Posts on ‘February 11th, 2010’

Attorneys may have a First Amendment right to interview jurors in trials in which they did not participate if their purpose is to educate a segment of the bar, according to a federal appellate court. Calling it a “novel” issue, a 10th Circuit panel said it was “uncomfortable” addressing the question in the first instance. Instead, the three-judge panel ordered a district court to vacate its terse ruling rejecting a request by an Oklahoma lawyers’ association and to reconsider the request.

Open source operating systems have successfully spread to various nooks and crannies of technology, powering servers all over the internet, including routers. Consultant Brett Burney looks at the benefits offered by an open source router, in addition to its usually lower cost.

A New York federal judge has ruled that a New Jersey-based lawyer may move forward with her claim that New York law unconstitutionally discriminates against out-of-state lawyers by requiring them to maintain an office in New York if they want to practice law there. State attorneys “offered no substantial reason” for treating resident and non-resident lawyers differently, the judge held in refusing the state’s motion to dismiss solo practitioner Ekaterina Schoenefeld’s privileges and immunities clause claim.

Turocy & Watson is facing a suit that claims the Ohio law firm misclassified employees to avoid paying overtime. Anthony Lazzaro of the Lazzaro Law Firm is representing an estimated 40 legal secretaries in a putative class action filed in the Northern District of Ohio against Cleveland-based Turocy & Watson. Says Lazzaro: “I think that there are plenty of law firms out there that are paying secretaries and paralegals a salary without overtime and not even realizing it.”

Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman has sued longtime client Duane Reade for a $7 million “success fee” it claims it is owed as part of an alternative fee arrangement. The law firm represented the drugstore chain in a contract dispute that the company settled for an estimated $39.5 million without Kasowitz’s knowledge. Kasowitz claims the settlement included terms the firm negotiated during the course of the litigation. The suit comes as clients are increasingly pushing law firms to enter into non-hourly fee arrangements.

Federal prosecutors ramped up their insider trading charges Tuesday against the man they accuse of making up to $45 million in history’s largest hedge fund insider trading case. Prosecutors have added two securities fraud charges against Galleon Group founder Raj Rajaratnam. The fresh indictment resulted from what prosecutors say they learned from some defendants pleading guilty in a case that has seen charges against 21 people — many of them former high-level executives at major corporations.