Posts on ‘February 2nd, 2010’

After months of silence, plaintiffs lawyers are adamantly denying allegations that fraud underlies a raft of lawsuits accusing Dole Food Co. of poisoning workers with the pesticide DBCP on banana plantations in Central America and elsewhere. Allegations emerged after a Los Angeles judge issued a written order in June noting actions by lawyers in Nicaraguan DBCP cases. In interviews, attorneys pressing DBCP claims argued that the judge’s conclusions were unfair and a distraction from genuine claims.

When the recession began, many in the South Florida legal community worried the diversity gains made in recent years would take a serious hit if law firms used last-hired, first-fired policies to cut staff, disproportionately affecting minorities. The Daily Business Review’s annual diversity survey, however, indicates minorities actually made gains at several firms in spite of the recession. And overall, firms small and large seem to be increasing their minority recruiting efforts.

A legally blind law school graduate can sit for the bar exam using the technology she says she needs, a federal judge has decided, saying that there’s no reason bar exam officials shouldn’t accommodate her. Stephanie Enyart asked to take the exam using the assistive technology she used in law school. The National Conference of Bar Examiners argued that the Americans with Disabilities Act only requires that Enyart be provided with reasonable accommodations, not ones that will best ensure she pass the test.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s landscape-altering ruling in Citizens United v. FEC is already triggering aftershocks in some of the dozens of campaign finance-related lawsuits in federal and state courts. Supporters of the decision, which opened the door to independent corporate expenditures in federal elections, contend it will help them in the next key battlegrounds: challenges to the federal ban on soft-money solicitation and spending, disclosure requirements and state public-finance systems.

Attorney J. Mark Shelnutt — acquitted of money-laundering and drug conspiracy charges based on his acceptance of legal fees prosecutors claimed were derived from the illegal drug sales of his clients — tells the Fulton County Daily Report he is still baffled by the tactics federal prosecutors used in an effort to send him to prison. Foremost among those tactics: their willingness to offer key players in the drug-trafficking ring sweetheart deals or set them free if they would testify against Shelnutt.

Only three days after Latham & Watkins took the bulk of White & Case’s banking practice in London, eight more White & Case partners have left the firm to join Latham offices in Abu Dhabi, London, New York and Riyadh. The additions of the new W&C partners will contribute significant strength to Latham’s bank and energy finance practices in London and the Middle East.

In an appeal of a jury verdict against insurer Unum Group, a 1st Circuit panel that included retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter repeatedly grilled a whistleblower’s attorney. The lawyer was seeking affirmation of the verdict, which found that Unum violated the False Claims Act by causing its insureds to file false Social Security Disability Insurance claims. The heart of the case is whether private insurance companies such as Unum are liable for false information that claimants submit to the government.

The public comment period on the proposed new rules for summer associate recruiting is over, and it’s likely that no firm or school will oppose the NALP Commission’s proposed changes with the vigor of Jones Day. In a Friday letter, Jones Day hiring partner Gregory Shumaker suggests that a ban on firms making any offers to prospective summer associates until mid-January might constitute an antitrust violation. “In any other industry, this would immediately be perceived as a restraint of trade,” he writes.

Some experienced white-collar hands assembled for closings Monday in one of the few federal mortgage fraud cases to hit a Northern California jury. Judy Yeung, a woman well known in San Francisco political circles, is accused of using straw buyers to obtain fraudulent mortgages totaling $6.5 million. Her case is fairly representative of the DOJ’s local mortgage fraud docket; since the housing market collapsed, prosecutors haven’t brought any large-scale indictments against corporate lenders in the Bay Area.

A federal judge is set to approve proposed settlements involving the estates of disbarred attorney Marc Dreier and his defunct firm. Last month, prosecutors and trustees charged with liquidating the estates asked a judge’s approval of the agreements, including one with GSO Capital Partners. Under the agreements, Sheila Gowan of Diamond McCarthy, the Dreier trustee, would refrain from challenging the collection of some forfeited funds and receive certain property in return.