Posts on ‘October 28th, 2008’

If any practical legal principle can be extracted from the gnarled facts of , it is probably this: You can’t get palimony if you cohabit with a married man and his wealthy, elderly wife and then leave him because he won’t leave her. A New Jersey appeals court on Monday, though finding this arrangement a marriage-type relationship, reversed a trial judge’s grant of palimony damages, concluding there was no express or implied promise of lifetime support.

A California judge with a sharp tongue was publicly admonished Monday by the Commission on Judicial Performance. Recently retired Superior Court Judge Paul Bryant Jr. “failed to be patient, dignified and courteous” toward attorneys in his courtroom on five occasions between July 2005 and February 2007, the commission concluded. In one case, an annoyed Bryant told an attorney she was “rude and obnoxious.” He then vacated his previous order granting her request for sanctions and recused himself from the matter.

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld a lower court’s decision to dismiss contempt charges against intellectual property law firm Fish & Richardson and principal Geoffrey Harper. Senior Circuit Judge Bruce Selya upheld a ruling by the U.S. Court for the District of Massachusetts that Harper didn’t interfere with federal grand jury proceedings by giving documents related to a discovery stay to the media and court officials in a Texas state court case.

A top bankruptcy partner at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy is leaving that firm to join Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker. Luc A. Despins, well-known in the profession for his representation of the creditors’ committee in the Enron bankruptcy, is the latest marquee name to be poached as firms rush to ramp up restructuring practices in response to the worsening economy.

The leader of the Roman Catholic Church in New York is among those criticizing Fordham University for giving an award to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, due to Breyer’s votes in high court abortion cases. A spokesman for the New York Archdiocese said Cardinal Edward Egan was surprised to learn Breyer would receive an award from Fordham’s law school and has spoken to the Catholic university’s leaders to ensure “that a mistake of this sort will not happen again.”

Confidence in the future of the U.K. legal sector has fallen sharply over the past 12 months, new research shows. According to an independent study compiled on behalf of accounting firm Smith & Williamson, just 50 percent of the U.K.’s leading firms are either “very confident” or “reasonably confident” in the business outlook for the coming year. The figure for 2007 was 91 percent. The research also shows that six out of 10 respondents expect to see an increase in merger activity over the next year.

The New Jersey Supreme Court’s Advisory Committee on Professional Ethics has declined to place a proscription on lawyers charging a 50 percent contingency fee in consumer rights cases. The committee’s opinion addressed a lawyer’s inquiry on whether it is permissible to agree with a client to split evenly the net amount recovered, after disbursements, in a consumer protection case, where statutory attorney fees are available. But consumer lawyers are saying the opinion leaves some unanswered questions.

One week before oral argument in the case of , agreement over whether former Solicitor General Theodore Olson or attorney Joseph Larisa will argue for the appellants before the Supreme Court still seemed far away — so far that the Supreme Court itself may decide. At its private conference Friday, only one business day before the scheduled argument, the justices will consider an emergency motion filed by Larisa asking them to reconsider the possibility of divided argument.