Posts on ‘June 22nd, 2009’

As you jump on the elevator with binders, records and writing boards in one hand and your entire case on a pull cart, you wonder: “Do I have everything I need for trial?” If it were 1999, the answer would be yes. In 2009, no, you’re missing software like InData TrialDirector.

In April the Environmental Protection Agency started a process that will allow it to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles, and it’s expected to soon do the same for emissions from factories, power plants and other industrial facilities. But before any new regulatory scheme becomes official, businesses need to determine how their operations might be affected. So in-house lawyers are working closely with engineers and consultants to assess the size and scope of their companies’ emissions.

When Pakistani lawyers took to the streets of Islamabad a year ago to urge then-President Pervez Musharraf to restore the rule of law, colleagues in the U.S. rallied outside a Manhattan courthouse to show their support. But for Iranian lawyers, getting that kind of backing hasn’t been so easy. Venable partner Robert Babayi predicts that if the Iranian government cracks down on protesters, more Iranian-American lawyers may become willing to take a position on Iranian politics. But others are less hopeful.

A case quietly winding through the federal courts in Washington could dramatically change the rules for plaintiffs across the country who file big-money class actions against the federal government. Pending and future class actions may be chopped down to size if the Federal Circuit agrees with the Justice Department’s strict interpretation of a six-year statute of limitations. Plaintiffs lawyers who handle such cases have issued dire warnings.

The so-called green movement has sprouted a fresh crop of lawsuits: greenwashing claims, in which companies are getting sued for making bogus eco-friendly statements about their products. Consumer plaintiffs and environmental groups have caught on, lawyers warn. “This is the beginning of what may be an explosion in these kinds of cases,” said patent attorney Eric Lane of Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps, who tracks greenwashing litigation. “This is a hot area of false advertising.”