September 17 2007 Legal Blog Roundup Hi, folks.The September 4 post at f/k/a titled ''Contingency Fees and the Clueless Fiduciary'' offers an excellent and thorough discussion of the standards for charging contingency fees, lawyers' ethics, and what blogger David Giacalone's dad would say about the matter: ''that's a pretty nice racket those p/i lawyers have.'' The post is thoughtful and provocative, and... (1 views)
“Emergency Doctrine” Applied to Murder Investigation On Friday, the Appellate Division, Fourth Department found that the continued questioning of a murder suspect by the police, despite his request for an attorney, did not violate his constitutional rights and was acceptable under ''emergency doctrine.'' (1 views)
Big Five Face Big Pressure With gas prices nearing $4 a gallon, big oil executives, Democrats and Republicans are having a ''come to Jesus'' meeting in Washington with the Senate Finance Committee. (1 views)
November 26 2007 Legal Blog Roundup I'm feeling a bit nostalgic this week, so indulge me for the moment by flashing back to your high school history class. Remember the name ''John Locke''? No? Well, you should, because without his revolutionary ideas on liberty and tolerance, America might very well have stayed an English colony. He was the philosopher (some, myself included, might say genius) who argued,... (1 views)
Financial frauds due to inside trading and the cases filed by Preet Bharara Touted by some as the ''sheriff of Wall street'', per the financial media, Preet Bharara is the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, credited with Raj Rajaratnam's demise. (1 views)
Springbok Services hires new GC Springbok Services hires new GCBPI hires new GCInterim GC at TronoxMIPS Technologies hires new GC (1 views)
Searching for the Paris Law Firm Bomber Who did it?After a bomb exploded in a Paris law office, killing one and seriously wounding another, that was the question that began to circulate. On Friday officials ruled out the possibility it was terrorism. But other suspects have included jihadists, Corsican nationalists, and extremist political groups. (1 views)
December 24 2007 Legal Blog Roundup Massachusetts is widely recognized as the most progressive state in the union (sorry, Rhode Island), and keeping in line with its consumer-friendly, anti-corporate inclination, the Massachusetts Supreme Court has handed down a decision holding doctors liable for automobile accidents in the event that patients are not fully and properly instructed as to the side effects of... (1 views)
Alabama Passes New Immigration Bill On Wednesday, Alabama lawmakers passed a new bill to mitigate the criticized portions of Alabama's controversial immigration law, though critics say the new law would only make things worse. The criticism ran so high that seven protesters were arrested outside the Alabama state House and Senate including the legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center. The Southern... (1 views)
December 31 2007 Legal Blog Roundup So long, 2007 — we hardly knew ye. Or something like that. (1 views)
Crime Pays: Crime Generates 3.6% of the World’s GDP While few citizens would support the adolescent remark on the internet, ''When I grow up, I want to be a criminal: The pay and perks are good!'' the figures tabled by the UNODC and the World Bank on Monday are eye-openers. Based on the data for 2009, the UNODC and the World Bank calculated for the first time, how much does crime pay across the world. (1 views)
January 14 2008 Legal Blog Roundup 2008 is probably not going to be a good year for the economy or for stockbrokers, but it also looks to be getting off to a rocky start for the denizens of the legal industry as well. Not so much because job opportunities are lacking or because pay increases won't be quite what they should, but because the luster of law seems to be diminishing — and fast. So says an... (1 views)
U.S. Lawmakers Demand Answers from President About Military Action in Libya On March 21, 2011, President Barack Obama made a formal notification to Congress that the United States had begun military attacks on Libya. Lawmakers criticized the move, saying the president had done so without congressional consent, and that this seemed to go against his 2007 position. (1 views)
Free Work Contribution Made Mandatory Precondition for NY Bar Enrollment On Tuesday, the Chief Judge of the State of New York, Jonathan Lippman, announced that from next year, New York would become the first state with a precondition for bar aspirants to contribute free legal work before being licensed to practice. The chief judge said that the rule would help the growing number of pending cases and people who cannot afford legal services. The... (1 views)
January 28 2008 Legal Blog Roundup Is sex in public the same thing as free speech? I'm not so sure, but the ACLU is putting all of its legal might into this latest argument to protect embattled Idaho Senator Larry Craig from losing his post in the U.S. Senate. It may seem odd that one of the nation's most liberal and progressive institutions is working so hard to defend one of the government's... (1 views)
Florida Bar Stuck Over Admission of Undocumented Immigrant In a case that has been flagged as 'high profile' by the U.S. Supreme Court, Florida, The Florida Board of Bar Examiners has sought the opinion of the court over the application of an undocumented immigrant to gain admission to the bar. (1 views)
UCLA Gets Center on Climate Change Thanks to a donation and a matching-gift challenge, $10 million will fund a new center for the University of California — Los Angeles School of Law. The donation was initiated by Dan Emmett, who is a real estate businessman in Santa Monica, CA. The center will focus on the environment and climate change. A law clinic and a law and policy program are the main foci as of... (1 views)
Cuba's New Direction? Fidel Castro announced his resignation Monday, after 49 years of rule. This is being widely hailed as good news for the people of Cuba and for the surrounding region, though one suspects Hugo Chavez is not very happy this morning. (1 views)
Lab Technician Pleads Guilty to 2009 Murder In what would surely have been a traumatic event for the family of Yale graduate student Annie Le is no longer a possibility. Raymond Clark, III pleaded guilty this week in the murder and attempted sexual assault of the woman who was only days away from her wedding. (1 views)
U.S. Firms Scramble To Understand U.K. Bribery Act Law firms in the United States, and perhaps more importantly, their clients, are scrambling to understand the nuances of the U.K.'s recent Bribery Act. (1 views)
Healthcare Debate Sees Record Number of Amicus Briefs in Supreme Court The previous amicus record holder cases in the U.S. Supreme Court (affirmative action against University of Michigan, decided in 2003), have been outdone by at least 30% in the Health Care suit to be decided by the court in March. (1 views)
U.K. Judgment Creates Jurisdictional Upheaval in International law The UK Court of Appeal has passed a recent judgment that domestic courts may refuse to recognize a judgment passed in another Convention country, if the alleged foreign judgment fails to respect fair trial principles embodied in Section 6 of the Human Rights Act, 1998, U.K. This comes at a time when experts in U.S. are deeply debating the application of the Alien Tort... (1 views)
Ninth Circuit Appeals Court Upholds DNA Collection from Arrestees In an appeal stemming from the plaintiffs’ attempt to seek preliminary injunction over execution of the 2004 Amendment to California’s DNA and Forensic Identification Data Base and Data Bank Act of 1998 (DNA Act) being denied by the district court, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, on Thursday, upheld the decision of the district court and denied relief to the... (1 views)
America: Don't Let Whitney's Death be in Vain The passing of once mega-star Whitney Houston underscores the drug addictions thousands battle the world over. Sadly, she can be added to the list of stars that have recently died in similar fashion, including Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse, and Heath Ledger. (1 views)
California Senator Wants Law School Reform Now Law schools have been under the microscope over the past year, as students, graduates, and potential students alike demand transparency from them regarding the prognosis of a J.D. degree. In that vein, a senator from California is now pushing for the American Bar Association to overhaul the way in which law schools are ranked. (1 views)
June 24 2008 Legal Blog Roundup Luckily for this week's edition of ''Inside Legal Blogs,'' there were quite a few interesting discussions this week in the legal ''Blawgosphere.'' There were, for example, some philosophical ones, such as the discussion that raged on Volokh and PrawfsBlawg about ''theophobia,'' or the hostility of academics towards religion. In fact, religion was in the news a lot this... (1 views)
Schneiderman in Driver’s Seat Once More in National Foreclosure Investigation During his State of the Union address this week, Obama announced that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman will co-chair a national mortgage crisis unit that will target the investigation of home lending by banks. (1 views)
More Wall Street Meltdown News Another day, another bailout on Wall Street, where the government has just agreed to extend an $85-billion loan to insurance giant AIG. In return, AIG will be paying a very high interest rate and giving the feds an almost an 80% stake in the firm. In other words, the shareholders of AIG just lost 80% of what was left of their shares' value. (1 views)
McCain Halts Campaign to Address Financial Crisis In a move that shocked the political community, Senator John McCain suspended his campaign for president and invited his rival, Senator Barack Obama, to do the same. McCain called for the first presidential debate, scheduled for this Friday, to be delayed and for both he and Obama to go back to Washington to work on the financial crisis. (1 views)