Posts on ‘July 28th, 2009’

Zhenli Ye Gon’s two-year fight against a drug trafficking conspiracy charge in Washington’s federal court has spun off additional litigation involving his lawyers. Ye Gon, the alleged kingpin of a Mexican meth empire, is being sued by one of his former defense lawyers, who claims he is owed more than $200,000 in legal fees. Another lawyer faces criminal charges of his own, after being accused of assaulting two deputy marshals during a hearing.

The use of biometric data, such as fingerprints and retina scans, to verify if employees are eligible to work in the United States is fueling debate among employment and immigration attorneys. Lawyers are expressing skepticism and criticism about the concept, which was formally announced during a congressional hearing last week. One attorney said employers are likely to resist a biometrics tool if it’s expensive and time-consuming, and there may also be civic resistance to what is “in essence, a national ID.”

Mark Gerow of Fenwick & West describes 10 ways you can use Microsoft SharePoint to improve collaboration, streamline processes, communicate more effectively with your clients and help your attorneys and colleagues find the information and documents they need more quickly and easily.

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor has picked up the endorsement of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The 13-6 vote was divided largely along party lines Tuesday. All Democrats on the committee voted in favor of her nomination. All Republicans but one — Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — voted against it, as expected.

On Monday, a few hours before jury selection in a high-profile Boston copyright infringement case in which several record companies and the Recording Industry Association of America are suing Massachusetts college students for illegal Internet music downloads, a federal district court judge shot down one of the defense team’s key legal theories. The judge wrote that defendant Joel Tenenbaum couldn’t cite fair use, the legal use of copyrighted works under certain circumstances, during the trial.

If you’re a securities defense litigator whose confidence fell with the plunge in securities class action filings, as tallied by Stanford’s Securities Class Action Clearinghouse and Cornerstone Research, your mood might lift as you read NERA Economic Consulting’s new, more upbeat report. NERA acknowledges new filings fell in June to the lowest number since February 2008. But the study’s co-author says that drop could be as momentary as the dip in new filings last June and July.

In January, the 2nd Circuit affirmed the conviction of Ionia Management for the criminal acts of its nonmanagement employees. What set this appeal apart was that Ionia, along with several amici curiae, argued that the court should revisit its long-standing rule that a company can be held criminally liable for any criminal acts of even its low-level employees. The case has sparked a review of the appropriateness of respondent superior criminal liability, say attorneys Stanley A. Twardy Jr. and Daniel E. Wenner.