Medical roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Woman left sleeping on plane sues airline” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Geoffrey Fieger to run for Detroit mayor? is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

One day before Edwards went public with the affair, Hunter and 6-month-old daughter Frances were flown to the Virgin Islands on a chartered jet, the Enquirer reported.

The $50,000 trip was paid for by friends of Edwards. The newspaper also said she stayed at the oceanfront home of another Edwards’ pal, lawyer Lee Rohn.

(Larry McShane, “John Edwards promised Rielle Hunter they’d be together – report”, Aug. 20)(via ABA Journal)(Update: Rohn vehemently denies the Enquirer story as false, saying she neither hosted Hunter nor is close to Edwards; see below). Readers may be wondering: is Rohn yet another attorney whose doings are going to make irresistible copy for a site like this, much as with Edwards chum/Democratic moneyman/perennial Overlawyered mentionee Fred Baron? To which the answer would appear to be, “you bet”:

St. Croix attorney Lee Rohn has stirred up a chorus of criticism and complaints about her professional practices both inside and outside the courtroom.

Her most vocal critics have been opposing parties or counsel in lawsuits she has filed. They have alleged a wide spectrum of professional conduct violations.

Among Rohn’s frequent targets is Innovative Communication Corp., which runs the Virgin Islands’ local telephone provider and the islands’ newspaper, and whose lawyers say they’ve lost count of how many times she’s sued them. The company’s chairman, Jeffrey Prosser, has called in vain for Rohn’s disbarment, complaining of “intolerable” and “abusive” instances of “ethical misconduct” as well as “vitriolic” public attacks: “In some cases with us, she coerced her clients to sign documents that were knowingly false [and] ignored judge’s orders on limits of discovery inquiry during depositions,” he wrote.

In 2002, Rohn publicly blasted one of the islands’ two federal district judges, Thomas Moore, accusing him of inappropriate behavior, and Moore recused himself from some of her cases citing the antipathy. Subsequently, after she moved to demand Moore’s recusal from yet another of her cases, he refused, stating in his written ruling, “I believe attorney Rohn’s personal attack on one of the two sitting judges in this jurisdiction was nothing more than a calculated litigation tactic that would be labeled ‘judge shopping’ in most places.” Moore, who has sanctioned Rohn for insulting and profane language toward witnesses and court personnel, wrote in another case, in which the Caribbean Geoffrey Fieger “sought to compel testimony from all the federal judges in the territory”:

“Nothing Lee Rohn does surprises me anymore, although subpoenaing all the federal judges in the jurisdiction is a high point of ingenuity and creativity in attempting to manipulate the system,” Moore wrote.

“I do not believe, however, that an attorney should be allowed to use her calculated personal attack on a sitting judge as a technique to prevent that judge from presiding over any of her cases, especially in a small district with only two judges.”

A few weeks ago, it may be recalled, we looked at the question of lawyers’ public denunciations of judges and whether they do or should result in recusal by those judges. (Jason Robbins and Lee Williams, “From judges to opponents, Rohn has no shortage of harsh critics”, Virgin Islands Daily News, Mar. 29, 2004 — the newspaper, it bears repeating, and its parent company have been frequent targets of Rohn’s litigation, as in this libel case arising from her airport pot bust). Death by a Thousand Paper Cuts has more, including a picture of the Rohn villa.

The National Enquirer, which keeps breaking new developments in the story, is now reporting that “a team of six more lawyers have been involved in the coverup”. They can’t all be as interesting as Baron and Rohn, can they?

Update Fri. 8:20 p.m.: the Daily News reports Rohn categorically denies the story’s truth:

The Enquirer quoted Virgin Island pol Anne Golden as saying Hunter stayed for 10 days in an oceanfront home owned by prominent St. Croix lawyer Lee Rohn.

Rohn hotly denied that to the Daily News and vowed to sue.

“It is absolutely false,” she told The News. “The Enquirer knows the story is not true as they sat on a hill above my house for a week with telephoto lenses and video cameras and had no sighting of her. The guest cottage she was supposedly staying in is under construction and has no floor.”

Rohn said that while she donated money to Edwards, she is not friends with him. Records show she gave $2,300 to Edwards a year ago and another $2,300 to Barack Obama early this year.

(Helen Kennedy, “John’s island girl Rielle fled to St. Croix on eve of cheating flap”, Aug. 21). And — hat tip to commenter Ken Floyd — the opinions of heated Rohn critic Jeffrey Prosser, the newspaper/telephone magnate, should be evaluated in the perspective of his own controversial and colorful business record, which recently culminated in high-profile bankruptcy proceedings involving his Innovative Communication empire. Some sources on that here, here, here, and here. For more background on the recusal disputes involving Rohn and Judge Thomas K. Moore, see this Moore opinion (U.S. v. Roebuck, PDF) and this Third Circuit opinion (Selkridge v. Mutual of Omaha, 360 F. 3d 155). DBKP wishes it had been a fly on the wall during an AAJ award ceremony honoring Rohn. And see commenter #7 below who seems to have been doing considerable digging.

New figure in Edwards scandal: attorney Lee Rohn (update: denies story) is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

August 22 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Fla. lawyer: I’ve got every right to call judge an “evil, unfair witch” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

• Judge Henry Lackey, who went to feds to report bribe attempt by Dickie Scruggs associate, gets award and standing ovations at Mississippi bar convention, says he was just doing a judge’s job [NMC/Folo]
• Related: should Ole Miss Chancellor Robert Khayat have used official university stationery for his letter pleading leniency for chum/ benefactor Scruggs? [Daily Mississippian and editorial via YallPolitics, continuing coverage at Folo; earlier]
• Stephen Dubner: if lawyer/subscriber can sue Raleigh News & Observer over perceived decline in its quality, who’s next? [NYT/Freakonomics blog, earlier]
• Maneuvering over retrial of Kentucky fen-phen defendants Gallion and Cunningham [Lexington Herald-Leader]
• A Fieger sideshow: though acquitted in recent campaign laundering prosecution, controversial lawyer fared less well in lawsuit against Michigan AG Michael Cox; Sixth Circuit tossed that suit and upheld order that Fieger fork over attorney fees to Michigan Supreme Court Justice Stephen Markman over subjecting the justice to unfounded vilification [ABA Journal; fixed typo on Circuit]
• Citing long history of frivolous litigation, federal judge in central Texas fines disbarred lawyer Charles Edward Lincoln and his client and bans Lincoln from bringing any more federal suits [SE Texas Record]
• Faced with $18 million legal-malpractice jury verdict, Indiana labor law firm stays in business by agreeing to make token payment, then gang up on its liability insurer for the rest [Indianapolis Business Journal, Ketzenberger/Indy Star via ABA Journal]

July 20 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

…There is no doubt that Southfield attorney Geoffrey Fieger completely subverted [the aims of campaign law] when he essentially laundered through employees of his law firm hefty contributions to the 2004 presidential campaign of John Edwards.

But can you make a federal case out of it? A U.S. District Court jury didn’t think so, refusing Monday to convict Fieger and law partner Vernon (Ven) Johnson of doing anything illegal. So congratulations to Fieger for gaming the system and then beating it.

But that doesn’t make what he did right. …

…the system ought to have some integrity, and the limits established by law ought to be enforced. Fieger got around them by being clever, pleading ignorance, then getting a jury to see it his way. It certainly helped that the local U.S. attorney’s office had been frighteningly aggressive in its pursuit of Fieger, and that he had the cash to hire an attorney who reputedly has never lost a case. Yes, money matters in criminal justice at least as much as it does in politics.

No doubt, Fieger’s acquittal gives a little more mettle to other fat cats who want to skirt the law. It’s a victory for him, but a step back for the political process.

Fieger himself has tried to put out the line that it is only because of some mean old plot against politically active trial lawyers that he was ever prosecuted at all. If the Free Press editorial is any indication, it doesn’t look as he’s getting very far with that line. More here and here.

Further: Scott Greenfield, and Freep reporter Dawson Bell (unless your name is Geoffrey Fieger, don’t try to get away with doing what he did: “It’s still a crime.”). Ted in comments adds: “And let’s not forget the all-too-typical and appalling sight of the defendant partying with the jurors he snookered.” Per the account in the Free Press, “Champagne sat on ice at each table” in the Greektown establishment. “A stocked bar was in the corner.” Earlier on post-trial juror fraternization with winning disputants and their lawyers here, here, etc.

Detroit Free Press on Fieger acquittal is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

The straw-donor law invoked against Fieger has been around since 1972, though Congress upped the ante and made it a felony as part of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, known as the McCain-Feingold Act. In all these years there has been but one jury verdict concerning the law, before it was a felony, and it was for acquittal. (There have been several plea agreements in recent years.)

Thus no court has crafted an opinion concerning the law itself, according to some of the few experts in this narrow slice of election law.

Spence told the jury that the government tried to use snippets of law to go after Fieger, a prominent plaintiffs lawyer and former Democratic candidate for governor in Michigan, for political purposes. The campaign finance law (2 U.S.C. § 441f) says:

“No person shall make a contribution in the name of another person or knowingly permit his name to be used to effect such a contribution, and no person shall knowingly accept a contribution made by one person in the name of another person.”

The defense argued that the law, as worded, does not prohibit reimbursing people who make contributions.

If in fact Fieger’s acquittal will be cited in favor of the notion that the use of straw donors reimbursed after the fact is lawful after all, that might seem to blow a rather large hole in the side of the McCain-Feingold law — which makes it all the odder that the Fieger trial drew so little attention from either backers or critics of that law on the national level.

McCain-Feingold and the Fieger acquittal is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Fieger gets off is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system