Posts on ‘July 23rd, 2009’

Legal writing is all about groupings — sets, subsets and categories. These are the building blocks of logic, writes Sills Cummis & Gross’ Kenneth F. Oettle, and can increase the efficiency with which information is delivered and force a writer to confirm that the message is on point. Regrettably, the kind of precise grouping that typically takes place late in the editing process is sometimes skipped in the rush to get product out the door, Oettle says. He offers some examples and guidance to help avoid this pitfall.

Recognizing that teenagers who e-mail nude or sexually suggestive photos of themselves to friends aren’t really child pornographers, New Jersey legislators are proposing alternatives to criminal prosecution that may be more effective in stanching the practice. Pending bills in the state Assembly and Senate would create a diversionary program, by which minors who are charged with the creation, distribution or exhibition of nude photos can avoid prosecution by completing a course focusing on the consequences of such acts.

The legal defense team for indicted former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is once again looking for another attorney to join the fight against federal criminal charges. The defense needs to rehire a fourth lawyer because Giel Stein has quit the team just weeks after joining it. After a court hearing on Wednesday at which Judge James Zagel accepted Stein’s exit from the case, Stein said in an interview that he couldn’t comment on his departure because it related to privileged information in the case.

A Florida jury on Wednesday ordered accounting giant Ernst & Young to pay $10.2 million on a negligent auditing claim, rejecting a request for $400 million on more serious allegations. The verdict eliminated the possibility of a punitive damage award. Businessman Alan Schein was seeking damages for himself and a mortgage marketing company he sold to Illinois-based Superior Bank before the bank failed in 2001 after years of Ernst & Young audits.

New York AG Andrew Cuomo is demanding information from dozens of debt collection law firms throughout the state as part of a civil lawsuit to overturn more than 100,000 faulty default judgments, he announced Wednesday. The suit seeks to vacate all default judgments where the sole evidence that a defendant received service notifying him that he was being sued was an affidavit from American Legal Process. That company’s owner was arrested and charged with fraud and other felonies in April.

The new issue of Judicature offers the most comprehensive empirical look yet at former President George W. Bush’s judicial legacy. Through 59 confirmed appointments to appeals courts, 261 to district courts and two to the Supreme Court, the Bush administration “definitely achieved” a goal of moving the federal bench to the right, says one editor. Tallying 2,680 decisions by Bush-appointed district court judges, a political scientist concludes “the Bush team is on the whole the most conservative on record.”

Troutman Sanders announced Wednesday that the firm will cut associate pay, effective Aug. 1, for the remainder of the year — but the pay cut will vary for each associate. “If we do increases that are merit-based, then we should do decreases that are merit-based,” firm Chairman Robert W. Webb Jr. said. “What we are trying to do is get back to where we perceive the market to be,” he said.

Notoriously secretive Apple Inc. has dropped legal threats against BluWiki, a Web site that hosted discussions about how to use computer software other than the company’s iTunes with iPods and iPhones. Apple said it’s calling off the dogs because it no longer uses the software code that was the subject of the online discussion, but BluWiki’s pro bono lawyers at the Electronic Frontier Foundation claimed victory, saying that Apple had backed off of overreaching legal claims.

Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union and the U.S. government squared off Wednesday over amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act allowing warrantless eavesdropping abroad. Southern District of New York Judge John G. Koeltl held an extended hearing Wednesday on the impact of the 2008 amendments on the constitutional rights of Americans communicating with foreign nationals who are being monitored by the U.S. government.

Law firms heavy into capital markets certainly weren’t the envy of the industry when finance took a nosedive last year. But now firms aren’t afraid to say they have an interest in the area. At least two have come out in recent weeks to announce new capital markets practice groups. But while some firms are banking on the entrepreneurial spirit of the investment bankers who may be looking to create new products, others are focusing their efforts on the regulatory scene in Washington.