Lawyer - News

Attorneys at the two biggest law firms in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, are moving back into their downtown building this week after abandoning the offices on June 11 because of flooding that forced a mandatory evacuation of the city center. Neither Simmons Perrine nor Shuttleworth & Ingersoll had damage to their office space because they were on the upper floors of the building, but the lawyers were unable to return until now because the building didn't have power. No comments

The New Jersey State Bar Association is calling on the Institute for Continuing Legal Education to pay interest on taxes owed by customers because ICLE didn't collect them at point of sale. A resolution passed by the Bar says ICLE should also consider giving the affected customers credits to recompense them for their inconvenience. ICLE Executive Director Lawrence Maron says he is polling ICLE's board of directors on both ideas, but no decision can be made until they know how much money is involved. No comments

GOP legislative leaders want former Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr to handle a U.S. Supreme Court appeal in a legal battle over Arizona's instruction of students learning English but there's been a snag. The Department of Administration has decided it will pay Starr up to $335 an hour, the state's regular rate for paying outside lawyers for complex appellate cases. That's about a third of Starr's $910-an-hour billing rate. Said one Republican of the roadblock, "I'm kind of perplexed." No comments

Four Minnesota men who claim to belong to their own common law court where "Almighty Yahweh" has exclusive jurisdiction have been charged for allegedly trying to intimidate U.S. District Judge Ann Montgomery in an effort to stop her from holding a criminal trial. The men were trying to stop the April trial of Robert Bonine Beale, the former millionaire chief executive of Comtrol Corp., who was subsequently convicted by a jury on conspiracy and tax evasion charges. No comments

Baker & McKenzie, an international firm founded in Chicago, would regain its mantle as the world's largest law firm by attorney head count if rumors about its possible merger with Heller Ehrman were to materialize. "If it were true, it would be a good matchup," says consultant Peter Zeughauser. A combination with Heller would vault Baker to the top slot once again with about 4,000 attorneys worldwide. But neither firm will comment on the buzz about their possible talks regarding a combination. No comments

The U.K.'s top law firms have pressed through the initial onslaught of the credit crunch and defied gloomy expectations to achieve double-digit revenue growth for the third year running. 's 2007-08 results, the first finalized picture of the performance of the U.K. top 50, demonstrate how the group tapped busy foreign markets to help offset the pronounced global slowdown. Total revenue across the group rose by 14.3 percent from 10.5 billion pounds to just over 12 billion pounds. No comments

As courtroom technology has evolved, lawyers have become familiar with the tools to make effective presentations. However, for medical malpractice cases, the question is not whether we can use technology, but whether we should, writes Anapol Schwartz shareholder Larry Cohan. No comments

Democratic lawmakers in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday proposed legislation that would regulate how the Justice Department awards contracts for independent monitors hired to oversee white-collar crime settlements, saying new DOJ guidelines did not address their concerns about the lucrative monitoring contracts and so-called deferred prosecution settlements. A Justice Department spokesperson said the department will review the legislation but considers it unnecessary. No comments

Attorney Sean Conway agreed he was in the wrong when he referred to a controversial judge as an "evil, unfair witch" and "seemingly mentally ill" on a popular law blog two Halloweens ago. But following the intervention of the Florida Supreme Court, Conway is trying to get his conditional guilty plea tossed on the basis that the First Amendment protected his comments. The court has stiffened suggested penalties in several recent cases to drive home the point that it's getting tough on lawyer misconduct. No comments

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court will consider four issues of first impression in a high-profile class action that could have a major impact on state class action law. The case involves a $5.6 million verdict -- $600 apiece for 9,402 class members -- awarded to owners of Kia sedans with brakes that allegedly needed frequent replacement. A plaintiffs attorney said the case is a model for how the class action device can rectify a mass-marketed product that harms a lot of people in small dollar amounts. No comments