Because I Am Selfish

Posted on June 11, 2009
Gerry Spence is nothing if not interesting -- other than sometimes too enamored of himself. We can deduce that much simply from his preference for suit coats made of fringed buckskin. But the latest blog post from this Wyoming trial lawyer is more interesting than most, if only for its ability to suggest so much about the man in so few words...

A Casting Call for Sotomayor

Posted on June 11, 2009
In the world of theater, to encourage someone to "break a leg" is to wish them good luck. Supporters of Sonia Sotomayor can only hope that proves true in the theater that is the Supreme Court confirmation process, after her stumble Monday at La Guardia airport in New York left her with a broken ankle, crutches and a cast...

Lawyer Tapped as First FOIA Ombudsman

Posted on June 11, 2009
An office created by Congress in 2007 to provide policy guidance and mediation services for Freedom of Information Act activities throughout the federal government finally has a director -- a lawyer with substantial experience in promoting open government...

From Prosecutor to Pimp

Posted on June 11, 2009
It's no more Mr. Nice Guy for a former assistant Hennepin County attorney in Minneapolis busted for running a prostitution ring for a group of well-to-do older men known as "The Minnesota Nice Guys." Police allege that the attorney, John St. Marie, has been arranging prostitutes for the group since shortly after retiring from the county attorney's office in 2003...

Threatening Letters Do Little to Deter Illegal Downloads

Posted on June 10, 2009
Turns out that those threatening lawyer nastygrams aren't all that effective when it comes to deterring illegal software downloads. According to U.K. magazine Web User, a recent study conducted by U.K.-based media law firm Wiggin and Entertainment Media Research found that only one-third of surfers would stop downloading copyright-protected content from the Web if their ISP sent them a warning letter...

D.C. Lawyer Kenneth Feinberg to Serve as Pay Czar

Posted on June 10, 2009
Cutting the pay of executives who head the corporations that received bailout money is a thankless job, but the Obama Administration has determined that someone's got to do it. And that someone is is none other than D.C. lawyer and mediator Kenneth Feinberg, who today was appointed "Executive Pay Czar" by President Obama, according to The New York Times...

Newbie Lawyer Ready to Take on the RIAA

Posted on June 10, 2009
Back in May, Kiwi Camara, Harvard Law School's youngest admittee, and a relatively new grad with his own firm, Camara & Sibley, stepped in at the last hour to represent Jammie Thomas in the latest chapter of her epic battle with the Recording Industry Association of America...

Should Bar Exams Test Legal Research Skills?

Posted on June 10, 2009
Should the bar exam test prospective lawyers on their legal research skills? Joe Hodnicki considers the question over at the Law Librarian Blog. He writes that several prominent law school librarians have advocated for inclusion of a legal research component on the bar exam for a long time...

The 'Freeconomics' of Free Labor

Posted on June 10, 2009
I've posted previously about the growing phenomenon of lawyers working for free, either to build their r�sum�s in hopes of finding a new job or to bide their time while waiting for their law firms to call them back to work after a deferral period. But is free labor always a benefit to the companies that receive it? Jill Priluck examines both sides of the "gift economy" In this interesting piece at Slate's The Big Money...

Lawyers Fail in Campaigns for Harvard Overseers

Posted on June 09, 2009
Lawyers Harvey A. Silverglate (pictured) and Robert L. Freedman were unable to garner enough votes to win seats on Harvard University's Board of Overseers, one of two bodies that govern the prestigious university. Both Silverglate, a Cambridge, Mass., civil liberties lawyer, and Freedman, a partner in the Philadelphia office of Dechert, had hoped to win seats on the board and push for what they believe are needed reforms in Harvard's governance...

In London, Partner Profits Plummet

Posted on June 09, 2009
Partner pay plummeted by up to 36 percent at four London law firms, Bloomberg.com reports -- and that's the good news. Law firms that are first to report their profits are the most confident about their positions, Tony Williams, the former managing partner of Clifford Chance and the founder of Jomati Consultants, told Bloomberg...

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