Posts from ‘September, 2009’

Najibullah Zazi, the former New York coffee cart vendor accused of planning a “Madrid-style” subway bombing in New York, was arraigned in Brooklyn federal court on Tuesday. Chief Judge Raymond J. Dearie, who took the case after three other judges recused themselves, ordered Zazi held without bail. As evidenced by Tuesday’s hearing, in which the lead prosecutor referred to the Classified Information Procedures Act at least a half dozen times, the federal statute will play a prominent role in the prosecution.

The watchdog of the Securities and Exchange Commission has recommended a new system for handling the thousands of tips and complaints the agency receives to prevent another breakdown like the one that allowed Bernard Madoff’s massive fraud to go undetected for 16 years. The proposals from SEC Inspector General David Kotz for the agency’s enforcement and inspections operations also include making it easier for junior-level enforcement attorneys to bring their concerns to top managers.

Stephen Larson, the federal judge who recently announced that he could no longer afford to sit on the bench, will join plaintiffs firm Girardi & Keese in Los Angeles as a partner. The opportunity to work for the firm — and not just Congress’ refusal to raise federal judges’ base pay of $170,000 — prompted his career change, he said. “I spent nine years as a prosecutor, prosecuting cases, prosecuting wrongdoing, and that is essentially what Girardi & Keese does. They prosecute wrongdoing.”

After 18 years of decidedly un-cuddly court battles, Walt Disney Co. and the estate of Winnie the Pooh licensee Stephen Slesinger are right back where they started. On Friday, Los Angeles federal district court Judge Florence-Marie Cooper granted Disney’s motion to dismiss all of Stephen Slesinger Inc.’s remaining infringement claims, committing the parties to continue a business relationship that began in 1961 when Slesinger’s widow transferred the Pooh rights to Disney in exchange for royalties.

Jackie Young took on Broward County, Fla.’s two largest law firms and prevailed. A jury has awarded her $4.9 million in a malpractice case related to litigation that began in 1997. Young, who was turned down by eight or nine lawyers before finding one willing to take her case, says she doesn’t think badly of lawyers because of her experiences. In fact, she’s considering going to law school. But the litigation that began 12 years ago is not over yet for Young: She will face an appeal before seeing any money.

Lawyers are preparing for battle in Essex County, N.J., over whether the $10 billion estate of Taiwanese industrialist Wang Yung-Ching, who died last year, should be administered in New Jersey, and which law should apply. The case involves not only extensive financial and commercial holdings, but also an extended-family relationship that includes a widow, two putative secondary wives — who under Taiwanese law would share in the estate — and nine children, all of whom have lawyered up.

Townsend and Townsend and Crew has announced it will reduce the pay scale for attorneys in 2010, which includes cutting first-year associate salaries from $160,000 to $145,000. The 200-lawyer firm also said that it would ditch lockstep compensation altogether in 2011 and move to merit-based pay, a system popularized by national intellectual property firm Howrey. Townsend is exclusively an IP firm. The latest move shows that the once-abundant supply of patent litigation is drying up in the recession.

A Georgia jury found in favor of a man who sued an Atlanta men’s clinic after its erectile dysfunction therapy caused permanent damage to his penis, awarding him $750,000 in compensatory damages and $8.5 million in punitive damages. W. Fred Orr II, attorney for plaintiff John Henry Howard, called Howard “the most courageous client” he’s ever had. “He was willing to take the stand and testify in an open courtroom about his private life,” Orr said.

This is the year the recession hit the legal profession. Lawyers and support staff were cut by the hundreds. Law firms went belly up. Court dockets burst with foreclosures and bankruptcies while budgets everywhere went bust. Buried under the statistics are those most affected by it all: the overworked judge, the unemployed paralegal, the laid-off associate and the law firm manager. The National Law Journal talked to people across the profession to find out how the downturn changed their lives.

In what could become a first-in-the-nation test, a young woman injured by a drunk driver is challenging the sovereignty of Connecticut’s Mohegan American Indian tribe. She is arguing the tribe should be liable in state courts if it lets patrons get so dangerously drunk at its casinos that they then injure or kill other people. Currently, the Mohegan and Mashantucket Pequot tribes are immune from being sued in state court for ordinary negligence matters, including so-called “dram shop act” violations.