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| Updated: 5/7/08 |
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Next update: 5/14/08
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When Law Prevents Righting a Wrong Staples Hughes, a North Carolina lawyer, was on the witness stand and about to disclose a secret he believed would free an innocent man from prison. But the judge told Mr. Hughes to stop. “If you testify,” Judge Jack A. Thompson said at a hearing last year on the prisoner’s request for a new trial, “I will be compelled to report you to the state bar. Do you understand that?” But Mr. Hughes continued. Twenty-two years before, he said, a client, now dead, confessed that he had acted alone in committing a double murder for which another man was also serving life. After his own imprisoned client died, Mr. Hughes recalled last week, “it seemed to me at that point ethically permissible and morally imperative that I spill the beans.” Judge Thompson, of the Cumberland County Superior Court in Fayetteville, did not see it that way, and some experts in legal ethics agree with him. The obligation to keep a client’s secrets is so important, they say, that it survives death and may not be violated even to cure a grave injustice — for example, the imprisonment for 26 years of another man, in Illinois, who was freed just last month. A lawyer’s broad duty to keep clients’ confidences is the bedrock on which the justice system is built, they argue. If clients did not feel free to speak candidly, their lawyers could not represent them effectively. And making exceptions risks eroding the trust between clients and their lawyers in future cases. Experts in legal ethics are quick to point out that the various players in the adversary system have assigned roles and that lawyers generally must tend to a limited one. NY TIMES A Spirited Practice: Combining Law With Religion Is Work -- but Worth It Can religion and law be complementary? Indeed, say a number of attorneys. Dallas lawyer Princy Sethi, a Hindu, says the teachings of her religion require that she strive to be the best lawyer she can be. Lawyers who integrate their belief system into their legal life say it's the most fulfilling way to practice -- but that it isn't easy. "You have this internal compass guiding you to want to do the right thing," says another lawyer, "and sometimes that can be a disadvantage, especially in litigation." TEXAS LAWYER Online Pretrial Publicity Draws Fire Lawyers using the Web for pretrial publicity is a growing concern -- many fear that online rantings, blogs and press releases by attorneys are potentially tainting the jury pool. Web sites that give biased, blow-by-blow accounts of pending litigation could spell trouble for your firm. NATIONAL LAW JOURNAL From Making the Cases to Challenging Them For the last 10 years, Ronnie Abrams lived a real-life version of “Law & Order.” As a Manhattan federal prosecutor assigned to the violent gangs unit of the United States attorney’s office, Ms. Abrams worked to convict the founder of the Bloods gang and 12 members of the Restrepo Organization, the robbery crew led by Alex Restrepo. Her new job, at Davis Polk & Wardwell, a white-shoe firm that built its name as counsel to the House of Morgan, may seem a world away, at least at first blush. Many former prosecutors parlay their high-profile trial experience into jobs with big law firms, often specializing in the defense of white-collar crime. But Ms. Abrams is continuing her public service at Davis Polk. She is the firm’s first special counsel for pro bono, a new position, and one that is part of a growing trend by law firms, which have been grappling for more than a decade to meet various challenges on the pro bono front. “It’s become much more important in terms of client relations, recruitment and marketing,” says Esther F. Lardent. president of the Pro Bono Institute, which, since 1995, has urged large law firms to commit 3 percent to 5 percent of lawyer hours to pro bono work. Many firms are choosing to hire someone of the stature of Ms. Abrams to oversee their pro bono programs, she said. “It’s a very fast growing trend, there’s no question.” Another big law firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, had a 38 percent increase in pro bono hours in 2007, after it assigned Douglas Robinson, a longtime partner devoted to defenses in death penalty cases who was considering early retirement, to become its first pro bono partner. The firm logged “well over 100,000 hours” in pro bono work, according to the managing partner, Robert C. Sheehan. Davis Polk has not made Ms. Abrams a partner. Previously, a former associate of the firm oversaw the firm’s pro bono efforts. NY TIMES 5th Circuit: Firm Can't Charge Full Hourly Rate for Travel Time A tax law firm seeking more than $6.3 million in fees and costs for its services in an asbestos case cannot charge a full hourly rate for travel time not spent working, the 5th Circuit has ruled. In affirming a lower court decision that slashed by half the requested fees, the appeals court noted that Caplin & Drysdale was unable to show that charging a full hourly rate for such time was customary among law firms. NATIONAL LAW JOURNAL Survey: Law Firm GCs Earning More General counsel at top law firms have seen a significant pay hike over the last year, according to a new survey directed at Am Law 200 firms. The 2008 survey by Altman Weil, a legal consulting company, found that the average full-time general counsel at these law firms earned more than $750,000 in 2007. That number is up 34 percent from 2006, when the survey found that they earned about $561,000. LEGAL TIMES Bates Stamps' Days May Be Numbered One of the biggest challenges facing litigation attorneys is managing the sheer volume of digital documents produced during the discovery phase. To address this problem, many vendors advocate a new way of working with electronic documents -- not using Bates numbers on every page. LAW TECHNOLOGY NEWS Attorney, Interrupted: Seeking Meaning, Recovery for a Legal Life Lost Texas lawyer Hermes Villarreal was at the top of his game. He had a great family, a successful personal injury practice and an impressive track record of community involvement. It wasn't enough, though, to protect him from acute depression. And three years ago, Villarreal took his own life at the age of 41. Now his best friend, lawyer Raymond Thomas, says if there can be a silver lining to the tragedy, it will come through spreading the word in the legal community about depression and how it can be treated. TEXAS LAWYER Answers to the Questions Associates Should Be Afraid to Ask In the big-firm world, inflated associate salaries have exacerbated the pressure to perform, leaving many young lawyers scared to ask simple questions for fear that a partner, client or senior associate may determine the questioner is a moron and totally unworthy of a paycheck. But fear not -- humor columnist The Snark is here for those new attorneys. He has compiled a list of "stupid questions" and has answered them with the experience he has taken from his time inside the large-firm "machine." FULTON COUNTY DAILY REPORT A pipe bomb or series of pipe bombs exploded at the Edward J. Schwartz Federal Courthouse in downtown San Diego early Sunday morning, sending shrapnel into a courtyard and to the eighth floor of a building across the street. Two guards with the Federal Protective Service, who were inside the building, called authorities when they heard the explosion at 1:40 a.m. The guards, who work for a federal agency that is part of the U.S. Deparment of Homeland Security, were not injured. Firefighters, police, FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives agents arrived minutes later to find the front door shattered and the lobby of the building damaged. SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE Special Counsel's Office Raided Amid Obstruction Probe Federal agents raided the office and home of U.S. Special Counsel Scott Bloch on Tuesday while investigating whether the nation's top protector of whistleblowers destroyed evidence potentially showing he retaliated against his own staff. The raids mark the latest twist in what critics describe as Bloch's bizarre tenure at the head of the federal agency responsible for protecting the rights of federal workers and ensuring that government whistleblowers are not subjected to reprisals. AP | NY TIMES Ohio Dems talking impeachment after AG refuses to resign Risking impeachment, Ohio's attorney general on Monday refused demands from the governor and other fellow Democrats that he resign over a sexual harassment scandal in his office and an affair with a subordinate. Gov. Ted Strickland told reporters that Democrats will begin drafting an impeachment resolution against Attorney General Marc Dann right away. Republican House Speaker Jon Husted said Monday that his chamber — which takes the first step in any impeachment — was already reviewing the process. Virtually every state-level Democratic officeholder urged Dann to resign in a letter late Sunday after Strickland tried twice during the day to persuade him to leave office. A sexual harassment investigation uncovered an atmosphere in Dann's office rife with inappropriate staff-subordinate relationships, heavy drinking and harassing and threatening behavior by a supervisor. On Friday, Dann admitted to an extramarital affair with a subordinate after the investigation threatened to reveal the relationship. "I would hope the Attorney General will understand that his effectiveness as an attorney general has been so diminished that in my judgment he can no longer effectively serve in that office," Strickland said Monday. The governor and Dann were among many Ohio Democrats swept into office in 2006 in the wake of a Republican scandal over state investments. "I think it's important for Democrats to send a very clear message that we will clean our own house," Strickland said. A misdemeanor must have been committed for impeachment to go forward, according to the state constitution. Strickland declined to say what misdemeanor Democrats believe Dann has committed. AP Yahoo's Skadden Lawyers Engineer Rarely Used Tactic to Hold Off Microsoft A timely maneuver by Yahoo's lawyers apparently played a key role in scaring off Microsoft for the moment. In a letter to Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said concerns over Yahoo's plans to pursue a deal to outsource some online advertising to Google would bring "a host of regulatory and legal problems" and weaken Yahoo's paid search advertising position. Observers say it was a clever delay tactic by Yahoo's lawyers at Skadden that gave the company time to come up with the Google deal. THE RECORDER Inspectors General May Get More Power Congress is close to enacting the most significant boost in three decades in the independence of the cadre of government watchdogs -- federal inspectors general -- but the lawmakers have retreated from a key change involving the U.S. Department of Justice. The Inspector General Reform Act of 2008 passed only after the lawmakers agreed to an amendment that deleted a provision giving Justice's Office of Inspector General jurisdiction to investigate misconduct allegations against department attorneys. NATIONAL LAW JOURNAL DOJ's Economic-Spy Strategy Emerges Federal prosecutors' tactics are under fire as defendants in one Silicon Valley economic espionage case are used against defendants in another. For the government to succeed in its apparent strategy of trading sentencing leniency for one pair of defendants in order to help convict another pair on higher-profile charges, they'll have to first persuade Judge James Ware to turn aside defense challenges to the FBI's tactics, which were aired in his courtroom last week. THE RECORDER Former Milberg Expert Witness Pleads Guilty to Perjury John B. Torkelsen, a former expert witness in hundreds of shareholder derivative and class action cases for Milberg Weiss, pleaded guilty on Thursday to perjury charges. Torkelsen, who is serving a prison sentence in West Virginia on an unrelated charge, could face up to five more years in federal prison. Under his plea agreement, which was reached earlier this year, Torkelsen admitted that he lied to a federal judge in San Jose, Calif., while testifying in a 1999 securities class action case. NATIONAL LAW JOURNAL New Derivative Case Against Brocade Directors Accuses Wilson Sonsini of Malpractice Few plaintiffs have gone after companies' outside lawyers in backdating lawsuits. But a new derivative case against directors and officers at Brocade Communications Systems also targets the company's law firm, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. Filed in California federal court by a small San Diego firm, the suit accuses Wilson Sonsini of legal malpractice for allegedly blessing backdating at Brocade, a company that saw two of its former executives convicted of criminal charges. THE RECORDER Lawyer Hopes F-Word Means 'Forgiven,' Asks Court to Lift Sanctions The lawyer who was hit with sanctions for failing to rein in a foul-mouthed client is asking a judge for permission to drop the client and begging for the sanctions to be lifted. Client Aaron Wider's alleged misconduct included dropping 73 "F-bombs" during his deposition -- prompting a federal judge to impose sanctions of more than $29,000 on attorney Joseph R. Ziccardi. The case created a sensation in the blogosphere as a slew of commentators linked to the decision as an example of a litigant gone wild. LEGAL INTELLIGENCER Deal Struck on Pakistan Judges: Ruling Coalition Agrees to Reinstate Chief Justice, 60 Others The coalition government of Pakistan has agreed to reinstate the country's chief justice and 60 other judges deposed last year under a controversial order by President Pervez Musharraf, a move that could threaten Musharraf's tenuous grip on political power. "I want to inform the entire nation that on Monday, May 12, 2008, all deposed judges will be restored," former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, of the Pakistan Muslim League-N, said Friday during a televised news conference from Lahore. The announcement came after two days of round-the-clock negotiations in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, that at times exposed the shaky foundation of the political alliance between this country's ruling factions, Sharif's party and the Pakistan People's Party. Sharif had been a fierce advocate of reinstating the judges without conditions as soon as possible. The co-chair of the Pakistan People's Party, Asif Ali Zardari, who was until very recently Sharif's bitter political foe, had pushed for constitutional changes that would spell out the role of the judiciary more clearly but also strip the president of several powers, including the authority to dissolve Parliament. On Friday, Sharif said Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry and the other deposed judges will be restored to the bench through a parliamentary resolution in 10 days. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani will then sign an executive order completing the arrangement. Musharraf did not speak out on the judges Friday, and it was unclear how he might respond to an attempt to restore them to the bench. Sharif shared few details of the proposed resolution but said that the day Musharraf removed the judges was "one of the darkest days in Pakistan's history." He also said he had agreed with Zardari's request to allow the current judges to remain on the job, which will expand the number of Supreme Court judges to more than 20. Zardari offered no public comment on the judges Friday. WASHINGTON POST | NY TIMES MISSING-PANTS CASE: Judge Sues City Over Job Loss Roy L. Pearson Jr., whose $54 million lawsuit against a dry-cleaning business generated international attention, is suing the D.C. government, alleging officials broke the law when they did not reappoint him to the job of administrative law judge. Pearson lost his lawsuit last year against Custom Cleaners, which he said had misplaced a pair of his pants. Then the commission that oversees administrative law judges declined to reappoint him to a 10-year term. The commission questioned his judgment and temperament during two years on the bench. Administrative law judges hear cases involving city agencies and commissions. Pearson's suit against the city was first reported by the Washington Examiner. In the lawsuit, filed last week in U.S. District Court, Pearson said that he had an "outstanding record" and that the commission illegally retaliated against him for speaking out about the court's management. Pearson, who is representing himself, wants his job, back pay and hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages. According to the lawsuit, Pearson said he was suing for "emotional pain, embarrassment, humiliation, mental anguish, loss of professional reputation, and loss of enjoyment of life." Peter J. Nickles, interim D.C. attorney general, said Pearson's lawsuit is "without merit." The District has no plans to settle and will "vigorously defend" itself, Nickles said. He also offered Pearson some advice. "He needs to stop filing lawsuits," he said. WASHINGTON POST Judge Pay Hike May Be Running Out of Steam Hope is dimming that Congress will pass a pay hike for federal judges this year -- despite some early legislative successes and behind-the-scenes lobbying by Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. A 29 percent salary increase passed both the House and Senate Judiciary committees with the backing of civic groups and editorial writers nationwide. But then political and budget distractions slowed the momentum. Its fate may now be decided in the mad scramble of a post-election session of Congress at the end of 2008. LEGAL TIMES N.Y. Judge Files $10 Million Defamation Suit Against Attorney, Newspaper A Brooklyn judge has filed an unusual $10 million defamation suit against attorney Ravi Batra and the New York Daily News. Justice Larry D. Martin's suit alleges that Batra was the source of two Daily News columns and related blog postings falsely accusing the judge of improperly presiding over a case involving a lawyer who had defended him before a judicial conduct commission. The judge claims the articles were "grossly irresponsible" and show an indifference to his "rights and reputation." NY LAW JOURNAL Grand Jury Indicts Texas Supreme Court Justice's Wife on Felony Counts of Arson A second grand jury indicted the wife of Texas Supreme Court Justice David Medina on three felony counts of arson Wednesday but did not indict the jurist, according to a Harris County assistant district attorney. David Medina and his wife, Francisca, had both been indicted in January in connection with a 2007 fire that damaged their home. Those charges were dismissed by 176th District Court Judge Brian Rains at the request of the Harris County DA's office on the ground that there was insufficient evidence. TEXAS LAWYER N.Y. Judges Warned Against Tactics That Hurt Pay Hike 'Cause' Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye on Thursday cautioned New York's 1,300 judges that they will "hurt our cause" for a pay raise by insulting state officials and recusing themselves in retaliation from cases in which legislators or their firms appear. Kaye's e-mail followed a letter she wrote Tuesday to New York's governor, assuring him that accounts of a "judicial slowdown" were "without basis." NY LAW JOURNAL In One Flaw, Questions on Validity of 46 Judges Law professors are sometimes influential, but in a general way. Their insights can help shape the law, over time and at the margins. But John F. Duffy, who teaches at the George Washington University Law School, is a different kind of law professor. He has discovered a constitutional flaw in the appointment process over the last eight years for judges who decide patent appeals and disputes, and his short paper documenting the problem seems poised to undo thousands of patent decisions concerning claims worth billions of dollars. His basic point does not appear to be in dispute. Since 2000, patent judges have been appointed by a government official without the constitutional power to do so. “I actually ran it by a number of colleagues who teach administrative law and constitutional law,” Professor Duffy said, recalling his own surprise at finding such a fundamental and important flaw. He thought he must have been missing something. “No one thought it was a close question,” Professor Duffy said. Charles Miller, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said the government had no comment. “There is really nothing we can say at this time,” he said. But the Justice Department has already all but conceded that Professor Duffy is right. Given the opportunity to dispute him in a December appeals court filing, government lawyers said only that they were at work on a legislative solution. They did warn that the impact of Professor Duffy’s discovery could be cataclysmic for the patent world, casting “a cloud over many thousands of board decisions” and “unsettling the expectations of patent holders and licensees across the nation.” But they did not say Professor Duffy was wrong. NY TIMES McCain Assures Conservatives of His Stance on Judges Senator John McCain vowed to appoint only judges he called strictly faithful to the Constitution, an issue of enormous importance to conservatives. NY TIMES Court upholds NC's public financing of judicial campaigns For the second time, a federal appeals court has struck down a North Carolina law prohibiting issue-oriented political action committees from accepting individual contributions of more than $4,000. In a second opinion also issued Thursday, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld North Carolina's system of publicly financing elections for seats on the state's court of appeals and Supreme Court. "This is a very conservative court and to have them legitimize public financing is significant," said Bob Hall, the executive director of Democracy North Carolina, a nonprofit group that advocates for clean elections. Hall said the ruling on public financing of campaigns offsets his disappointment in the first ruling, the latest in a series concerning a 1999 state law challenged by the North Carolina Right to Life Committee. The law was designed to prevent political action committees from running independent campaigns on behalf of like-minded candidates, and in doing so avoid the state's limits on direct donations to candidates. Along with the contribution limits, the ruling also found other parts of the law unconstitutional. Among them, a provision that allowed the State Board of Elections to use the context of a communication - such as a television ad - to determine if the PAC is explicitly supporting a candidate. The law has wound its way through several courts, with a trial judge and the Richmond, Va.-based 4th Circuit previously agreeing the law should be struck down. In 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court sent the case back to the lower courts to be reconsidered in light of the new rules imposed by the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. AP
Judicial term limit issue fails An effort to impose term limits on judges is over after backers failed to get enough valid voter signatures to put the issue on the November ballot. Former state Senate President John Andrews, who led the judicial term-limits effort this year and also in 2006, said volunteers have been gathering signatures since January but aren't going to have enough before the May 14 deadline. It takes 76,047 valid voter signatures to get an issue on the ballot. "Court reform will have to wait for another year," Andrews said, in a statement. The proposal would have limited all state judges to three four-year terms. Andrews said the term-limits committee, Limit the Power, will now work at defeating other proposals for this fall's budget. "Our focus this year will be on curbing the undue power of labor unions, trial lawyers, and the spending lobby here in Colorado," he said. Andrews, a Centennial Republican, was behind a judicial term limits effort in 2006. It made the ballot, but Amendment 40 lost with 43 percent of the vote. Some of Colorado's top political and judicial heavyweights two years ago joined forces to defeat the proposal. Republican Attorney General John Suthers opposed it as did then Gov. Bill Owens and his three predecessors. ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS Texas Supreme Court ruling sides with prolific donor A Texas Supreme Court decision that sided with the state's most prolific campaign contributor in overturning an $800,000 arbitration award to a suburban couple has critics renewing complaints of what they say is big money influencing elected judges. Houston homebuilder Bob Perry, who has given millions of dollars to state and federal candidates, prevailed Friday after a 5-4 decision by the state's highest civil court in a case over a defective house. The nine judges on the all-Republican panel, whose decision overturned two lower-court rulings, have each received contributions totaling more than $260,000 from members of Perry's family. Anthony Holm, a spokesman for Perry, hailed the decision and denied that political contributions played any part, The Dallas Morning News reported in its Saturday editions. Alex Winslow of Texas Watch, a nonprofit government watchdog group, said the decision reflects the high court's record of favoring businesses. AP
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