Posts on ‘July 10th, 2009’

Not every claim in the proposed copyright class action against Google’s YouTube will survive, Manhattan federal district court Judge Louis Stanton ruled recently. The unlucky ones include claims for statutory damages for certain foreign works not copyrighted in the U.S. The judge dismissed plaintiffs’ request for punitive damages for alleged willful infringement of foreign works, but found that foreign works of live broadcasters are eligible for statutory damages claims.

Thinking, responsible employees need autonomy to keep their brains healthy. But some lawyers are too busy breathing down assistants’ necks and hand-holding them through every task to imagine that, if they threw them the occasional challenge, they might just rise to it, says the Assistant-at-Law, a legal secretary in Texas. She notes that constant supervision is expensive for attorneys and increases, rather than decreases, the likelihood of errors. She provides some rules to help avoid the pitfalls of micromanagement.

He garnered some sympathy from two lower courts, but an 8th Circuit panel isn’t letting a Minnesota lawyer off the hook from repaying his massive student loan debt. The panel reversed a bankruptcy court and a district court and found that attorney Mark Allen Jesperson could not discharge more than $360,000 in student loan debt in a Chapter 7 proceeding. The appeals court on Wednesday determined that Jesperson’s “self-imposed limitations,” which resulted in $48,000 in gross income, were no excuse for nonpayment.

Disgraced financier Bernard Madoff will not appeal his 150-year sentence for a fraud that unraveled when Madoff confessed to his sons that nearly $65 billion that he promised investors was safe was actually worth only a few hundred million dollars. According to a court-appointed trustee’s report released Thursday, the search for Madoff assets that could compensate fraud victims “has unearthed a labyrinth of interrelated international funds, institutions and entities of almost unparalleled complexity and breadth.”

For Peter M. Bryniczka, playing lead guitar in a rock band is his outlet from a busy career as a Connecticut family law attorney at Schoonmaker, George & Colin P.C. “When we have a Saturday gig … I’m not a divorce lawyer anymore, just a guitar player in the band that’s up next,” Bryniczka says. “When I come back into work Monday morning, whatever issue or case was front and center driving me crazy on Friday, I have a new perspective.”

MGA Entertainment, manufacturer of Bratz dolls, has replaced its lawyers for the second time this year in preparation for the next phase of its long-running copyright battle with Mattel. A federal judge approved MGA’s request to replace attorneys Patricia Glaser of Glaser Weil and Russell J. Frackman of Mitchell Silberberg with an Orrick team led by Annette L. Hurst in San Francisco. Three other Orrick attorneys — Melinda Haag, Warrington S. Parker III and William A. Molinski — will also join MGA’s legal team.

A private citizen may be guilty of aiding a public official to hide a conflict of interest — even if that citizen is unaware of the official’s ethical reporting requirements — if there is evidence that the citizen tried to avoid creating a “paper trail,” a federal appeals court has ruled. The 3rd Circuit ruling is likely to be required reading for white-collar criminal defense lawyers because it clarifies the prosecution’s burden of proof in an honest services fraud case.

Only a day after Dewey & LeBoeuf helped itself to the cream of Cooley Godward Kronish’s corporate practice, the firm lost three IP lawyers, including its practice co-chair, to noted Dallas-based trial firm McKool Smith. IP litigation co-chair Dirk Thomas, partner Robert Auchter and of counsel Jeffrey Frey join 120-lawyer McKool as partners. The Dewey laterals will expand McKool’s Washington, D.C., presence to seven lawyers.

A widow who claims that the mishandling of her husband’s will by his attorneys will cost her $9 million may not pursue a malpractice claim against them, a New York judge has ruled. The judge ruled that there was neither privity nor even “near privity” between the widow and the attorneys, William Bush and Richard J. Cunningham of Fulbright & Jaworski. The decision raises the question of who, if anyone, may sue in New York for malpractice when attorneys make mistakes in planning estates.

A federal judge has approved a class action settlement involving claims that millions of owners of Motorola’s Bluetooth headsets were not adequately warned of potential hearing loss from the devices. However, the judge raised questions about a request for $800,000 in attorney fees, which recently were criticized by objectors to the settlement. The judge approved a preliminary settlement in February that requires the defendants to pay $100,000 to four institutions related to hearing loss.