Posts on ‘August 6th, 2009’

Noncompliance with the affidavit of merit statute in a legal malpractice suit does not preclude a plaintiff from bringing a common-law fraud case against her lawyer, a New Jersey appeals court ruled on Tuesday. The court, while upholding dismissal of the plaintiff’s malpractice and racketeering claims because of an affidavit filed too late, reinstated a fraud claim against the lawyer in the dispute that stemmed from a real estate transaction.

A judge’s refusal to allow a lawyer to use materials the Central Intelligence Agency claims are subject to the state-secrets privilege did not violate the right of access to the courts, the 2nd Circuit has ruled. The court said the wife of a fired CIA employee who is suing the agency has “no right to use information covered by an assertion of the state-secrets privilege to challenge that assertion,” and the government’s unwillingness to facilitate use of the information did not violate the Constitution.

A few weeks ago, Jack Welch let loose with his view that women, to make it to the top of the corporate food chain, must let work consume their lives and forget work-life balance — as in: Don’t even think about it. Some likely think that’s very Gordon Gekko of Welch, says attorney Michael P. Maslanka, but it raises an important question: How far have women come in the workplace, legally and culturally — not in theory, but in reality?

Linarducci & Butler helps clients navigate the Social Security disability benefit process. It typically has 600 to 800 open files with a minimum of 250 pages per file. To alleviate storage problems, improve document access and improve office work flow, the firm put the paper down.

K&L Gates is offering counseling for employees following reports that the alleged killer at a Pittsburgh-area gym was a systems analyst who had worked at the firm since 1999. Police say George Sodini went on a shooting rampage Tuesday, injuring nine people and killing four, including himself. Sodini kept an online diary, in which he praised K&L Gates but theorized his job might be cut in any future layoffs. Sodini wrote of the firm, “Most people there are OK and I would never have a shoot ‘em up there.”

Citing New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s testimony during the U.S. Senate confirmation hearing of Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court, a New York federal judge has ordered the mayor to attend a deposition in a discrimination case claiming that two entry-level tests for New York City firefighters were flawed. Bloomberg’s remarks at the hearing indicated that he had a “personal involvement in the events at issue” in the discrimination case, the judge concluded.

The Senate has confirmed Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court in a historic vote that will make her the nation’s first Hispanic justice and the third woman appointed to the Court. Sotomayor won over nine Republican senators to go with the 59 members of the Democratic caucus who were present. The final margin of 68-31 was larger than the 58-42 vote three years ago for Justice Samuel Alito Jr., but it was still a smaller margin than other justices have received.

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.”