Posts on ‘September 22nd, 2009’

The U.S. Navy came to the aid of American ships in April when they were attacked by pirates off the coast of Africa. Now, the shipowners are battling their rescuers, as Congress considers whether to require the Navy to protect American ships traversing high-risk waters. Maritime companies have been lobbying lawmakers for such help for months, warning that the United States can’t afford to let its commercial ships be seen as easy targets by seafaring criminals.

In the age of e-resumes and data systems that store millions upon millions of historical documents, recruiters and employers can now look longitudinally at information in resumes provided by candidates over many years and map the “content drift” of this information. This provides an entirely new way of determining a candidate’s veracity when it comes to his or her employment history, note Deborah Ben-Canaan and Martha Fay Africa of Major, Lindsey & Africa. Their advice: Don’t stretch the truth.

Jurors in the assault trial of a New York man will have to weigh the drastically different opinions of two Harvard-educated psychiatrists to determine whether the popular antidepressant Zoloft can trigger a violent episode. Brandon Hampson, who faces misdemeanor assault charges for allegedly beating his girlfriend and preventing her from leaving his home after she refused to have sex with him, claims that he was going through Zoloft withdrawal at the time and did not intend to assault the woman.

The California State Bar on Friday took the unusual step of waiving confidentiality to release the names of 16 lawyers under investigation for alleged misdeeds in their work on loan modifications. Interim Chief Trial Counsel Russell Weiner called the situation an “unprecedented” crisis. The lawyers named by the Bar allegedly collected fees from desperate homeowners to perform loan modification services and then failed to perform those services, communicate with their clients or return the unearned fees.

Radio stations across the nation have allegedly blackballed artists who are members of MusicFirst, a coalition that wants to require AM and FM radio stations to pay royalties for the music they broadcast. Now the FCC is being called upon to investigate whether such tactics run afoul of broadcasters’ obligation to serve the public interest. The agency has put out a notice seeking information regarding whether broadcasters are “targeting and threatening artists” or engaging in a media campaign that “disseminates falsities.”

A hard-fought firearms case is coming to the 9th Circuit for en banc arguments Thursday, with the usual gun groups weighing in as amici on the usual sides. California Attorney General Jerry Brown hasn’t submitted briefs in the case, but in a similar case across the country, Brown filed an amicus brief that has gun control advocates shaking their heads. After the 7th Circuit decided that the Second Amendment didn’t apply to state or local governments, Brown joined those asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the ruling.

In his opinion, Philadelphia Judge Mark I. Bernstein was clearly irked by a request from several large financial institutions to dispense with a jury trial in the case against them by the trustee of the bankrupt American Business Financial Services. Bernstein said the financial company defendants are represented by some of the country’s best and largest law firms — among them Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr and Dechert — with more than ample resources to have filed the motion in a more timely fashion.

The Law School Admissions Council, which administers the LSAT, has settled its copyright infringement and breach-of-contract case against test prep company TestMasters for more than $1 million. TestMasters will also pay the council’s attorney fees up to $150,000. The Sept. 4 suit filed in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania accused TestMasters of unauthorized use of the council’s LSAT test materials.

It’s been a tumultuous fiscal year for Clifford Chance, and the extent of the firm’s financial troubles is clearer now with the release of its second annual report. Clifford Chance saw gross revenues fall by 5 percent, lost its status as the world’s largest law firm by revenues — a distinction that now goes to Linklaters — and saw profits drop by a massive 37 percent. The new report shows the firm’s revenues in New York, Sao Paulo and Washington D.C. slipped from $344.3 million to $265.19 million.

Bank of America did not meet a deadline to turn over documents related to its merger with Merrill Lynch to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The committee chair gave the bank until noon Monday to turn over documents related to legal discussions BofA had with outside counsel before and after it absorbed Merrill Lynch. The bank says the documents are protected by attorney-client privilege between bank executives and the law firm that handled the merger for BofA — Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.