Posts on ‘August 12th, 2009’

Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is bringing a new pro bono attorney onto his legal team. Blagojevich has hired Jay Edelson, a KamberEdelson partner best known for his plaintiffs work, such as recent suits against companies that sold tainted pet food that injured and killed animals. Edelson said that he’s been hired to handle two federal civil cases and a state case against the ex-governor and that he may also do some electronic discovery work in the criminal case against Blagojevich.

Former White House political adviser Karl Rove played a central role in the ouster of a U.S. Attorney in New Mexico, one of nine prosecutors fired in a scandal in 2006 over political interference with the Justice Department, according to transcripts of closed-door testimony released Tuesday. House Judiciary Committtee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., said the documents reveal that White House political officials were deeply involved in the firing of David Iglesias and the other U.S. Attorneys.

New Jersey Judge William Wertheimer was charged Tuesday with violating ethics canons by creating the impression of religious and ethnic bias when he made a remark in court about an organization that has been linked to Adolf Hitler. The comment, when considered in light of an admonishment in 2001 and a letter of caution in 2007 in unrelated matters, “demonstrates a pattern of improper conduct that calls into question” his judgment, according to the complaint by the Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct.

The National Basketball Association can be considered a victim for purposes of restitution in a gambling scandal involving one of its referees, the 2nd Circuit has ruled. James Battista, who conspired with referee Timothy Donaghy to get information on games for betting purposes, claimed he should not be liable for restitution because the league could not be considered a victim under the Victim and Witness Protection Act of 1982.

Former Heller Ehrman Chairman Matthew Larrabee is vowing to fight allegations by the defunct firm’s creditors that it pumped up its profits in early 2008 and then tried to cover it up. The assertions “are without merit and are not supported by citations to any source,” Larrabee said in an e-mailed statement. The allegations, contained in an interim report filed in bankruptcy court, represent the creditors committee’s biggest shot — but not necessarily its last — against former shareholders and management.

U.S. Attorney Thomas O’Brien has taken on international drug cartels, some of the West Coast’s toughest street gangs and human smuggling rings. But now he has to do something that may be even more challenging: Build a book of business. Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker announced Tuesday that O’Brien, who has been U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California since 2007, will become a partner in the firm’s Los Angeles office, where he will focus on white-collar cases.

The Department of the Treasury recently issued its much-awaited proposal, “Financial Regulatory Reform: A New Foundation: Rebuilding Financial Supervision and Regulation.” Attorney George B. Hefferan III discusses the compliance workload implications of the proposed FRR and other new federal regulations, and suggests that one offshoot of our interconnected global economy — legal process outsourcing — may in part be a strategic solution to the increased regulatory climate.

With Hewlett-Packard’s new Laserjet P3015x printer, HP has left little to imagine in the P3015x, writes technology editor Sean Doherty. The device performed fast, easily printed on all the paper types he used and can be configured down to the smallest detail from a Web interface.

In the latest strike in the war between Abbott Biotech and Centocor Ortho Biotech, Abbott has filed a complaint in federal district court claiming that Centocor’s psoriasis drug Stelera infringes an Abbott patent on a human antibody critical to the treatment of some autoimmune disorders. Centocor recently won the biggest patent infringement verdict in U.S. history against Abbott in a suit alleging that Abbott’s blockbuster rheumatoid arthritis drug, Humira, infringes a patent co-owned by Centocor.

According to an irate federal judge, jailed plaintiffs lawyer William
Lerach just helped his former colleagues lose about $45 million in fees.
Yet the judge still awarded Coughlin Stoia $65 million for its work on a
class action against UnitedHealth Group. Approving a $925 million
settlement against UnitedHealth in possibly the largest backdating
securities class action payout ever struck, U.S. District Judge James
Rosenbaum said Lerach neglected to inform the court of his role in the
Milberg Weiss debacle.