Posts on ‘July 2nd, 2009’

Lawyers seeking employment must have a Web presence, said speakers at a recent seminar for unemployed lawyers hosted by the State Bar of Georgia — but their ideas varied on which avenues to take. Lawyer and social media enthusiast David A. Barrett advocated spreading one’s name far and wide on the World Wide Web through “open networking,” while other speakers discussed blogging or maintaining a professional Web site. The speakers also had several ideas for self-promotion that didn’t involve the Web.

Should on-campus recruiting at law schools be delayed until the spring? That question was a major topic of discussion during a recent roundtable on the future of legal hiring that brought together law firm leaders, law school officials and general counsel in Washington, D.C. Many of the participants agreed that it would make more sense to recruit in the spring rather than in the traditional late summer or early fall. But several law school representatives worried the move would create logistical problems.

A pair of witnesses testified at a court hearing Wednesday that reputed Pennsylvania mob boss William “Billy” D’Elia had envelopes delivered to disgraced former Luzerne County President Judge Conahan at the courthouse and that Conahan met repeatedly with D’Elia and another admitted felon to discuss fixing cases. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ordered the hearing after a local paper argued that a defamation case against it — handed down by Conahan’s colleague, another indicted former judge — should be vacated.

Former clients of a Cleveland-based law firm have convinced an Ohio appeals court to revive their claim that the firm duped them into a low-ball settlement in a legal malpractice case. Reversing a lower court, the three-judge panel threw out summary judgment in favor of Javitch Block, finding that the lower court needed to sort out whether the law firm intentionally failed to disclose that it carried professional liability insurance that may have covered the former clients’ malpractice claim against the firm.

A New York federal judge has rejected a recusal motion filed by former Bonanno family acting boss Vincent Basciano, marking perhaps the first citation of the Supreme Court’s recent Caperton ruling. The judge rejected the argument that Caperton created a new standard for recusal motions, writing, “What was new in Caperton was not the objective standard, but the application of that standard to the area of judicial elections — something utterly irrelevant to an appointed federal judge with life tenure.”

Walking into the 60-foot Burning Man effigy isn’t a safe thing to do. Just ask Anthony Beninati, who literally got burned in 2005 after venturing too close to the giant wooden figure while on his third trip to the Burning Man festival in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. He sued for damages. But on Tuesday, a California appeals court doused his hopes after finding that the “college-educated” man had assumed the risk of harm by walking directly into the effigy while remnants of it were still burning.

A federal judge has enjoined the publication of a purported meditation on J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye.” New York federal Judge Deborah Batts said Wednesday that “60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye” by Swedish author Fredrik Colting violated Salinger’s copyright. She found that Colting borrowed liberally from “Catcher,” and his work did not amount to a critique or commentary on the original. The book was billed in Europe, but not in the United States, as a “sequel” to “The Catcher in the Rye.”

The unstable economy created a tricky situation for law school admissions offices this year. Admissions officials didn’t know whether they could rely upon the formulas they traditionally have used to determine how many admissions offers to extend to reach their desired incoming class size. For at least one school, experience was little help. The University of Miami School of Law saw a significant increase in its yield rate and has offered incentives for students to defer their starts until the fall of 2010.

The judicial misconduct complaint against 9th Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski has been resolved with a public admonishment but no discipline imposed on the judge for the sexually explicit material found on his family Web site. An 11-judge panel from the 3rd Circuit issued a unanimous 41-page opinion that said Kozinski “explained and admitted his error; apologized for it, recognizing its impact on the judiciary; and committed to changing his conduct to avoid any recurrence of the error.”

Howrey and Day Casebeer Madrid & Batchelder made their union official Wednesday, capping at least six months of serious talks. All but one of the Silicon Valley intellectual property boutique’s 26 attorneys joined Howrey’s Palo Alto, Calif., office, effective July 1. The move includes nine partners and 16 associates. Managing partner Lloyd “Rusty” Day said 725-lawyer Howrey’s vision is a good fit for his firm, which couldn’t add resources quickly on its own.