Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal Research Blogs -> New York Supreme Court Criminal Term Library

Legal Research

: New York Supreme Court Criminal Term Library

New Jersey Law Journal: News Briefs September 24, 2009

By David Badertscher, PLL

Subscription required for online access:

N.J. FORECLOSURE MEDIATION PROGRAM FOUND HAMPERED BY LOW PARTICIPATION
"New Jersey's foreclosure mediation program has helped 585 families save their homes since March, but a national consumer group said in a report released Wednesday that more can be done, here and in other states. The National Consumer Law Center's report came a day after Gov. Jon Corzine regaled a housing conference in Atlantic City with success stories resulting from 1,400 mediations in the six months ending Aug. 31. But the numbers didn't seem to impress the Washington-based consumer group, which studied 25 foreclosure mediation programs in 14 states including New Jersey and said that the programs would be better if the states imposed tougher requirements on lenders and mortgage servicers. The report didn't single out New Jersey for any special criticism, but its author said at a news conference, 'In terms of New Jersey we're a little surprised and we can't figure out the reasons for the low participation rates for the program.' "

 

McCARTER & ENGLISH SEES FEES CUT DUE TO CONFLICT IN HOSPITAL BANKRUPTCY
"For the second time this year, New Jersey's largest firm, McCarter & English, has been stricken by conflicts in representing a bankrupt hospital. On Monday, a U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Donald Steckroth sanctioned the Newark-based firm for late disclosure of a potential conflict of interest in the Barnert Hospital bankruptcy. cutting its fees by 10 per cent to $1,485,289, down from the $1,650,322 it requested. The decision came five months after another bankruptcy judge, Morris Stern, disqualified McCarter for a conflict problem in the St. Mary's Hospital bankruptcy. In both cases, a committee of unsecured creditors ? represented by the same lawyer, Warren Martin Jr. of Porzio Bromberg & Newman ? raised the same issue: that McCarter's finance work for St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center ? a competing hospital in the same county as Barnert and St. Mary's ? created a problematic dual representation."

 

COZEN O'CONNOR LAUNCHES LOBBYING SUBSIDIARY
"Cozen O'Connor is expanding its work public policy advocacy, regulatory compliance and government contract procurement at the federal, state and with the launch of a new lobbying subsidiary. The Philadelphia-based firm announced Tuesday the formation of Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies LLC, with a 16-member complement of lobbyists that include fund-raisers for Barack Obama and George W. Bush. The new entity springs from the firm's two-year-old government relations practice, which initially focused on local politics but took on a broader bent as more attorneys with national ties were brought on board in recent months. Jeffrey Nash, vice chairman of the Delaware River Port Authority and a 19-year Camden County freeholder, is heading up the subsidiary's New Jersey operations, based in the firm's Cherry Hill office."

 

3RD CIRCUIT RULING BROADENS PROTECTION OF FMLA
"In a ruling that broadens the scope of the Family and Medical Leave Act, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held Wednesday that the statute's retaliation provisions may be invoked by workers who claim they were fired for merely asking permission to take a leave and cannot be limited to those who actually exercised the right. 'It would be patently absurd if an employer who wished to punish an employee for taking FMLA leave could avoid liability simply by firing the employee before the leave begins,' U.S. Circuit Judge Thomas Hardiman wrote in Erdman v. Nationwide Insurance Co. The case law from the lower courts shows that 'the critical issue is invocation of FMLA rights,' Hardiman added."

 

3RD CIRCUIT SAYS CORPORATIONS MAY TAKE INFO REQUESTS PERSONALLY
"Lawyers for AT&T have won a court battle with the Federal Communications Commission that turned on a question largely of semantics ? whether corporations are entitled to assert claims of 'personal privacy' under the exemptions clauses of the Freedom of Information Act. The FCC argued that Congress intended the phrase to extend only to human beings. But AT&T argued that FOIA specifically defines the term "person" to include corporations, and therefore that "Congress's choice of the adjectival form of that word ? 'personal' ? should be understood to refer to that definition." The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday, in AT&T Inc. v. Federal Communications Commission, that AT&T had the better argument and that the FCC was therefore wrong to block AT&T from invoking the protections in FOIA Exemption 7(C)." 

New Jersey Law Journal®
P.O. Box 20081, 238 Mulberry Street, Newark, N.J. 07101-6081
Customer Service Phone: (973) 642-0075

Full post as published by New York Supreme Court Criminal Term Library on September 24, 2009 (boomark / email).