Posts on ‘July 13th, 2009’

Big tech companies like to complain about the glut of low-quality patents clogging up the system. Craig Opperman has a message for them: Take a look in the mirror. The Reed Smith patent lawyer says that companies are trying to file more patents than the next guy, but they’re also trying to pay less for the legal work. The consequence, according to Opperman: a backlog at the patent office and wasted money at companies where patents end up being rejected or not worth that much.

Litigation boutique Ferrell Law is being shuttered after it disintegrated in the wake of the death of prominent Miami attorney Milton Ferrell Jr., its sole equity shareholder and main rainmaker. The firm had shrunk from 67 attorneys in 17 offices worldwide to 20 lawyers at the time of Ferrell’s death last November. Some disputes developed among the attorneys over who would get which firm clients after his death, but no litigation resulted, a source familiar with the breakup said on condition of anonymity.

Former Pennsylvania state Sen. Vincent Fumo — whose sentencing on fraud and obstruction of justice charges is set for Tuesday — got a rare bit of good news Friday, as a federal judge effectively slashed Fumo’s sentencing recommendation in half. But by the end of the day, prosecutors had filed a brief that said Fumo should be hit with a longer term than federal guidelines recommend because his crimes rocked the public’s confidence in public officials and because of his perjury and “exceptionally egregious” cover-up scheme.

The U.S. Marshals Service outlined new steps to improve courthouse security at its first National Conference on Court & Judicial Security, attended by nearly 300 sheriffs and deputies. Michael Prout, assistant director of the Marshals Service, said in an interview during the conference that threats against federal judges and prosecutors nationally increased from 500 in 2003 to nearly 1,300 last year. “We want to improve judicial security at the national level but also to share what we know with the local sheriffs,” he said.

A D.C. Circuit judge is calling for an en banc hearing to clarify the scope of protection accorded to statements made during congressional ethics investigations, according to an opinion unsealed Thursday. Judge Brett Kavanaugh was part of a three-judge panel that ruled from the bench in favor of a congressman whose lawyers argued in January in a rare closed-door hearing that documents and testimony provided to the House Ethics Committee cannot be used against the congressman during a grand jury investigation.

A California bill that would recognize what may be thousands of same-sex marriages sailed through a policy committee Thursday, increasing the likelihood the latest post-Proposition 8 dilemma will head for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The bill would recognize the marriages of gay and lesbian couples performed outside California before Prop 8 became official Nov. 5. Same-sex couples married after that date would receive the same rights as heterosexual newlyweds, although the unions would not be called “marriage” in California.