Lawyer - News

A widely watched class action involving hearing-impaired drivers at United Parcel Service now features an appellate judge canning her very own precedent. In an en banc ruling, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday reversed an earlier panel and vacated class certification and an injunction against UPS. The latest opinion in laid out a new affirmative defense standard for employers hit with Americans with Disabilities Act claims. No comments

A Dallas businessman has sued Weil, Gotshal & Manges, alleging that the firm and two of its partners took advantage of him as a client by lessening his interest in a deal while he was undergoing treatment for cancer. David Radman and CU Commercial Services LLC allege that the firm and two of its Dallas partners, Michael A. Saslaw and Robert C. Feldman, conspired with Radman's then-business partner and others to reduce Radman's interest in a proposed acquisition of a Dallas-based credit union subsidiary. No comments

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has reversed a lower appellate decision that blocked the merger of telecommunications companies Verizon and MCI. Finding that Pennsylvania's Public Utility Commission correctly approved the proposed merger, the court said that the "combined company with its strong resources, enhanced infrastructure and increased operating efficiencies will benefit the public in the long term in ways that are as meaningful as short-term rate concessions." No comments

Many women leave the legal profession after they have children and find 60-hour workweeks unsustainable. Given their training and the fact that they made it through law school and the bar exam, Andrews Kurth partner Kathleen Wu doubts that these lawyers want to stay away forever. Wu offers ways that smart law firms and legal departments can entice women to come back after they've left, from offering low-cost CLE to inactive attorneys to keeping in touch with alumni. No comments

At Goodin, MacBride, Squeri, Day & Lamprey, the new year really will look new: The firm's three biggest cases resolved in 2007. The firm expects attorney fees from the almost-$400 million pot of settlements and judgments it helped to realize to translate into more than $10 million in fees. "This is a record-setting year for us," says Wayne Lamprey, whose 13-lawyer firm focuses on commercial litigation, whistleblower actions and regulatory proceedings before the California Public Utilities Commission. No comments

How can the government reach a deferred prosecution agreement with a company that denies it did anything wrong? That's the question raised by the apparently unprecedented DPAs that U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie recently signed with several manufacturers of orthopedic implants. Rather than push for admissions of guilt, Christie used his muscle to win corporate governance reforms. Key among them: All five companies had to hire federal monitors -- chosen by Christie -- to supervise the reforms. No comments

From formal mentoring to support for workplace "affinity groups," employers are increasingly taking steps to promote a diverse work force. Yet, despite diversity policies' prevalence, there remains little legal authority directly addressing the issues raised by the policies. Littler Mendelson's David Haase discusses several cases dealing with companies' diversity policies but reminds employers that the paucity of relevant authority makes it likely that there will be more litigation regarding such policies. No comments

Dictation is an old friend for lawyers and should not be forgotten as manufacturers move from analog to digital dictation systems. Michael Barnas, Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal's director of application services, provides helpful tips and tactics for evaluating specific vendors. No comments

Patrick Kennedy is one of about 3,300 people on death row in the United States. But he differs in at least one respect: Both he and the state of Louisiana agree he didn't kill anyone. Instead, Kennedy is on death row because he was convicted of raping his 8-year-old stepdaughter. Now that the Louisiana Supreme Court has upheld Kennedy's death sentence, he has made a plea to the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his case and find his sentence unconstitutionally cruel and unusual under the Eighth Amendment. No comments

In November, veteran Supreme Court advocate Roy Englert Jr. got an unexpected call that has propelled him into the middle of one of the highest-profile Supreme Court death penalty cases in years. The call was from a top official in Kentucky's Justice & Public Safety Cabinet, asking Englert if he'd argue on behalf of Kentucky in the lethal-injection case . It was a surprise because Englert, a top business lawyer at Robbins Russell, has never argued an Eighth Amendment death penalty case. No comments