Lawyer - News

The saga of missing Clinton, Conn., lawyer Jonathan Hoyt has ended with his suicide in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Hoyt, a 59-year-old business law attorney believed to have embezzled close to $700,000 from about a dozen clients, was found by police Monday around 11 a.m. in his one-bedroom apartment. Hoyt had been missing since early July. Hoyt's landlord says Hoyt began renting the apartment on Aug. 30 under the name Jim Bragg of NY Biz Systems. No comments

A New York judge has permitted a legal malpractice suit to proceed against a group of personal injury lawyers who tried to argue that the medical malpractice suit they allegedly botched had no merit in the first place. "[S]uch arguments fly in the face of the fact that Defendants represented Plaintiffs for almost three years, presumably because they believed that the lawsuit had merit," Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Emily Goodman wrote. No comments

Georgia appeals court judges have vacated a reduction of Willie Gary's child support obligation, finding that the Florida plaintiffs attorney needs to show a change in circumstances requiring a modification of the monthly figure of $28,000. A lower court judge had reduced the monthly payout to the mother of Gary's twin boys to $5,000, plus private school tuition. No comments

Since 1999, the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division has reached plea agreements with 29 executives from nine countries. And during the past year, the division has secured its two longest sentences against foreign executives, including a record 14-month term imposed in May during a price-fixing conspiracy. Antitrust lawyers representing foreign companies and executives say the U.S. government's intensified focus on international cartel prosecutions will likely continue. No comments

Section 191 of the New York State Labor Law was recently amended.  The actual text of the new law (which I have set out in bulleted form) is as follows:

• "THE AGREED TERMS OF EMPLOYMENT SHALL BE REDUCED TO WRITING, SIGNED BY BOTH THE EMPLOYER AND THE COMMISSION SALESPERSON, KEPT ON FILE BY THE EMPLOYER FOR A PERIOD NOT LESS THAN THREE YEARS AND MADE AVAILABLE TO THE COMMISSIONER UPON REQUEST.

• SUCH WRITING SHALL INCLUDE A DESCRIPTION OF HOW WAGES, SALARY, DRAWING ACCOUNT, COMMISSIONS AND ALL OTHER MONIES EARNED AND PAYABLE SHALL BE CALCULATED.

• WHERE THE WRITING PROVIDES FOR A RECOVERABLE DRAW, THE FREQUENCY OF RECONCILIATION SHALL BE INCLUDED.

• SUCH WRITING SHALL ALSO PROVIDE DETAILS PERTINENT TO PAYMENT OF WAGES, SALARY, DRAWING ACCOUNT, COMMISSIONS AND ALL OTHER MONIES EARNED AND PAYABLE IN THE CASE OF TERMINATION OF EMPLOYMENT BY EITHER PARTY.

• THE FAILURE OF AN EMPLOYER TO PRODUCE SUCH WRITTEN TERMS OF EMPLOYMENT, UPON REQUEST OF THE COMMISSIONER, SHALL GIVE RISE TO A PRESUMPTION THAT THE TERMS OF EMPLOYMENT THAT THE COMMISSIONED SALESPERSON HAS PRESENTED ARE THE AGREED TERMS OF EMPLOYMENT."

Lots of folks are hoping to make a few dollars writing contracts for employers by scaring them with this new amendment.  I suspect that most reasonably intelligent human resources professionals can figure this one out.

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In recently unsealed documents spelling out assertions that Oracle overcharged customers and used millions of dollars to offset other customers' bad debt accounts, a federal insider trading and shareholder fraud suit alleges that hundreds of e-mails and financial records, and even audio interviews with Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, vanished or were improperly withheld. A court showdown looms next month over the plaintiffs' request for default judgment as a sanction for alleged document destruction. No comments

The Superior Court of Pennsylvania has upheld a $5.6 million verdict in a memorandum opinion against Kia Motors, but ruled the trial judge must explain why he awarded $4.1 million in attorney fees. A Philadelphia jury awarded $600 apiece to 9,402 class members whose 1995 to 2001 Kia Sephias had brakes that allegedly were prone to wear and tear, often needed replacement approximately every 5,000 miles, and sometimes failed to stop the sedans. The court upheld the verdict in a nonprecedential decision. No comments

When the Supreme Court upheld the federal ban on "partial-birth" abortions in April, critics sounded the alarm that women would be harmed, physicians would be jailed, and state legislators would be energized to pass similar laws. Six months later, it appears those fears have not come true. An important new measure of the impact of comes this week, when the 4th Circuit re-evaluates Virginia's partial-birth abortion ban, possibly the strictest ban in the nation, in light of . No comments

After almost a decade as a partner at Troutman Sanders and then Kilpatrick Stockton, Lizz Patrick started her solo firm in Atlanta a year ago. Since she doesn't use squads of associates and paralegals in her work Patrick can provide her clients the same expertise she did at a big firm with lower overhead and more responsive service. And freed of the overhead of a big firm, Patrick has been able to drop her rate by about $150 an hour. Though money wasn't her main motivator, the new firm has been profitable. No comments

UTStarcom went public in 2000, and for a time was seen as a smart way to play the China telecom boom. But it's become an example of what corporate lawyers can face when trying to square business practices common in China -- such as paying bribes and recognizing income before it's actually in company coffers -- with the corporate disclosures required by U.S. regulators. More than $300 million in revenue has come off the books, and the company has admitted to backdating stock options for executives. No comments