Posts on ‘June 29th, 2009’

A Staten Island, N.Y., judge has thrown out a small claims action over a broken furnace filed by the buyer of a house against the seller’s attorney. “This is another case of what appears to be a disturbing trend of litigation being brought by persons suing attorneys who did not represent them for that attorney’s proper representation of his or her client,” Civil Court Judge Philip Straniere wrote in DeFelice v. Costagliola.

Citing a fraud of “extraordinary dimensions” perpetrated by Bernard Madoff, the government Friday requested either the U.S. Sentencing Guideline of 150 years in prison or “alternatively, a term of years that both would assure that Madoff will remain in prison for life, and forcefully would promote general deterrence.” The 24-page sentencing memorandum characterizes Madoff’s crimes as “serious and long-running, complex and highly orchestrated and devastating to generations of investors around the country and abroad.”

Your company has just been served with a 30(b)(6) deposition notice under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and it is your job to respond to the notice and determine who will testify on behalf of the corporation. Is there anything you can do to ensure that your company puts its best foot forward at the deposition? The answer is yes, say attorneys Lori L. Pines and Ardith Bronson, who offer strategies for selecting and preparing witnesses to participate in these depositions.

From afar, Legal Technology Editor Sean Doherty monitored developments at LegalTech in Los Angeles. Among other highlights, Doherty notes that technology vendors focused on mobility while EDD providers touted early case assessment and advanced search and collection techniques.

The Am Law Daily live-blogged Bernard Madoff’s sentencing from the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Courthouse in lower Manhattan Monday morning. After allowing several Madoff victims to speak, Judge Denny Chin sentenced the disgraced financier to 150 years in prison. For a brief moment, the courtroom erupted with applause. Chin deferred the issue of restitution for 90 days.

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision that high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge. New Haven was wrong to scrap a promotion exam because no African-Americans and only two Hispanic firefighters were likely to be made lieutenants or captains based on the results, the court said in a 5-4 decision.

When pop legend Michael Jackson died Thursday, he left behind multiple lawsuits pending against, and some brought on behalf of, himself and his production company, MJJ Productions. Lawyers handling those cases are spread across the U.S., managing everything from breach-of-contract disputes to employee claims to copyright infringement. It’s unclear who would represent Jackson’s estate. “I imagine this is going to be a very complicated engagement,” said one lawyer in litigation with Jackson’s company.

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge last month affirmed an arbitration award in a wrongful termination suit of more than $4.1 billion, sending shock waves through the labor and employment bar. Alston & Bird partner Michael D. Young spoke to The National Law Journal about the lessons to be learned from the outcome in this case regarding arbitration agreements and the arbitration process. He also broke down the award to explain how the arbitrator came up with such an astronomically high number.