Posts from ‘May, 2009’

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.

Citing “current real estate market conditions,” the trustee in charge of liquidating indicted attorney Marc S. Dreier’s estate hopes to auction off the apartment where Dreier remains under house arrest as early as mid-July. Chapter 7 trustee Salvatore LaMonica and auctioneer David R. Maltz & Co. have already received inquiries from a number of parties expressing a “strong interest” in buying the unit, which is subject to a $5 million mortgage held by Wachovia Bank, according to court papers filed Thursday.

A federal district judge in Washington, D.C., has appointed a guardian ad litem to represent the interests of an architect who has battled her own lawyer for seven years in a copyright suit against a rival architectural firm and the United Arab Emirates, who she claims ripped off her winning contest design for the United Arab Emirates embassy. Elena Sturdza’s suit has stalled since 2002 when her lawyer, Nathan Lewin, called into question his client’s competency to make rational decisions regarding her case.

Silicon Valley powerhouse Wilson Sonsini could be looking for a new chief executive now that the White House has tapped CEO John Roos to be its ambassador to Japan. A former Wilson Sonsini partner calls Roos’ consensus-building political skills “rare” among law firm partners, but says Wilson Sonsini has a “deep bench” of management talent from which to draw if Roos’ nomination is confirmed by the Senate.

Henry Christensen III, Brooke Astor’s lawyer for more than 20 years, on his third day as a prosecution witness Thursday pointedly rejected suggestions that he had sacrificed his duty of loyalty to New York society’s grand dame because he also represented her son, Anthony Marshall, who is on trial for looting her estate. Christensen, a partner at McDermott Will & Emery who hasn’t been accused of any crime, has provided an insider’s view of the relationships among the principal parties in the case.

Georgia lawyers are front and center in a U.S. Supreme Court case that could change the way appellate courts deal with questions of attorney-client privilege. The appeal concerns litigation over hiring practices at carpet maker Mohawk Industries. A coalition that includes business interests and the ABA is asking the high court to allow parties in federal cases to immediately appeal lower court findings that the parties have waived their rights to keep key information secret under attorney-client privilege.

It was the biggest deal ever, and has long been seen as a bust. Time Warner made it official Thursday, ending the AOL combination that resulted from a $124 billion merger. Time Warner tapped Cravath to consummate the merger in 2000, and it turned once more to Cravath to advise on the spin-off, say sources. Some may remember the original deal mainly for the landmark fee arrangement: Cravath agreed to an all-inclusive $35 million fee that would be almost entirely contingent on whether the deal went through.

In some ways, being general counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency is like any other top in-house legal job. There’s the usual stuff: employment issues, real estate transactions, contract disputes. And then there are the more unique questions: When do interrogation procedures cross the line into illegal torture? What happens if an agent accidentally kills a suspect during questioning? Such issues may soon land on the desk of Stephen Preston, who was tapped by President Barack Obama to be the CIA’s new GC.