Posts on ‘October 22nd, 2009’

A military law commission is calling for the end of the U.S. armed services’ decades-old sodomy prohibition, finding the ban invites arbitrary enforcement and may be unconstitutional. In a report released Tuesday, the Commission on Military Justice — a panel of former judges, law professors and military experts — called the ban on consensual sodomy unnecessary and recommended its repeal. The commission was created in January by the National Institute of Military Justice and the American Bar Association.

A lawyer for two former Yale University law students says they have settled their lawsuit against several people they accused of posting sexually harassing and threatening messages about them on AutoAdmit, an Internet message board. San Francisco attorney Ashok Ramani told The Hartford Courant on Wednesday that the two women settled with “a handful of folks” out of the more than 30 anonymous authors they sued and the case is over. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

When files squeeze in on deadline and the table of authorities and contents undergo last-minute updates, all manner of mayhem ensues, as tables fall apart and page numbering shows up incorrect. Consultant Sue Hughes helps you understand why tables fall apart and how to fix them.

The Am Law Daily has learned that Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s securities enforcement co-chair Barry Goldsmith is advising on Galleon Group’s closure, prompted by the insider trading charges against the hedge fund’s billionaire founder and Gibson Dunn client Raj Rajaratnam. Gibson Dunn white-collar defense co-chair Jim Walden is representing Rajaratnam. A law firm spokeswoman denied that the firm is advising Galleon Management itself.

Two former Adelphia Communications executives who are already serving lengthy prison terms for a massive fraud that led to the company’s demise have won a significant court victory that could lead to the dismissal on double jeopardy grounds of the conspiracy charges in a second indictment against them. The 3rd Circuit’s 2-1 ruling comes less than three weeks after the same pair, John Rigas and Timothy Rigas, suffered a major setback as a New York federal appeals court upheld their stiff sentences.

New documents in the Bank of America Corp. investigation show that chief executive Ken Lewis apparently misled federal officials when he asked them to cough up $20 billion and other financial incentives to keep him from canceling the bank’s merger with Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. Lewis told the feds that he had just learned of Merrill’s spiraling fourth quarter losses that eventually reached $15 billion, when in fact his bank had been following the growing losses throughout October and November 2008.