Posts on ‘February 2nd, 2010’

Massachusetts lawyer Simon Glik is suing three Boston police officers and the city in federal court for arresting him after he used his cell phone to record police allegedly using force during an arrest in October 2007. The ACLU of Massachusetts and attorney Howard Friedman filed Glik v. Cunniffe on Monday. Glik seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages. “We hope the lawsuit will have the effect of changing the practice and training policies in Boston,” Friedman said.

Facebook’s legal department is ready for a fight. Almost every day, law enforcement officials and civil litigators request information from a user’s Facebook account, Deputy General Counsel Mark Howitson told several hundred lawyers in a packed ballroom during his keynote address Tuesday morning at LegalTech New York. But he is still waiting for a case on Facebook’s policies to go before a federal judge to define exactly what content on Facebook is protected.

Litigation software doesn’t exactly evoke drama or intrigue. The news isn’t what’s happening, but what isn’t: no one-product solution, no rush into the “cloud.” But these “nonevents” have big implications for litigation’s future. Things are more eventful than you’d think.

Thomson Reuters Legal CEO Peter Warwick introduced a new international pro bono legal service during a session with former United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency Director Mohamed ElBaradei at LegalTech New York on Monday. From the outset of the discussion, Warwick, a trustee of the nonprofit Thomson Reuters Foundation, challenged the roughly 200 lawyers and legal services professionals in the audience to take on new pro bono projects to help extend the rule of law around the globe.

Judges, attorneys and court personnel at the Southern District courthouse at 500 Pearl St. reacted with relief, and also regret, now that it appears the trial of accused Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-defendants will not be held in lower Manhattan. There was also the recognition that, even though the prosecution may not take place near Ground Zero, the intense security planning under way will pay off because the Southern District will continue to handle its share of terrorism trials.

By most measures, 2009 was a dismal year for the legal industry. One notable exception to the drumbeat of record layoffs and bankruptcy actions: By our count, there was also a record number of lateral partner moves in The Am Law 200. In the 12 months ending Sept. 30, 2009, 2,775 partners left or joined the biggest firms in the United States — a 10.6 percent increase in mobility over last year. Litigation partners led the pack, but banking and finance partners were close behind.

Facing the prospect of a budgetary showdown with Gov. David A. Paterson, New York Court of Appeals Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman has won support from the New York State Bar Association against what he called the governor’s “outrageous” criticism of the court system’s new spending proposal. In his first speech to the State Bar’s House of Delegates as chief judge, a feisty Lippman defended the judiciary’s $2.7 billion spending plan, which includes $48 million for the first pay raise for state judges since 1999.