Posts on ‘January 23rd, 2009’

The attorney for one-time Black Panther Party Chair Elaine Brown says her libel case against a lecturer at Emory University’s School of Law is “not even close” to being over, despite being thrown out of court this month. A Georgia judge dismissed claims that statements made by Kathleen Cleaver, the widow of former Black Panther Party Minister of Information Eldridge Cleaver, defamed Brown by characterizing her as an FBI informant in the 1970s.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s chief defense attorney, Edward Genson, announced Friday that he is bailing out of the fraud and bribery case against the governor, strongly hinting that his client refused to listen to his advice. Blagojevich, facing charges of fraud conspiracy and solicitation of bribery, was impeached by the Illinois House earlier this month and faces trial in the Senate.

A well-respected appellate lawyer has incurred the wrath of the California Supreme Court while indefinitely delaying an already decades-old death penalty case. The high court on Wednesday removed Cynthia Thomas from the case of Charles Moore and referred her to the State Bar for “appropriate disciplinary proceedings.” Her mistake? Arguing Moore’s case before the Supreme Court on Dec. 2 while ineligible to practice law.

Some of D.C.’s top Supreme Court advocates were far from the Marble Palace last week, turning up at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin for a conference on the rise of appellate advocacy and the 10th anniversary of the launch of the Texas Office of the Solicitor General. Morgan, Lewis & Bockius’ R. Ted Cruz, former Texas SG, recalled when state representation was “painfully, weepingly horrible,” but said the advent of state SGs has brought a “far better clash of ideas” to the high court.

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison had a solid 2008, with both revenue and profits moving up. Gross revenue reached $692 million, up 6.3 percent from 2007, and profits per equity partner climbed to $2.65 million, up 2.3 percent. At $1.07 million, revenue per lawyer was essentially flat. Headcount at the firm also grew by 6 percent to almost 650 lawyers. While the firm was mum about its financial performance, Paul Weiss’ numbers undoubtedly are due to its strong litigation practice.

Former Judge Stephen Thompson will be behind bars at least six more years on a sex crime conviction but ethics authorities still want to ensure he’ll never practice law again. At his criminal trial, his main defense to charges of downloading child porn in his chambers and going to Russia to have sex with an underage boy was that the trauma from combat injuries in Vietnam caused his pedophiliac tendencies. The remaining question: whether he has a mental disability that makes disbarment necessary to protect the public.

Several mistakes in a complaint — including typographical errors, the failure to state damages and the misspellings of both defendants’ names — are insufficient causes to dismiss the action, a New York judge has ruled. “With all due respect to counsel,” the defendants’ attorney had written in an affirmation in support of a motion to dismiss the case, “your Affiant in my almost 25 years of practice, has rarely seen a pleading so devoid of content and specifications.”

Of the hundreds of recusal motions filed against trial court judges in Texas each year, one pending against Judge Carl Ginsberg may be the strangest. In a suit in Ginsberg’s court that involves two attorneys and the breakup of a law firm, the judge has refused to grant a litigant’s motion to recuse him, even though last June Ginsberg notified the sheriff’s department about an incident in which he believed the litigant was stalking him. Legal experts disagree as to whether Ginsberg should be recused for bias or prejudice.

Lawyers know that copying doesn’t need to be present to prove patent infringement. But patent trials get played out on an emotional playing field, as well as a legal and technical one. Getting painted as a copycat is just one danger that defendants face in the courtroom. Defendants are up against other powerful cultural narratives that strongly favor a patent holder from the get-go. Polls show jurors are hardwired to believe that corporations will “lie, cheat, and steal” to get an edge on the competition.

The tendency to hype the benefits of online social networking and blogs in some U.S. legal circles might not be matched by lawyers and law firms in the U.K. “My career has not been helped by any social networking site and I do not read legal blogs,” says a U.K. partner at Linklaters.