Posts on ‘February 23rd, 2009’

The solicitor general’s office has turned down a request by the Innocence Project to disavow a Bush administration stance on prisoners’ access to DNA evidence in post-conviction proceedings. As a result, on March 2, Neal Katyal will debut as deputy SG by arguing before the Supreme Court in support of the state of Alaska’s view that prisoners have no constitutional right to obtain DNA evidence to help them prove their innocence — even if the prisoners pay for the DNA testing themselves.

Tax lawyer Robert Kenny says he’s paying a steep price for taking on the Internal Revenue Service on behalf of clients: a retaliatory strike that has put his livelihood and his law license at risk. In a federal suit, Kenny alleges that when he complained to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration that an IRS agent was telling taxpayers to forgo representation, the IRS lodged a complaint against him. Kenny says he’s gone public about the dispute to protect himself from what he calls a “Star Chamber proceeding.”

The case against Miami attorney Ben Kuehne keeps crumbling. A federal magistrate recommended Friday that a wire and mail fraud count against Kuehne and a Colombian co-defendant be dismissed — another embarrassing setback in the case for the Justice Department. Kuehne and Colombian attorney Oscar Saldarriaga are accused of using drug profits from the family of Colombian drug kingpin Fabio Ochoa to pay the drug trafficker’s legal fees. Kuehne was hired by Ochoa’s defense team to find untainted money.

Michael Conahan never made a secret of his relationship with Robert Kulick. Even a year ago, the former president judge of Luzerne County, Pa., and the friend of reputed mob boss William “Billy” D’Elia could be seen chatting in restaurants and bars — the same venues where Kulick and D’Elia would meet, a former county judge said. Now, other sources have confirmed, the two admitted felons are cooperating with federal officials as they continue a probe into corruption at the courthouse Conahan used to run.

The U.S. Supreme Court returns the week of Feb. 23 after a monthlong break to what may be potentially the term’s most difficult and significant decisions affecting business, employees, the environment and civil rights. The high court’s work thus far has produced no blockbusters, agree most Court watchers and litigators, but there have been important rulings in the areas of pre-emption — increasingly a concern of business and consumers — employment discrimination and criminal procedure.

A former British resident who claims he was brutally tortured at a covert CIA site in Morocco has been freed from Guantanamo after nearly seven years in U.S. captivity — an ordeal that could come back to haunt the U.S. and British governments. Binyam Mohamed, who landed at the U.K.’s Northolt military base on Monday, is the first Guantanamo prisoner released since President Barack Obama took office.

The American Bar Association wants back inside the process for vetting nominees to the federal judiciary, and it says the White House is at least listening. Eight years ago, the incoming Bush administration reversed a longstanding policy that gave the association’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary a central, privileged role in the nomination process. Committee members have described the research they did as part of that role as extremely thorough, involving at least 40 interviews per nominee.

Patton Boggs is overhauling its compensation plan for partners, retooling a long-held “eat-what-you-kill” system to reward partner cooperation and business development. Under the new structure, which will be phased in next year, partners will have a percentage of their pay set by a committee that will examine how well partners refer business to each other and will also weigh involvement in associate mentoring and training and whether partners nearing retirement are transferring clients to the next generation.

With the economy tanking, experts say the stage is set for a surge in legal malpractice lawsuits, as clients look to recoup their losses from third parties. Insurance carriers and attorneys haven’t seen a tidal wave of legal malpractice suits yet, but they anticipate a spike later in the year and into 2010. National insurance provider CNA Financial Corp. predicts that legal malpractice claims will be up by 5 percent in 2009.

A bad economy, aging workers and long-ago company promises of lifetime health benefits for retirees have combined to produce a spate of conflicting federal appellate standards as companies try to cut back the benefits. The 6th Circuit has embraced broad acceptance of the premise that retiree benefit rights vest if there’s additional evidence outside the contract. The 7th Circuit generally assumes that benefit promises expire with the labor contract. And the 3rd and 4th circuits take an even harder line.