Posts on ‘February 24th, 2010’

Two former partners at Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein’s defunct law firm have refused to turn over access to their off-site computer and e-mail files and will face a court order to force them to do so. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Raymond Ray, who is overseeing the Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler bankruptcy and wind-down, said at a hearing Tuesday that he will compel Russell Adler and Robert Buschel to surrender their passwords to the firm’s e-mail and computer file system administered by Burbank, Calif.-based Qtask.

At a District of Massachusetts hearing about whether music downloader Joel Tenenbaum should have a new copyright infringement trial or whether the court should reduce the $675,000 jury verdict, lawyers debated Congress’ intent in setting infringement damages. The case is headed for a third trial following Chief Judge Michael Davis’ order last month to cut the verdict to $54,000. Davis’ order called the verdict “monstrous and shocking.”

For the second straight year, Jenner & Block managed to do more with less. Between 2007 and 2008, Jenner made modest gains in profits and revenue with fewer lawyers. Last year, it did even better. While headcount at the Chicago-based firm dropped 1.5 percent, gross revenue increased nearly 6 percent to $367 million and profits per partner skyrocketed 33 percent to $1.1 million, both record highs for the firm. Jenner also saw an increase of nearly 8 percent in revenue per lawyer at $855,000.

Howett Isaza partner John Isaza and Goldberg Segalla partner John J. Jablonski provide an overview of the first step necessary to implement a legally defensible, written litigation hold in this initial article of a series aimed at helping organizations discharge their duty to preserve ESI.

Like the truth that is sometimes found in jest, a moment of levity in a court proceeding can sometimes help to crystallize a legal argument more cogently than the lengthy and serious discussion that preceded or followed it. Such was the case Tuesday as the 3rd Circuit took up for the second time the issue of decency standards for TV broadcasters. Specifically, the three-judge panel is deciding whether to uphold the hefty fines imposed on CBS for Janet Jackson’s infamous “wardrobe malfunction” at the 2004 Super Bowl.

The U.S. Supreme Court appeared troubled on Tuesday by the broad sweep of a federal law that makes it a crime to give “material support” and “expert advice” to designated terrorist groups. The law was challenged as a vague or overbroad violation of First Amendment rights. But what seemed to bother the justices most was the assertion by U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan that the law would bar a lawyer from writing an amicus curiae brief on behalf of such a group in U.S. courts.

Using simplicity and practicality as its touchstones, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday held that a corporation’s “principal place of business” for purposes of federal jurisdiction is its “nerve center,” typically where its headquarters is located. The Court resolved a long-simmering debate among the federal circuits, which, for the past 51 years, have used a hodgepodge of tests. Attorneys responding to the ruling say it will bring much-needed predictability and clarity to the jurisdictional issue.