• One for your “firefighter’s rule” file: firefighter perishes in blaze, his widow sues security alarm company [SF Chron, San Pablo, Calif.]
• And another: Nassau County, N.Y. cop injured by drunk driver while on duty is suing the county over Long Island Expressway design and signage [Newsday; Kenneth Baribault]
• Stop fighting over the $60 million in fees, judge tells feuding lawyers, your lawsuit has been over for four years now [Legal Intelligencer, corrugated paper antitrust class action]
• Public-health prof: red-light cameras “don’t work” and instead “increase crashes and injuries as drivers attempt to abruptly stop” [Bruce Schneier via Instapundit]
• Criminal prosecution of political attack ads? Time to rethink campaign finance law [Bainbridge]
• Teenagers send each other racy cellphone videos, and then their legal nightmare begins [Des Moines Register]
• Sounds interesting but haven’t seen a copy: “How To Get Sued: An Instructional Guide” by well-known blawger J. Craig Williams [Giacalone, Ambrogi]
• Mississippi AG Hood goes after MillerCoors over caffeinated alcohol drinks, but Anheuser-Busch hired Mike Moore and sprung big for DAGA, hmmm [Alan Lange, YallPolitics]/li>

The Delaware senator tapped as Obama’s running mate has just announced that he’s giving away to charity campaign contributions from participants in the Scruggs scandal, no doubt preparing for scrutiny of a set of connections that have already gotten considerable attention in the blogosphere [ABA Journal, NMC @ Folo, YallPolitics, Lattman @ WSJ law blog, Rossmiller, our own mention]. Lotus @ Folo wonders if the McCain camp will risk bringing up Scruggsiana given their own candidate’s former dealings with the disgraced lawyer.

In 2005, Sen. Biden praised “bottom-feeders” (his term) in the legal profession, saying it was worth it to let them collect big fees “to stop bad guys from doing bad things”. In another account, the Senator “began pounding the table in opposition to the bill [Class Action Fairness Act] as he praised plaintiffs attorneys”. On Sen. Biden’s overall alignment with the general trial lawyer cause, see our earlier links here, here, and here.

Members of Biden’s family, including brother Jim Biden and son Joseph (”Beau”) Biden III, who serves as Delaware attorney general, have figured in many news stories about the senator’s connections with the practicing law world. The state of Delaware, renowned for the high caliber of its legal system, has lately attracted an influx of asbestos lawsuits filed on behalf of residents of other states, a trend criticized by guestblogger Steven Hantler (of the Chrysler Corporation) last year. Credit-card companies are a mainstay of the Delaware economy, and Marc Ambinder notes Biden’s having “pushed the bankruptcy bill that Dems now hate”.

Orin Kerr @ Volokh, who is from Delaware himself, likes the Senator.

More: Carter Wood @ PoL on the Senator’s rating of “zero” on legal reform as judged by NAM. See also Ted’s further post. Open Secrets covers the Senator’s campaign finance. And now, as Lotus @ Folo notes, the AP’s Pete Yost and Holbrook Mohr have jumped on the Mississippi connection.

• 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]

“Wow. Judge Acker found Scruggs and the Rigsby sisters jointly and severally liable for civil contempt and a fine of $65,000 in the Renfroe v. Rigsby case, relating to failure to promptly return the stolen State Farm claims files to Renfroe’s counsel.” Maybe stealing documents isn’t such a good strategy after all? And that’s aside from what the judge said about Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood — which starts with the epithet quoted in the post title, and just gets more stinging from there. (David Rossmiller, Jun. 5; Anita Lee, “Judge fines Scruggs, Rigsby sisters”, Biloxi Sun-Herald, Jun. 6; order, opinion PDF). More: U.S. Chamber-backed Legal NewsLine (Hood’s response).

Mississippi medical examiner Dr. Steven Hayne, under fire relating to his forensic contributions to the state’s criminal justice system, has “also done plenty of damage to the state’s tort system, particularly in the area of medical malpractice. … ‘Lots of money can exchange hands over a cause of death determination,’ [Clarksdale cardiologist Dr. Roger] Weiner told me. ‘I wanted to make sure it exchanged hands for the right reasons. Everyone down here knows about Dr. Hayne. Tens of millions of health insurance dollars have gone to plaintiff’s lawyers down here because of him.’” Incendiary headline on the post: “In Mississippi, the Cause of Death Is Open to the Highest Bidder”. (Radley Balko, Reason “Hit and Run”, Jun. 5) (via Glenn Reynolds).

• More on that New Mexico claim of “electro-sensitive” Wi-Fi allergy: quoted complainant is a longtime activist who’s written an anti-microwave book [VNUNet, USA Today "On Deadline" via ABA Journal]
• Your wisecracks belong to us: “Giant Wall of Legal Disclaimers” at Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor at Disneyland [Lileks; h/t Carter Wood]
• New at Point of Law: AAJ commissions a poll on arbitration and gets the results it wants; carbon nanotubes, tomorrow’s asbestos? California will require lawyers operating without professional liability insurance to inform clients of that fact (earlier here and here); and much more.
• Actuaries being sued for underestimating funding woes of public pension plans [NY Times via ABA Journal]
• City of Santa Monica and other defendants will pay $21 million to wrap up lawsuits from elderly driver’s 2003 rampage through downtown farmers’ market [L.A. Times; earlier]
• Sequel to Giants Stadium/Aramark dramshop case, which won a gigantic award later set aside, is fee claim by fired lawyer for plaintiff [NJLJ; Rosemarie Arnold site]
• Privacy law with an asterisk: federal law curbing access to drivers license databases has exemption that lets lawyers purchase personal data to help in litigation [Daily Business Review]
• Terror of FEMA: formaldehyde in Katrina trailers looks to emerge as mass toxic injury claim, and maybe we’ll find out fifteen years hence whether there was anything to it [AP/NOCB]
• Suit by “ABC” firm alleges that Yellow Book let other advertisers improperly sneak in with earlier alphabetical entries [Madison County Record]
• Gun law compliance, something for the little people? A tale from Chicago’s Board of Aldermen [Sun-Times, Ald. Richard Mell]
• Think twice about commissioning a mural for your building since federal law may restrain you from reclaiming the wall at a later date [four years ago on Overlawyered]

*Blogroll, cont’d*

Other sites by our authors: Point of Law (Ted Frank, Walter Olson and others) / Ted Frank’s AEI Legal Center / Walter Olson home page / Our Facebook group

Law:

BlawgRev / Brennan Center / Briefcase (Ohio) / CalBizLit / ConsLw&Pol / Day / Decs & Exs / EvilHRLady / Genova / Goldman / ILR / LawBeat (Obbie) / Legal Ethics Forum / LexMonitor / Lexis Nexis Torts / Likel’d of Succ’s / MassTortLit / Miller, Maryland Injury / Nordberg / O’Keefe / OnPointNews / Perlmutter Schuelke / Prawfs / Scruggs scandal in Mississippi: Folo, YallPolitics as well as Rossmiller / Sui Generis (NY) / TortDeform / WorkplaceProf

And more law: AdamSmithEsq / ACSBlog / AJP / AGWatch / ArmsLaw / Bay / BLT / Bluestone / Cal Wage & Hr / Comm for Just / Complex Lit / Concur Op / Conglom / Counterfeit Chic / EmpirLS / Ernie the Atty / Friable Thts / Greedy TL / Justia / KipEsq / Kranenburg / LawSites / LegalJuice / Legal Rdr / Legal Scholarship / Low’g the Bar / NAM / Ninomania / Ohio Employment / Opinio Juris / Petit / Pop Tort / Proof & Hrsy / QuizLaw / Sports Law / StonePosts / TrollTracker (now underground) / WAC?

Med: Cut to Cure / Dr. Wes / GruntDoc / HIPAA blog / MedProgToday / MedPundit (RIP) / MedRants / Orac / Pipeline / RangelMD / Seidel / SymTym / Throckmorton

General interest:

Beam / Discr’ns / Empire Center / Gawker / Gordon / Jay P. Greene / Haspel / Housing Bubble / IRB / Dan Kennedy / Manh Inst / David Nieporent’s Jumping to Conclusions and Likelihood of Success / MindingCampus / NYObserver / NYT Board, Freak’cs, Lede, Opin’tor, Tierney / Pratie Place / Rauch / SalonBlogRep / Siegel on tobacco / Truth on the Mkt / Tushnet

Right:

Betsy’s / Bookwm Room / City Jrnal / Contentions / Flash Report (Calif.) / Kopel / Lileks / McLaughlin / Marria Deb / Massie / Moldbug / Patterico / PowerLine / RightCoast / RightRbw / Steyn / Zincavage

Left:

Bogdanski / Drum / Edroso / Effect Measure / Lambert / LG&M / Mencimer / Mother Jones / Pump Handle / ReformNY / SadlyNo / Tobias / Wolcott

Libertarian:

Antipl’r / Brayton / Cafe Hayek / Cato-at-Lib’y / Chapman / Henley / Palmer / Pos’ve Lib / Sanchez / Stossel / Vice Sq / Wilk’n / Young

Odd:

Fark / News of the Weird / Our 404 / Lawyer jokes (About.com) / Spurious “Stella Awards”

Science/skepticism:

Hoax / Snopes / LarkFarm / Myers / Unoff Dawkins / Free Inq / Rowe / Lehmann / Fumento / Honeyguide / Quackwatch / Skept Inqr / Skeptic.com

This site’s reprinted articles library, with articles by authors Michael Fumento, Peter Huber, Walter Olson, and Jonathan Rauch.

Forbes compiles its list and is kind enough to quote me at some length. Scariest of the scary? Los Angeles (ADA filing mills); Miami (med-mal); Atlantic County, N.J. (pharmaceutical); Starr County, Tex. (personal injury); Cook County, Ill. (product liability; I’m quoted on the Cook premium for otherwise routine injury cases); Mississippi (class actions; more properly, group and other mass actions, given the state’s peculiar way of handling such claims); Clark County, Nev. (construction litigation); West Virginia (environmental lawsuits); Philadelphia (I’m quoted on the city’s tradition of libel suits by public officials); (William Pentland, Forbes, Apr. 7; slideshow).

As we reported in 2005:

On December 22, 2000, 15-year-old Michael Foradori Jr. walked into a Captain D’s seafood restaurant in Tupelo, Mississippi for dinner; while there, he started flirting with the girlfriend of one of the employees, which resulted in a shouting match. “‘This (employee) was kind of picking on him, he started threatening him, he even hit him with a wadded up paper,’ said Joey Langston, Foradori’s attorney.” (More on Langston at Point of Law, May 13.) A manager restored order by kicking everyone out of the restaurant; outside, a cook who clocked out for the evening got into an altercation with Foradori, and pushed him over a wall, breaking his neck and paralyzing him.

Langston has since pled guilty to bribing a state judge in a different case; he’ll have some money to comfort him when he leaves prison, as he obtained a $20.8 million verdict in the Foradori case on the theory that, if only the restaurant had better trained its cook not to sucker-punch customers half his size, Foradori wouldn’t have been paralyzed, presumably because the threat of being fired from a minimum-wage job would’ve done what criminal sanctions would not. (Captain D’s didn’t fire the cook, Garious Harris. It is unknown whether fear of race discrimination suits had anything to do with that. Captain D’s appears to have also suffered from some questionable tactical choices by their attorneys.) The Fifth Circuit has affirmed the verdict, its hands tied to some extent by ludicrous Mississippi state law and Erie. Folo commenters speculate on the means of Langston’s success.

We hadn’t previously mentioned that the parties also sued the contractor who built the wall.

Not so fast, he says — the Mississippi Bar didn’t file a “certified copy” of his guilty plea. (Patsy R. Brumfield, “Dickie Scruggs files to dismiss attempt to have him disbarred”, Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Apr. 1).

David Rossmiller has ten unanswered questions about loose ends in the Scruggs scandal (Mar. 24) which elicit responses in turn (and more unanswered questions) from NMC and Lotus at Folo (plus an NMC update). These latter bloggers, by the way, have shed their anonymity and stand revealed as Oxford, Miss. lawyer Tom Freeland (NMC) and retired lawyer Jan Goodrich, now of New Smyrna Beach, Fla. (Lotus), now also joined by Jane Tucker.

Is it okay for the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) to take Scruggs’s money? “It depends on what the felony is…” Chancellor Robert Khayat is quoted as saying (Folo/NMC, Apr. 1; more). Gulfport M.D. Bill Hemeter, in a letter to the editor printed in the Biloxi Sun-Herald (Mar. 19), is claiming prescience: “I sent Chancellor Khayat the book ‘The Rule of Lawyers’ by Walter Olson several years ago, with a warning not to take money from plaintiff attorneys.” Earlier, when Scruggs pled guilty, another university official was heard from:

“My initial reaction is one of sadness,” said Samuel Davis, dean of the University of Mississippi Law School, Scruggs’ alma mater. “I’ve known and been friends with Dick and Diane Scruggs almost 50 years now going back to our days in Pascagoula, and I feel a great sense of compassion for him and his family. And that’s just a very personal reaction. I haven’t really thought about the implications for the legal community or the legal profession.”

Davis, who also directs the Ole Miss Law Center, said not everybody who pleads guilty is guilty and that Scruggs might have had other reasons for the move. If that were the case, Davis said, the reasons likely were good ones.

(emphasis added by an understandably astonished Lotus @ Folo; many, many comments follow).

And from Sid Salter of the Jackson Clarion-Ledger (Mar. 19): “In spite of their insistence that there were no ethical lapses in their behavior on the tobacco suit, [former attorney general Michael] Moore and Scruggs still owe the taxpayers of Mississippi an accounting of the lawyers’ fees and expenses that accrued from that litigation.”

• Judge expresses surprise at how many law firms want in on fees in Visa/MasterCard issuer settlement [NYSun]
• Mississippi bill would require a lawyer’s presence at real estate escrow closings; so rude to cite the profession’s self-interest as a factor [Clarion-Ledger]
• Following Coughlin Stoia’s lead, Mark Lanier announces he’s expanding into intellectual property litigation [The Recorder]
• Maryland legislation would require state-aided colleges and universities to report on what they’re doing to advance “cultural diversity” [Examiner via Bader/Open Market]
• New era at UK pubs? Under new directive, “employers will risk being sued if a bar worker or waitress complains of being called ‘love’ or ‘darling’, or if staff overhear customers telling sexist jokes.” [Daily Mail]
• ACLU just sued city of San Diego and snagged $900K in legal fees, but that’s no impediment to the city’s council’s enacting a special day of tribute to the group [House of Eratosthenes]
• George Wallace, who’s guestblogged here, hosts twin editions of Blawg Review #153 at his blogs Declarations & Exclusions and A Fool in the Forest, on piratical and Punchinello themes;
• Obama won’t support lowering drinking age [Newsweek]
• Such a shame for entrepreneurial plaintiffs, post-Proposition 64 if you want to sue a California business you might actually need to have been injured [CalBizLit]
• Time mag appeals $100 million Suharto libel ruling [IHT]
• Hey, no fair enforcing that fine print disclaiming liability for sweepstakes misprints [three years ago on Overlawyered]

Updates galore:

• Bogus Michael Boyle v. Ford verdict tossed by appellate court. [Law.com]
• More on the Patent Troll Tracker lawsuit. [Law.com]
• Federal district court rejects challenge to Michigan Proposition 2 ban on racial set-asides after far too much litigation over the voter initiative. [Open Market Blog]
• Criminal charges reinstated against Empire State Building parachutist. [Turkewitz]
• In the other Mississippi judicial bribery scandal (Oct. 12, Sep. 8, etc.), two judges report to federal prison. [Law.com/AP]
• Hawaii tort reform bill dead after all. [Torts Prof]

The WSJ and Mississippi’s WLOX have the news up on Dickie Scruggs’ plea of guilty to conspiracy in the attempted bribe of Judge Henry Lackey. Earlier today, the Journal had an illuminating page-one feature on Dickie Scruggs’s history of fee disputes with other lawyers. YallPolitics‘ server seems to be down at the moment from traffic, but is back up now; in an email alert, YP’s Alan Lange said the surprise plea came three days before the deadline for Scruggs to plead before his approaching trial. Our past coverage is here, or check our Scandals page.

Update 12:18 EST: AP coverage is here (via Rossmiller). Sid Backstrom also pleaded and, per Folo rapid updates, is cooperating with prosecutors. No deal for Zach Scruggs yet. Also per Folo, Scruggs pleaded to conspiracy in the Lackey bribe attempt but did not resolve possible charges in the DeLaughter case, per the government side.

12:44: Now Folo’s server has crashed. Temporary replacement site up here.

1:16: Per Patsy Brumfield at the NEMDJ:

…The government recommended a sentence of five years in prison for Scruggs and 2 1/2 years for Backstrom. They also will pay a maximum fine of $250,000 each and a court fee. …

Before Biggers accepted their pleas, Scruggs and Backstrom admitted in open court that they had done what the government said they had done in Count One – they had conspired to bribe Circuit Judge Henry Lackey of Calhoun City for a favorable order in a Katrina-related legal fees case….

Dickie Scruggs, arguably the most famous plaintiffs’ attorney in the U.S., looked pale and thin but carried himself with a bit more control than his younger colleague at The Scruggs Law Firm, headquartered on the storied Square in Oxford.

The 61-year-old Ole Miss Law School grad and legal giant-killer, as well as Backstrom, likely will voluntarily surrender their law licenses, as has co-defendant Timothy Balducci of New Albany, who pleaded guilty in December although he was wired and cooperating with the government at least a month earlier.

“Do you fully understand what is happening here today,” Biggers asked him.

“Yes, I do,” Scruggs responded.

Questioned about whether he had discussed his decision to plead guilty with his attorney, Scruggs responded, “With my attorney, my wife and my family.”

1:25 p.m.: Rossmiller has an update from a correspondent at the scene. And Folo is up at a temporary site until its server gets back online. Excerpts from Folo’s on-the-scene report:

…* Richard Scruggs is pleading to conspiracy to bribe a state court judge, count 1 of the indictment, with other counts to be dismissed. This was an open plea, that is, no recommended sentence.

* The government expects that he will get the full five year sentence on that count. …

* There was no mention of cooperation by Scruggs. …

* There was an interesting and unusual disagreement with the government’s statement of facts in the plea colloquy. The government stated in its facts for both Backstrom and Scruggs that a conspiracy began in March to corruptly influence the state court judge, and Scruggs spoke to say that he had agreed to earwig the judge but not corruptly influence him in March, and that he later agreed to join a conspiracy to corruptly influence the judge. Sid Backstrom took a similar stance….

[See also WSJ law blog and later NMC post, as well as WikiScruggs on "earwigging" as a Mississippi tradition.]

1:56: Welcome Glenn Reynolds/Instapundit and David Rossmiller/Insurance Coverage Blog readers.

3:18: The Jackson Clarion-Ledger reports: “As part of the plea deal, federal prosecutors agreed to defer prosecution of Scruggs’ son, Zach Scruggs, who agreed to give up his license to practice law.” [N.B.: NMC @ Folo has a very different take, and other sites are also questioning the C-L's reporting on this point.] Folo at its temporary bivouac has PDFs of the Scruggs and Backstrom pleas and underlying facts, as does David Rossmiller. ABA Journal coverage includes the text of a forthcoming article by Terry Carter on the affair, written pre-plea. Other reactions: Above the Law (”has Scruggs employed bribery as a tactic in other matters — e.g., the tobacco cases that made him famous …?”), Beck and Herrmann (”What a week. First Spitzer, and now Scruggs. What goes around, comes around.”), TalkLeft, Michelle Malkin, NAM Shop Floor (”So what are the odds that this was Dickie Scruggs’ first and only crime during his decades-long career as a trial lawyer?”).

6:27: Roger Parloff wonders whether Scruggs will cooperate, and whether the statute of limitations might have run already on tobacco skullduggery. NMC @ Folo wonders what prosecutors will make of a slew of fresh documents from the Scruggs Law Firm, or whether perhaps such documents have already had an effect. Not so surprising a plea, says Jane Genova at Law and More, but rather “widely expected“.

Judge Biggers grants the prosecution’s unusual request, citing not only media coverage and its potential to subject jurors to “intimidation or harassment”, but also the “past attempts by the defendants to interfere with the judicial process”. (Patsy Brumfield, “Scruggs-Backstrom Case: Jurors will be nameless, for both sides”, Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Mar. 6; Folo and more; Rossmiller; order in PDF format).

Some developments of the past ten days or so:

* In major blow to defense, Judge Biggers denies motions to suppress wiretap evidence and evidence of similar bad acts [Rossmiller]

* Balducci says he and Patterson got $500K from Scruggs to influence AG Hood to drop indictment of State Farm, motive being to advance civil settlement [Folo]

* WSJ gets into the act with some highlights of wiretap transcripts [edit page; earlier here]

* Sen. Trent Lott says he’s a witness, not a target, of federal investigation [Anita Lee, Biloxi Sun-Herald]

* Scruggs off the hook on Alabama criminal contempt charge [WSJ law blog, Rossmiller, Folo]

* “Mr. Blake has served for many years as a conduit and a layer of separation, if you will, between Mr. Scruggs and other people on sensitive issues.” (Balducci transcript highlights, Folo; more)

* In effort to get Zack Scruggs indictment dismissed, his lawyers dwell on switch from “y’all” to “you” as implying shift in persons addressed from plural to singular [Folo first, second; Rossmiller first, second; on a "sweet potatoes" point, NMC @ Folo and sequel; also]

* DeLaughter/Peters branch of scandal reaches deep into Jackson legal community [Adam Lynch, Jackson Free Press]

* Article in new American Lawyer notes that Scruggs’s ambitious suits have lately hit a big losing streak, notably those against HMOs, nonprofit hospitals and Lehman Brothers [Susan Beck]. And Lotus catches an interestingly lawyerly wording on John Keker’s part [Folo]

* I’m quoted and this site is discussed in an article on blog coverage of the case; my lack of clarity as an interviewee probably accounts for Scruggs being said to have addressed audiences at the Manhattan Institute “a few” times, when if memory serves the correct reference is “twice”. [Patsy Brumfield, Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal (Tupelo) @ Folo]

* For more background see our Scandals page; also YallPolitics.

In the state of Mississippi during the last 5 years, 27 law firms have been retained by Mississippi Attorney General James Hood to purse state lawsuits on contingency. Those firms have collectively donated more than a half-million dollars to Hood in the last two election cycles. Apparently, the legislature is troubled by this combination of for-profit motivation and campaign fundraising, and has passed a bill to pursue competitive bidding before signing contracts of more than $500,000 with private lawyers. It also requires a review board to examine contracts, and it limits contingency fees to $1 million.

Hood isn’t pleased — and the WSJ has his number:

Should state Attorneys General be able to outsource their legal work to for-profit tort lawyers, who then funnel a share of their winnings back to the AGs? That’s become a sleazy practice in many states, and it is finally coming under scrutiny — notably in Mississippi, home of Dickie Scruggs, Attorney General Jim Hood, and other legal pillars…
This kind of quid pro quo is legal in Mississippi and most other states. However, if this kind of sweetheart arrangement existed between a public official and business interests, you can bet Mr. Hood would be screaming about corruption. . . . A decision to prosecute is an awesome power, and it ought to be motivated by evidence and the law, not by the profit motives of private tort lawyers and the campaign needs of an ambitious Attorney General.”

That leaves a mark.

Another bunch of things not to do if you’re a member of the legal profession.

• Don’t get caught pursuing forged fen-phen claims. (Robert Arledge, Vicksburg, Mississippi, sentenced to 6.5 years, the only lawyer to date to be sentenced in a much larger fen-phen scandal.) [ABA Journal]
• Don’t try to dissuade a witness from testifying at a deposition. (Cleary Gottlieb, which said it would appeal the judge’s order of sanctions.) [WSJ Law Blog]
• Don’t inflate your GPA and include fake awards on your resume. (Gregory Haun, DC, recommended for suspension, resigned his six-digit BigLaw associate job.) [Legal Times]
• Don’t end your jury service by casting a vote to break a deadlock and then sign a statement drafted by the plaintiffs’ attorney asking for a new trial saying that you did so so you can return to work. (California bar has recommended disbarment for Francis Fahy.) [ABA Journal; Recorder ($); Law.com ($)]
• Don’t steal money from your clients by forging their signatures on insurance company releases to get their settlement money. (Richard Boder, New York, caught as part of a larger scandal involving the illegal use of paid runners to bribe hospital employees about auto accident injuries, sentenced to a year in prison.) [NY Law Journal]
• Don’t read Maxim in the courtroom. (Todd Paris, held in contempt by North Carolina judge.) [WSJ Law Blog]
• Don’t have an affair with a judge you’re practicing in front of, or vice versa. (Federal Way, WA, Municipal Court judge Colleen Hartl resigned after bragging about an affair with public defender Sean Cecil, who still has 5 Avvo stars for professional conduct, but has been the subject of a formal complaint to the bar.) [AP/Post-Intelligencer; Federal Way News; Lat]

(Earlier: Nov. 5, etc.)

Prosecutors’ bite-marks forensics. (Radley Balko, Slate, Feb. 20).