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ANDREW BERRY, 69, LED McCARTER & ENGLISH'S GROWTH TO REGIONAL FIRM
"Andrew Berry, the chairman of McCarter & English who spearheaded its transformation from a local firm to a regional power, died on July 24 at his vacation home in Southport, Maine. He was 69. Berry spent his entire law career at the Newark-based firm where he began as a law clerk in the early 1960s. He was known as an adept defense litigator and was equally well-regarded as a law firm leader. As McCarter's chairman for the past 12 years, he led the firm through an unprecedented era of expansion while encouraging its lawyers' devotion to pro bono and charitable activities, including the representation of returning veterans, death row inmates and dispossessed tenants."

ALLEGED ANIMUS BY UMDNJ OFFICIALS NOT ENOUGH FOR CEPA CLAIM
"The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey on Monday won dismissal of a complaint that it fired an employee for cooperating with the FBI in the investigation that led to the school's supervision by a federal monitor. U.S. District Judge Jose Linares ruled that Louis Copeland Jr. failed to submit sufficient evidence that his whistle-blowing, not budgetary reasons cited by the school, caused his discharge along with other employees in May 2006, six months after the federal monitoring began. Linares noted that the officials who engineered the staff cuts that included Copeland's termination were placed in their jobs after the investigation of UMDNJ began"

GUILTY PLEA VOID IF ALIEN DEFENDANT NOT WARNED DEPORTATION IS A CERTAINTY
"The New Jersey Supreme Court sent a message to trial judges on Monday that a non-citizen's guilty plea to a serious crime felony will be vacated if the defendant was not made aware that it will result in deportation. The Court also ordered that the standard plea form be amended to make it clear to defendants, especially those who do not speak English, that deportation is a certainty for crimes considered aggravated felonies under federal law. The Court in State v. Nunez-Valdez, A-46-08, vacated a Dominican Republic native's guilty plea to fourth-degree criminal sexual contact, where it appeared the defense attorney assured him that deportation was unlikely."

EMPLOYMENT LAWYERS SKEPTICAL ABOUT BIOMETRIC VERIFICATION
"Lawyers are expressing skepticism and criticism about using biometric data to verify if employees are eligible to work in the United States. Senate Immigration Subcommittee Chairman Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who believes the current E-Verify system that lets employers check the eligibility status of workers does not work, said he would like to pursue a verification tool that would identify workers based on physiological traits like hand and palm geometry, iris and retina structures and fingerprints. But defense lawyers predict such a mandated procedure would be attacked on privacy grounds and that employers are likely to resist it if it turns out to be expensive and time-consuming."

PRO BONO HOURS RISE AT MAJOR U.S. LAW FIRMS
"Between attorney layoffs, dipping profits and a lack of business, 2008 was a brutal year for many major law firms. But these difficult economic times have been a boon to one practice area: pro bono. A survey by the Pro Bono Institute at Georgetown University Law Center found that pro bono hours increased by 13% in 2008 among 135 of the firms involved in the institute's Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge ? a jump the report called "extraordinary." Firms reported completing more than 4.8 million hours of pro bono work in 2008 and most of those hours were spent serving people of limited means or the organizations that assist them"

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