Posts on ‘May 29th, 2009’

The coming addition of five labor and employment attorneys from Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll in Washington, D.C., is the latest indication that Eckert Seamans has been on a bit of a growth spurt. The firm has brought on 38 laterals so far this year through a combination of good timing and an environment in which it can offer parallel compensation, but a more flexible rate structure, says CEO Timothy Ryan, and it’s focusing on expanding its Washington, D.C., and Boston offices through lateral hires.

For Drew Schaffer, a recent veteran of combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and now a first-year law student, any classroom jitters are relative: “Having been in some pretty stressful situations, you realize getting a low grade on an exam is not life threatening.” The former Army Ranger applied to law school from Afghanistan, studied for the LSAT between combat patrols and took the test under threat of Taliban artillery fire. Now he’s started a group to ease the application process for other overseas soldiers.

Georgia criminal defense attorney J. Mark Shelnutt says he is “ready to fight” a federal indictment that accuses him of joining in a drug conspiracy and laundering money from a drug ring whose leader he defended in federal court. A grand jury handed down a 40-count indictment against Shelnutt after what the lawyer describes as an extended whisper campaign of rumors and grand jury leaks. “You can’t really fight a ghost,” he said, but “you can fight an indictment full of bogus charges.”

The Obama administration announced in April that it favors reform of a 20-year-old law that mandates a sentence of at least five years for possession of 500 grams of powder cocaine with intent to distribute and the same penalty for five grams of crack cocaine. Yet it is impossible to tell from the Justice Department’s guidance whether anything has changed in the trenches. While the government decides what it wants to do, a request for adjournments of sentencings may be one defense strategy.

Family Court does not have jurisdiction to order a woman with no biological or legal ties to her former same-sex partner’s son to pay child support, a New York state appeals panel has ruled. The 3-2 ruling turned on the fact that the only New York proceedings for determining parentage are paternity proceedings, which resolve controversies over the fatherhood of a child. No similar vehicle exists for determining a child’s mother and, therefore, for the Family Court to order the woman to pay support, according to the panel.