Posts on ‘August 4th, 2009’

A 2nd Circuit panel has cut a Manhattan-based attorney’s fee by 21 percent, saying Southern District of New York rates did not apply to a case heard in the Eastern District. The opinion creates a presumption in favor of using customary rates in the district where a case is litigated, unless it can be shown that using a lawyer from within the district would create a “substantially inferior result.” A litigant “should not be required to pay for a limousine when a sedan could have done the job,” wrote Judge John M. Walker Jr.

Marketers, stand down. In the wake of an increasingly socially networked, behaviorally advertised existence, Maine has quietly enacted a new law to put an end to predatory marketing practices directed toward minors. The new law, set to go into effect in September, broadly restricts using any personal information about minors for marketing products or services. Attorney Harry A. Valetk examines the challenges of the new requirements and their impact on the interconnected, data-driven marketplace.

In search of a digital dictation technology it could successfully implement, Becker & Poliakoff sought a provider with strong support and project management expertise in the legal sector. The firm selected BigHand. Nicole Cantin, the firm’s applications administrator, shares the results.

Suits over the use of trademarks in Google ads appeared to have the glimmer of a new gold mine for plaintiffs lawyers, but the luster may be fading. A favorable ruling for Rescuecom in April fueled suits against the search giant for selling trademarked keywords that trigger ads alongside its search results. But in the last two weeks, two AdWords lawsuits have folded. The latest events highlight the difficulties of the suits, experts say: It’s a hard case to make and it’s expensive to litigate against Google.

The Supreme Court’s May 2009 ruling in Ashcroft v. Iqbal is quickly becoming the best thing to happen to the product liability defense bar since Daubert. We told you a couple of weeks ago about the dismissal of a false-marketing suit involving AstraZeneca’s anti-psychotic drug Seroquel because it didn’t meet the new, tougher pleading standard the Court laid down in Iqbal. Now we have word of two other recent Iqbal dismissals involving controversial products.

A man who was indicted as the leader of a child pornography ring in Delaware has lost an appeal that challenged his 20-year prison term and a ban on using the Internet for a decade after he is released. The 3rd Circuit concluded that Paul Thielemann’s conduct justified a 10-year Internet ban and a bar against possession of any “sexually explicit” materials, and that there were sharp contrasts between his case and another child pornography case where the court had overturned a lifetime ban on using computers.

While working at one of the biggest financial institutions in the world, Kimberly Summe was thinking small. Last year, as a lawyer at Lehman Brothers, Summe developed an idea for a pro bono program that would assist microfinance projects around the globe that provide small loans to entrepreneurs in developing nations. Even as Lehman collapsed last fall, Summe managed to launch Paladin Connect, which now provides free legal help to more than a dozen microfinance groups from Bangladesh to Bosnia.