Curious goings-on during the sentencing process of a Vero Beach, Fla. lawyer gone wrong. [Vero Beach News]
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Posts tagged as:
don’t
Don’t (if you’re a lawyer seeking favorable rulings in your case) attract national attention by assailing the judge and other court officials as, among other epithets, “Popess,” “mindless numbnut,” “dastardly Jesuit,” and “bigoted Catholic beasts.” [Lowering the Bar, Minnesota]
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- Executive with “Autism Speaks” group quits to found group more aligned with scientific opinion on cause of condition [SciAm]
- Here comes the ban-cigarettes-entirely crusade [Peter Singer on forthcoming Robert Proctor "Golden Holocaust"] “Parents try to blame Four Loko for son getting shot” [Elie Mystal, Above the Law] Still-relevant cartoon from ’30s on Federal War on Drugs (or Booze, take your pick) [Perry]
- Controversy over definition of medical disorders in DSM-V has implications for workplace law including ADA, FMLA [Labor Related, petition]
- “Not Safe to Display an American Flag in an American High School” [Volokh]
- “Criminal Defense Lawyer Charged in Alleged $1.5M Fraud On Clients Obtained Under False Pretenses” [ABA Journal, Greenfield; Texas]
- Father of Notre Dame student who died says family never considered suing [Chicago Tribune]
- “The Ignominious End Of The Digitek Mass Tort” [Beck]
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Don’t call in a false drunk driving report on opposing counsel in a family law dispute [California via Mike Frisch/Legal Profession Blog]
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- A request for anti-SLAPP lawyers in Maine and Maryland [Popehat]
- “Gallup: Government Regulation the Top Concern Among Small Business Owners” [NRO Corner] Almost as if in rebuttal to claims from Treasury economist [Business Roundtable]
- Foreclosure law firm in upstate NY under fire after pics posted of its Halloween party [Nocera, Mystal]
- “GAO Report Details Secrecy Of Asbestos Trusts” [Dan Fisher, Forbes] Crown Cork & Seal seeks successor-liability bill in Massachusetts [Eagle-Tribune]
- Case against FMCSA’s rule change on truckers’ hours-of-service [Marc Scribner, CEI]
- Richard Epstein on John Paul Stevens as justice and, now, author [Hoover]
- Feds say lawyer who advised giant theft ring was partly paid in chic shoes and other designer gear [ABA Journal]
- Don’t: “Lawyer Disbarred for Verbal Aggression to Pay $9.8M Fine for Hiding Cash Overseas” [Weiss, ABA Journal]
- Loser-pays might help: “Dropped malpractice lawsuits cost legal system time and money” [Liz Kowalczyk, Boston Globe]
- “Kim Kardashian and the Problem With ‘Celebrity Likeness’ Lawsuits” [Atlantic Wire]
- Kim Strassel on the Franken-spun Jamie Leigh Jones case [WSJ]
- Peggy Little interviews Prof. Lester Brickman (Lawyer Barons) on new Federalist Society podcast;
- Worse than Wisconsin? “Weaponizing” recusal at the Michigan Supreme Court [Jeff Hadden, Detroit News]
- New York legislature requires warning labels for sippy cups [NYDN]
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If prosecutors are to be believed, Paul Bergrin not only defrauded lenders on a grand scale but “set up witnesses to be murdered before they could testify against his clients”. “I can’t have some [expletive] lawyer in suspenders and I’m supposed say thanks because he got my sentence down to twenty years,” said one murder-rap defendant client. “I’m paying top dollar, and I demand legal brilliance. Someone who will consider all the options.” [New York magazine]
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- Claim: unwanted sugar in Dunkin’ Donuts coffee order sent customer into diabetic shock [AP]
- Schadenfreude aside, key theory in feds’ case against John Edwards looking mighty strained [Meck Deck/John Locke Foundation, Steve Hayward/Power Line, Ted Frank, Jacob Sullum] “They’ve indicted one former presidential candidate on one count of false statements?” [Caleb Brown] American Lawyer looks back at the law firms that backed Edwards in 2008; our coverage of his ‘04 law-firm backers and of moneyman Fred Baron, and my commentary on Baron’s ethical standards;
- Edwards-reminiscent? Theory that earlier C-section would have averted cerebral palsy nets $58 M verdict [Thomas Scheffey, Connecticut Law Tribune]
- Carter Wood, key business-policy blogger, departs NAM for Business Roundtable;
- Tenderer tort-law treatment for trespassers, courtesy 3rd Restatement? [David Freddoso/Examiner, Richard Cupp via TortsProf]
- Non-shockingly, some litigation defense lawyers aren’t enthusiastic about lawsuit reform [Texas Lawyer]
- “Attorney charged with stealing clerk’s textbook from courtroom” [Baltimore Sun]
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Pending further disciplinary action, the State Bar of California suspended the right to practice of Michael Pines, whose exploits had garnered considerable press attention [Amanda Bronstad, NLJ; earlier here and here]
Really bad lawyer conduct? Or only medium? “The State Bar of Arizona is looking to throw the book at a Phoenix attorney who told a client that she was channeling his dead wife, then allegedly lied about it during an unrelated disciplinary proceeding.” [National Law Journal]
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A bright-line rule in legal ethics: don’t order that witnesses be killed [Philadelphia Inquirer, WSJ Law Blog on prosecutors' allegations in a case against New Jersey criminal defense lawyer Paul Bergrin]
Doing that sort of thing is never a good idea, and now it’s drawn a three-year sentence for obstruction of justice for a former vice president at a Cambridge, Mass.-based biotech company. He’s appealing the sentence as excessive. [AP, Boston Globe, Boston Herald]
A South Carolina lawyer with expertise in “asset protection” and his associate have pleaded not guilty to federal charges over their alleged roles in an arrangement to do that; an Aiken, S.C. lawyer “pled guilty on September 18 to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and money laundering for his role in the scheme.” [WISTV.com, Columbia State]
Don’t gamble away your clients’ $2 million class action settlement on stock market day trading and lose it [Sandeep Baweja of Orange County, Calif., who has agreed to plead guilty; earlier]
A “judge ordered the Office of Disciplinary Counsel to lock [Allen] Feingold out of his offices” after he went on practicing law notwithstanding his suspension and eventual disbarment, even going so far as to use another lawyer’s letterhead and electronic-filing code without his permission. That was aside from the question of whether he’d earlier attempted to choke, or only attempted to strike, a judge who’d ruled against him on an arbitration matter. [Above the Law, Legal Intelligencer, AmLaw Daily]
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TaxProf: “The Tax Court yesterday denied a New York tax lawyer’s claimed $100,000+ medical expense deduction for the costs of prostitutes and pornographic material.” Earlier here. More: Gothamist last year on related state-tax enforcement action (”The state auditor also argued that ‘in addition to being illegal in New York State, these expenses are not substantiated with receipts.’”
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According to U.S. Justice Department and Colorado bar authorities, Denver immigration lawyer Ravi Kanwal was himself in the United States unlawfully. [Legal Profession Blog via Ambrogi, Legal Blog Watch]
If you’re a judge annoyed at a court worker’s parking her car in a restricted parking space at the courthouse, don’t take it upon yourself to let the air out of her tires [Maryland circuit court judge Robert Nalley, who's stepping down from an administrative post but not from the bench after conceding the bit of self-help in question; Washington Post]
