The Wall Street Journal reports that SCO Group, which has sued IBM and threatened to sue many other companies based on the premise that the open-source Linux operating system infringes its intellectual property, has negotiated an arrangement with the law firm of Boies Schiller & Flexner. Under the arrangement, Boies Schiller will be granted a 20 percent contingent fee applicable not only to judgments and settlements arising from the lawsuits but also to certain events relating to SCO itself as an entity, including sales or equity financing. Corp Law Blog, commenting (Nov. 5), says: “SCO’s willingness to essentially give Boies 20% of SCO — whether through license fees, equity financings or a sale of the company — suggests that SCO is little more than a publicly traded lawsuit.” See William Bulkeley, “Boies’s Firm Could See $49.4 Million From SCO”, Wall Street Journal, Nov. 6 (sub). (via Prof. Bainbridge)
Posts Tagged ‘ethics’
Update: lawsuit-funding cos. shun Ohio
Lawsuit-funding companies, which advance litigants cash in exchange for a share of the eventual booty, have apparently departed the state of Ohio since a decision this summer by the Ohio Supreme Court (see Aug. 4) finding that such activities violate a 180-year-old state law against champerty and permit intermeddlers to “gorge upon the fruits of litigation”. “Several states, including Massachusetts, New Hampshire and South Carolina, have lifted their prohibitions against the practice. At least 100 lawsuit-funding companies have emerged nationwide since 1998 when Perry Walton, a litigation-finance pioneer from Nevada, started holding seminars to teach other entrepreneurs how to make money by doing what some critics say is akin to betting on lawsuits.” (“Lawsuit-funding companies avoid Ohio after court ruling”, AP/Miami Herald, Oct. 1)(more on champerty, from The Litigation Explosion).
Update: La. judge removed from bench
“A unanimous Louisiana Supreme Court removed Orleans Parish Civil District Court Judge C. Hunter King from the bench Tuesday, finding that his misconduct — forcing employees to work on his re-election campaign and then lying about it under oath — demanded a severe penalty. While the justices stopped short of saying King should face criminal prosecution, they said his admitted conduct likely constituted perjury and public salary extortion, both felonies.” (New Orleans Times-Picayune coverage: Gwen Filosa, “Judge is removed from bench” Oct. 22; “An appropriate ouster” (editorial), Oct. 23; James Gill, “Politicking doesn’t do justice to the bench”, Oct. 24). King, named one of “America’s worst judges” in the November Reader’s Digest, presided over a trial this summer in which attorney Johnnie Cochran extracted a $51 million award on behalf of an 11-year-old girl who fell out of the window of a city streetcar, after which jurors posed in celebratory fashion with both Cochran and Judge King. (“A streetcar named excessive”, Aug. 29, Sept. 15).
Racketeering suit names nearly 70 Miami lawyers
“Three years after more than 60 lawyers, county employees and medical professionals were arrested on charges of bilking Florida’s Miami-Dade County out of millions of dollars through fraudulent personal injury claims, the county has filed a civil racketeering lawsuit against the accused perpetrators and others.” In the 715-page complaint, Miami-Dade County charges that 85 defendants, including nearly 70 South Florida lawyers, were implicated in schemes in which “attorneys who filed personal injury lawsuits against the county paid kickbacks to county risk management employees in return for expedited and inflated settlements. Miami-Dade Police Director Carlos Alvarez has said that county claims adjusters typically received 10 percent of the settlements. The claims against the county generally involve slip and fall accidents on county property, injuries on county buses, accidents with county cars and false arrests.” Defendants dispute some of the indictments as vague and untimely and point out that not all those sued had faced criminal charges earlier. (Matthew Haggman, “Miami-Dade Files Massive RICO Civil Suit”, Miami Daily Business Review, Oct. 8).
Yipes
EthicalEsq?, one of the very short list of weblogs that we recommend to absolutely everyone interested in the law, is suspending publication while its author, David Giacalone, concentrates on health battles. Even if we didn’t find ourselves in agreement with David’s views as expressed on the site (and we nearly always do) we’d admire the way he’s staked out one vital beat, legal ethics, and come through with consistently insightful commentary. Let’s hope David enjoys a speedy return to good health; in the mean time, in less than half a year of publication so far he’s compiled valuable archives on such subjects as class actions, lawyer discipline, and, of course, fees.
Update: something burning in Mississippi
The series of unfortunate occurrences continues in the Magnolia State: “An early morning fire at former Judge John Whitfield’s law office may have destroyed some documents he was preparing to use in his defense of federal fraud and bribery charges, his lawyer said. Authorities said the fire remains under investigation, but a private fire investigator hired by Whitfield concluded it was arson.” (Beth Musgrave, “Whitfield’s office burns”, Biloxi Sun-Herald, Sept. 16; Jerry Mitchell, “Lawyer says house fire an act of intimidation”, Jackson Clarion-Ledger, Sept. 16; WLOX, Sept. 15)(via Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy). For background on the Mississippi judicial investigation, see Jul. 27, Aug. 19 and links from there.
Last month, the same newspaper reported that “Mississippi Supreme Court officials were seen shredding documents as federal prosecutors flooded the high court with subpoenas for judges’ tax forms, records of the cases over which they presided and how cases are assigned”; but a spokeswoman for the court denied that any documents were shredded that were responsive to the subpoenas, and Chief Justice Edwin Pittman called the allegations a “deliberate and false attack being waged against the Supreme Court of Mississippi by people with intimate knowledge of the workings of the court.” Pittman also said “there has been no unusual document shredding at the court and that the court’s computer system is able to retrieve any written communication.” (Beth Musgrave, “Witnesses: documents shredded”, Aug. 21; “Chief Justice: ‘Deliberate attack waged against court'”, Aug. 22; Pittman statement; “Allegations need to be investigated” (editorial), Hattiesburg American, Aug. 23). See also Jerry Mitchell, “FBI questions law clerks on rulings in high court probe”, Jackson Clarion Ledger, Aug. 29.
“Ten things your lawyer won’t tell you”
You may be shocked to find how little you’ll net from the proceeds of your lawsuit, how little experience your lawyer has, or how hard it is to proceed against him later if you think he has wronged you. Where are the consumer protectionists demanding advance disclosure? (Brigid McMenamin, Smart Money, Sept. 15)(for more on these issues, don’t miss EthicalEsq?’s “Informing Consumers” section)(its comments on this post).
A streetcar named excessive, cont’d
Ernie the Attorney has more (Sept. 14) about that trial in New Orleans two weeks ago (see Aug. 29) in which attorney Johnnie Cochran won a startlingly high verdict of $51.4 million for the family of an 11-year-old girl injured when she fell out the window of a streetcar five years ago. We and others raised our eyebrows at the verdict’s aftermath, in which the jury posed for celebratory photos with not only attorney Cochran but also the judge who presided over the case, C. Hunter King. And now, reports EtA, “Judge C. Hunter King appeared before the State Supreme Court this past week to plead for a limited suspension of one year (as opposed to permanent removal from the bench). His prior transgression was that he made his staff work on his campaign, and then when a complaint was lodged against him he lied and said he hadn’t forced his staff to do campaign work. …. This transgression came to light (including the part about lying) back in May, but Judge King was still allowed to continue to sit on the bench to hear select cases, including the one that Johnny Cochran tried.” Update Oct. 25: Judge King removed from bench.
News from Far Off
Down Under, Victoria’s Attorney General has come out in favor of a pretty far-reaching set of legal reforms designed to protect consumers:
While it is appropriate that justice is blind, that does not mean the Bracks Government is blind to the needs of the Victorian public.
Ethical Efficacy
With some inspiration from an article at a previous Overlawyered post, David Giacalone is inquiring into whether ethics classes make one more ethical.