Posts on ‘March 8th, 2010’

The Supreme Court on Monday morning upheld a federal law that bars “debt relief agencies,” including lawyers, from advising clients to incur more debt for filing for bankruptcy. A Minnesota-based law firm had asserted that lawyers should not be covered by the law, and the district court ruled that the law was unconstitutional as applied to the firm. The justices also granted review in a controversial First Amendment case from Maryland stemming from the 2006 combat death of a marine in Iraq.

Opponents of Chicago’s handgun ban in McDonald v. Chicago argued that the high court should solely rely on secondary sources and not digital searches of original material that aim to prevent “Barbie dolls in the archeological dig,” where advocates read modern facts into the historical record.

A Manhattan law firm committed a “veritable ‘perfect storm’ of mistakes, errors, misdeeds and improper litigation practices” in trying to collect a debt from a woman, a New York state judge has ruled in ordering sanctions against the firm. Eltman, Eltman & Cooper was ordered to pay $14,800 for a series of ethics rules violations, including “disobeying” a court order dismissing the case by making “harassing” phone calls to the defendant. A firm spokesman said that an appeal is under consideration.

With the KB Home case, prosecutors hope to improve their dismal trial
record in stock-options backdating cases. Of the five cases that have
gone to trial, one ended in acquittal, one collapsed, and one of the
three convictions was reversed. Prosecutors are focusing the case on CEO
Bruce Karatz’s profit from the backdated options. It’s a relatively new
strategy that emerged last month in the government’s retrial of former
Brocade CEO Gregory Reyes, whose prior conviction was reversed on
appeal.

The flap over Justice Department lawyers who have advocated for Guantanamo Bay detainees is spilling over to Big Law, where some firm leaders are fighting back against the criticism. The DOJ has recently come under fire from a conservative group and GOP lawmakers for hiring lawyers who represented Guantanamo Bay detainees while in private practice. The controversy ramped up after the Justice Department refused to name the lawyers and a conservative group posted a YouTube video questioning the allegiance of the DOJ lawyers.

A New York lawyer previously charged with stealing $700,000 from real estate investors is now facing an attempted bribery charge after allegedly trying to pay off a Nassau County clerk to expedite his request for information on a property he was trying to close on. According to prosecutors, Frederic Powell put a $100 bill on the clerk’s counter and asked “if the process could be sped up.” When he was told it could not, he put another $100 bill on the counter, which was again rejected.

Forty-seven years since “My Boyfriend’s Back” hit No. 1 on the music charts, a New York appellate court last week restored two of six claims accusing F.G.G. Productions, which produced the song, of failing to honor its contract to pay royalties. The lawsuit was brought by Phyllis Sirico, one of two sisters who sang backup for the Angels, and Peggy Davison, the group’s lead singer on “My Boyfriend’s Back.”