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: New York Supreme Court Criminal Term Library

Selections from National Law Journal Daily Headlines August 10, 2009

By David Badertscher, PLL

Source: NLJ.com, August 10, 2009.

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After the Fall

"The recent collapse of Heller Ehrman, Thacher Proffitt & Wood, Thelen and WolfBlock sent about 1,800 attorneys into a dreadful job market, among them firm chairmen and dozens of practice leaders who once served as foundations of their former law firms. In many ways, these former leaders have a harder sell in landing a new job than the attorneys they once led. They must prove that the talents that took them to the top are transferable. Recovering from the black eye of their firms' downfall, they also have to show that they're willing to take direction and be cooperative players on a new team."

DOJ readying fraud attack

"The Obama administration is dramatically beefing up the fraud section of the U.S. Department of Justice's Criminal Division as it tries to add muscle to back up its rhetoric about cracking down on health care and corporate fraud."

Dems take aim at high court decisions

"Since January, Democratic lawmakers have pushed legislation that would reverse the effects of several recent high-profile decisions, many of them driven by the Court's five-member conservative majority. The Democrats want to allow state tort lawsuits over medical devices, restore a per se ban on vertical price-fixing, lower the standard for pleadings in civil suits and allow suits against aiders and abettors of securities fraud, to name only a few proposals. "

Immigration judges seek Article I status

"Struggling with too few resources, too many cases, the appearance of bias and little relief in sight, the National Association of Immigration Judges contends that it is time for fundamental changes in the way immigration courts operate. And, for a number of supporters, the most effective reform would be for Congress to change their current status as administrative bodies to federal courts under Article I of the Constitution."

 

Sotomayor sworn in as 111th justice

"Struggling with too few resources, too Now she can be addressed as Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. The 55-year-old native of the Bronx, the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court, was sworn in at noon on Saturday before a nationwide television audience by Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., with her mother Celina holding the Bible."

 

A Web-savvy approach to the outside counsel search

"If you want to find law firms that will take a different approach to your legal needs, maybe you need to look for them in a different way. At least that's what Jeffrey Carr, the general counsel of FMC Technologies Inc., believes. His Houston-based oil and gas equipment company is conducting a search for new outside counsel that started with an announcement on Legal OnRamp, a social networking site for lawyers."

 

THE PRACTICE

A RICO enterprise must have a structure

"On June 8, the U.S. Supreme Court resolved a split in the circuits holding, in Boyle v. U.S., that an associated-in-fact enterprise under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act must have a "structure." The civil RICO implications of Boyle are worth exploring."

 

OPINION

Courtrooms all atwitter

"Some might think it pedestrian to lament that trials are being waylaid by interactive technology in courtrooms. Yet this phenomenon has rivaled swine flu mania among the legal bar with good reason. The use of electronic devices like cellphones and BlackBerrys by jurors and witnesses, in a manner that disrupts and taints court proceedings to the level that presiding judges are forced to declare a mistrial, is serious injustice indeed."

Full post as published by New York Supreme Court Criminal Term Library on August 10, 2009 (boomark / email).