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Legal Pad | LA 
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Compensation ordered for gay couple denied spousal benefits
Posted on November 18, 2009Today U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Stephen Reinhardt ordered compensation for federal public defender Brad Levenson and his spouse, Tony Sears, who were married during the five-month period in California when same-sex marriage was legal but denied spousal...
King orders arbitration for former Toyota lawyer
Posted on November 18, 2009U.S. District Judge George H. King of the Central District of California ordered that Dimitrios Biller, former national managing counsel in the legal services group in charge of Toyota's rollover litigation program, must arbitrate claims that the automobile manufacturer hid...
MOVERS: Alston & Bird names two partners in Los Angeles
Posted on November 18, 2009Alston & Bird has announced that it has named Elizabeth A. Fierman and J. Andrew Howard partners in the firm?s Litigation and Trial Practice and Construction and Government Contracts Groups, respectively. Fierman and Howard are among 18 new partners named...
MOVERS: Gibson names 11 partners for 2010
Posted on November 18, 2009Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP announced today that the firm has elected 11 new partners, effective January 1, 2010. The new partners include: Christopher Chorba (Litigation/Class Actions - Los Angeles) - Chorba has a broad commercial litigation practice including class...
Declawing ban gains traction across the state
Posted on November 18, 2009Just a week ago we reported that Berkeley approved banning the practice of declawing cats. As goes Berkeley, so go Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, and several other California cities. The Beverly Hills City Council voted 5-0 last night to approve...
Going to the mat for and against pot
Posted on November 18, 2009Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley warned yesterday that he intends to prosecute medical marijuana dispensaries that sell the drug even if the city's leaders decide to allow those transactions. The clash between the City Council and district attorney puts...
Nine indictments come down in SoCal political corruption scheme
Posted on November 18, 2009The Riverside District Attorney?s Office says Scott Douglas Shaull, of Roseville, and Stephen Russell Holgate, until recently of Granite Bay, were key players in an alleged scheme in which various parties funneled money to political campaign warchests in return for...
Lowered standing requirements for consumer class actions credited for contact-lens class certification
Posted on November 17, 2009Orange County Superior Court Judge David C. Velasquez ruled on Nov. 12 to certify a class of consumers who purchased contact lens solution linked to an infection that can cause blindness. The plaintiffs, who represent California consumers who purchased Complete...
9th Circuit finds Real trouble in Marcos accounting case
Posted on November 17, 2009Los Angeles-based U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real was the subject of a reprimand from the 9th Circuit in 2006 for improperly seizing control of a bankruptcy case of a woman whose probation he was supervising. And now the 9th...
FTC, Intel to talk settlement this week
Posted on November 17, 2009Last Thursday Intel and Advanced Micro Devices called a truce, with Intel agreeing to pay AMD $1.25 billion. In return, AMD agreed to withdraw its formal complaints with antitrust regulators in the U.S., Europe and Japan. This week, Intel executives....
MOVERS: BB&K reappoints managing partner Garner
Posted on November 17, 2009Best Best & Krieger yesterday announced that it has selected Riverside attorney Eric Garner to serve a third two-year term as managing partner of the firm. According to a spokesperson, Garner has litigated cases and negotiated agreements involving major water...
Graff, regional director of the Environmental Defense Fund, dies at 65
Posted on November 16, 2009Thomas J. Graff, a lawyer and environmentalist who helped influence California water policy as regional director of the Environmental Defense Fund for 37 years, died Thursday at an Oakland hospital of complications from thyroid cancer. He was 65 years old...
Leafleting case may reach the Supreme Court
Posted on November 16, 2009On June 2, 2007, sheriff's deputies ordered illegal-immigration opponents to stop placing leaflets expressing their views under windshields of parked cars on San Clemente streets. he group stopped after deputies told them they were breaking the law and would be...
Jagels' imminent retirement prompts analysis of his methods, new documentary
Posted on November 16, 2009Ed Jagels, one of California's toughest district attorneys who built his career on the Kern County child molestation cases of the 1980s, is preparing to retire. And now some of those he put away are going public with stories of...
Dole disciplinary action may have different results for two attorneys
Posted on November 16, 2009Walter Lack and Thomas Girardi are coming to the end of a disciplinary action before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where they are accused of deceiving the court in the Dole Nicaraguan pesticides case. Girardi "recklessly" misled the...
OC judge wants names in pot dispensaries investigation
Posted on November 13, 2009An Orange County Superior Court judge ruled Nov. 2 that the medical marijuana dispensaries in Dana Point must turn over records to the city ? including client names ? as part of a city investigation into the facilities' operations. The...
SEC broadens fraud accusations against Tustin lender
Posted on November 13, 2009The Securities and Exchange Commission had shut down Tustin lender Medical Capital Holdings Inc. in July for allegedly charging investors $18.5 million in undisclosed administrative fees. But in an amended lawsuit filed this week in federal court in Santa Ana,...
Federal investigation into financial firms gets a new plaintiff
Posted on November 13, 2009The Sacramento Municipal Utility District filed suit yesterday in Sacramento federal court that Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and 45 other financial firms conspired to defraud the electricity provider by rigging bids in the market for so-called municipal derivatives...
MOVERS: Shih joins Horvitz as associate
Posted on November 12, 2009Horvitz & Levy LLP has added attorney Wesley T. Shih to its team. Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Shih was a litigation associate at Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP. He is a former judicial clerk to the Hon. Kermit...
Supreme Court delays review of Christian Legal Society case
Posted on November 12, 2009The Supreme Court has relisted the petition in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez for five subsequent conferences, including the conference scheduled for this Friday, Nov. 13. When the Court puts off cases for this long, it sometimes means that it...
Attorney and husband of former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor dies
Posted on November 12, 2009John J. O'Connor III, a lawyer who went to Washington in the historic role as the husband of the first female U.S. Supreme Court justice, died at 79 years of age on Wednesday. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease nearly...
Civil judgment nets former domestic thousands of dollars
Posted on November 12, 2009A La Caņada couple has been ordered to pay $768,000, including $500,000 in punitive damages, to an Indonesian woman who was subjected to harsh treatment while working as a domestic servant in a home on Hillcrest Avenue in early 2006....
Lawyers start free service for veterans
Posted on November 12, 2009Public Council, a pro bono law firm, launched a new program yesterday to provide free legal assistance to veterans who hit bureaucratic roadblocks when filing claims for federal medical and mental health benefits. They will offer the free service throughout...
LA judge sounds the alarm about budget constraints
Posted on November 11, 2009Los Angeles County Superior Court Presiding Judge Charles "Tim" McCoy is warning that the once-a-month closures and furloughs that began in July may be just the tip of the iceberg. Over the next four years, he says, as many as...
MOVERS: Thakur joins Foley
Posted on November 11, 2009Foley & Lardner LLP have announced that Amar Thakur has joined the firm as a partner in the San Diego and Del Mar offices working with the Intellectual Property Department in the IP Litigation Practice Group. Thakur was previously co-chair...
New county counsel for Glenn County
Posted on November 11, 2009The Board of Supervisors in Glenn County have approved the appointment of Huston T. Carlyle Jr. to succeed Thomas Agin as county counsel. Carlyle's last government job was with the San Diego City Attorney's Office working on redevelopment and housing...
Cats will keep their claws in Berkeley
Posted on November 11, 2009Yesterday the Berkeley City Council voted unanimously to ban the veterinary practice of declawing cats within city limits, making it a misdemeanor punishable by a $1,000 fine or six months in jail. Councilman Jesse Arreguin, who co-authored the law with...
More Eagle Mountain hearings in the works after 9th Circuit ruling
Posted on November 11, 2009A majority of a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday that a proposal for the Eagle Mountain landfill failed to evaluate alternative sites and consider how the project would affect the desert ecosystem. At issue...
Some office space available. Millions of square feet, in fact. Rather a lot, really.
Posted on November 10, 2009According to a recent survey by real estates services firm Jones Lang LaSalle, more than 6 million square feet of built-out law firm office space is available throughout the country. This is, says the firm, the most vacant space in...
MOVERS: Rutter Hobbs & Davidoff get new partner, associate in Los Angeles
Posted on November 10, 2009Los Angeles-based law firm Rutter Hobbs & Davidoff Incorporated today announced the addition of new partner Wesley D. Hurst and associate Christopher C. Fowler. Hurst joins the firm from Folger Levin & Kahn LLP and Fowler is a business litigation...
Quantification Settlement Agreement at issue in yet another water rights case
Posted on November 09, 2009A trial is set to begin today to consider the legality of a 2003 agreement between the federal government, California and four Southern California water agencies. Under the deal, the Imperial Irrigation District agreed to send up to 300,000 acre-feet...
Bylaw amendments result in lawsuit
Posted on November 09, 2009The Desert Chapter of the Building Industry Association is suing BIA Southern California to try to stop it from passing a series of bylaw changes that would shift all decision-making authority, assets and cash reserves to Diamond Bar. The Desert...
Flat-tailed horned lizard may get protected after all
Posted on November 09, 2009Last week U.S. District Judge Neil V. Wake reinstated a 1993 proposal to list the flat-tailed horned lizard as a threatened species in the latest move to keep the reptile safe from urban encroachment in its Southern California and Arizona...
Nick Counter, famed Hollywood labor attorney and neogitator, dies
Posted on November 09, 2009Nick Counter, the long-standing former negotiator for the major studios who squared off against Hollywood's writers during a 100-day strike in 2008, died Friday night at 69 years of age. Over the years, Counter was praised by his colleagues for...
M&A: More talk than action, with longer due diligence
Posted on November 09, 2009David Grinberg, a partner in the mergers and acquisitions practice at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, spoke to CFO.com about the uncertain environment surrounding M&A trends. Although he is cautiously optimistic, Grinberg says due diligence is lately taking "painfully long," resulting...
MOVERS: Emmick joins Sheppard Mullin
Posted on November 09, 2009Former assistant U.S. Attorney Michael W. Emmick has joined the downtown Los Angeles office of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP as special counsel. The firm announced last week that Emmick will be working in the firm?s Government Contracts and...
Judge says 'city acted beyond the scope of its authority' in billboard deal
Posted on November 09, 2009Last week Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Terry A. Green formally invalidated a 2006 settlement between the city of Los Angeles and two companies, CBS Outdoor and Clear Channel Outdoor, that granted them special rights to convert as many...
UPDATE: Jamie McCourt's Dodger CEO bid denied
Posted on November 05, 2009Commissioner Scott Gordon ruled today that Jamie McCourt should not be reinstated as chief executive of the Los Angeles Dodgers. ?From an employment analysis, there?s no law that would support the court reinstating an employee,? Gordon said. The commissioner said...
Church pastor accused of sexual impropriety
Posted on November 05, 2009The Rev. Brenda Lamothe, a former employee of First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles, has accused the pastor in a civil lawsuit with forcing her into sexual service for four years and firing her when she finally refused...
MOVERS: Sheppard Mullin gets Neuman, Kiely, and three associates from Allen Matkins
Posted on November 04, 2009Jerold B. Neuman and Michael J. Kiely have joined the Los Angeles/Downtown office of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP as partners in the firm's Real Estate, Land Use and Environmental practice group. Neuman and Kiely will be joined by...
MOVERS: Five litigators move to Crowell & Moring
Posted on November 04, 2009Crowell & Moring LLP's Los Angeles office has added five litigators to its California practice. The additions include partners Michael L. Cypers, a trial lawyer with more than 25 years of experience from Mayer Brown LLP, and Mark R. Troy,...
Discrimination settlement results in record payment
Posted on November 04, 2009The U.S. Department of Justice announced yesterday that real estate mogul Donald Sterling agreed to pay a record $2.7 million to settle allegations that he discriminated against African-Americans, Hispanics and families with children at his Los Angeles apartment buildings...
SoCal may get Mehserle trial
Posted on November 04, 2009State court officials have recommended Los Angeles and San Diego counties as possible sites for the murder trial of former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle. After a judge ruled last month that Mehserle could not get a fair trial in...
Lovin' is what they got, but not the name
Posted on November 04, 2009A preliminary injunction was issued yesterday by Judge Howard Matz, preventing the surviving members of the rock band Sublime from performing and recording under their old moniker. The injunction was part of a trademark lawsuit brought by the estate of...
Lawry's settles male discrimination suit
Posted on November 03, 2009The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued the Lawry's chain in 2006, three years after a busboy at their Las Vegas restaurant claimed he was barred from a more lucrative serving job. At the time, Lawry's waitresses could earn $25,000...
Qualcomm lied, claim their former attorneys
Posted on November 03, 2009Qualcomm Inc. was sanctioned by San Diego Magistrate Judge Barbara Major in January 2008 for intentionally withholding "tens of thousands of e-mails" in an infringement case against Broadcom Corp. involving video compression technology patents. The company's lawyers were also sanctioned...
Marijuana makes for agreeable foes at Berkeley this week
Posted on November 03, 2009The California Supreme Court will hold oral arguments on the campus of UC Berkeley today in five cases. One of those cases is People v. Kelly, a rare instance in which the opposing parties agree on the issues. Both Santa...
Appeal jurist Walker dies
Posted on November 02, 2009Herbert Weston ?Wes? Walker, a former Napa County Superior Court judge and later a justice on the San Francisco-based California Court of Appeal for the First District, passed away peacefully in his home in Napa on Wednesday, Oct. 28. He...
Post-divorce proceedings may lead to new Dodgertown ownership
Posted on October 29, 2009Frank McCourt claims he's the sole owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, but his estranged wife Jamie says she's an equal co-owner. If Jamie convinces a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge that a 2004 marital property agreement that gave...
DirecTV sues retailers for fraud
Posted on October 29, 2009Two DirecTV retailers have been sued by the satellite service for a scheme to sell cheap TV packages and then pocketing the money. DirecTV says Douglas DeLeo and Thomas Stokowski based the scheme on the difference between its pricing methods...
Obama administration's likely choice for new U.S. attorney
Posted on October 29, 2009There is growing consensus as to the most likely nominee for the new U.S. attorney in Los Angeles: Andre Birotte, Jr. People who have worked closely with Birotte have been interviewed by FBI agents conducting background checks on the 43-year-old...
MOVERS: Gross joins Greenberg
Posted on October 28, 2009Wayne R. Gross, a former chief of the Orange County Division of the Office of the United States Attorney, has joined international law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP in its Orange County office as a shareholder in the Litigation Group. Prior...
9th Circuit OK's "extraordinary rendition" review
Posted on October 28, 2009Yesterday the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to grant en banc review of a ruling that five former terrorism suspects can sue a Boeing Co. subsidiary for allegedly flying them to secret prisons around the world to be...
'And that foot is me': City council approves harsher penalties for rowdy off-campus parties
Posted on October 28, 2009The Orange City Council passed an amendment Tuesday night to an existing law aimed at cracking down on so-called party houses in Old Towne Orange adjacent to Chapman University. The amendment allows police to cite party-goers if officers are called...
Cross appeals
Posted on October 27, 2009High school teacher James Corbett was found earlier this year to have violated student Chad Farnan's First Amendment rights when he referred to Creationism as "religious, superstitious nonsense" during a class lecture in 2007. Corbett filed an appeal yesterday with...
Rodney E. Nelson dies at 75
Posted on October 27, 2009Presiding Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Charles W. McCoy notified colleagues late last week that Rodney E. Nelson, who served on the court from 1995 to 2006, had passed away on October 18. Nelson, who earned his undergraduate degree at...
MOVERS: New name partner at CJT
Posted on October 26, 2009Carico Johnson Toomey LLP (CJT), a South Bay law firm offering a broad range of legal services for high net-worth individuals and successful businesses, has announced the addition of S.V. Stuart Johnson as a name partner and head of the...
One of the "Top Ten Wackiest Attractions in America" may be forced to close
Posted on October 26, 2009Pez Candy Inc., an Austria-based company, sued the owners of the Museum of Pez Memorabilia in July, claiming the museum violates state and federal intellectual property laws. They're calling for Gary Doss and his wife, Nancy, to shutter the place...
New San Bernardino County tribal court makes 17 for California
Posted on October 26, 2009The San Manuel Band of Serrano Mission Indians started its tribal court on Friday, swearing in judges and appellate justices and establishing a third branch of government on its reservation, part of a growing trend among California Indians. The court...
Bankruptcy claims several LA development projects
Posted on October 26, 2009Developers of several Downtown housing projects in Los Angeles have fallen upon hard times, with at least eight of them in bankruptcies. Projects that have filed for bankruptcy include Sonny Astani?s partially finished Concerto condominium complex near Staples Center...
9th Circuit gives the OK for employers to lower wages for 12-hour shifts
Posted on October 23, 2009Affirming the decision of U.S. District Judge Margaret M. Morrow of the Central District of California, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held yesterday that a Pomona hospital could reduce the hourly wages of the nurses who volunteered to...
Ongoing Medicare fraud crackdown sweeps up 20
Posted on October 22, 2009Federal officials have charged 20 people with fraudulent Medicare billing in seven cases that total $26 million in unneeded or undelivered medical equipment. Charges have been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. Federal and...
Los Angeles nurse sentenced for forced labor
Posted on October 22, 2009Evelyn Apan Pelayo, a native of General Tinio in the northern Philippine province of Nueva Ecija, was sentenced by US District Judge Gary Allen Feess of the Central District of California to 57 months in prison after being convicted for...
74-year-old attorney arrested for 1989 slaying
Posted on October 22, 2009Eric Francis Fagan, 74, was arrested at his Chula Vista home yesterday. He has been accused of killing the mother of two little girls he was allegedly molesting in 1989 so his girlfriend, the victim's mother, could take custody of...
Discrimination, violation of fair housing laws subject of federal lawsuit in Santa Monica
Posted on October 21, 2009Santa Monica Collection and Malibu-based Christina Development Corp. are accused of discriminating against 70-year-old Nadia Fino by refusing to accept a Section 8 housing voucher that she claims was necessary to pay for her unit of 23 years when she...
Dole ducks Nicaraguan verdict in Miami
Posted on October 21, 2009Another wrinkle to the ongoing Dole story: U.S. District Judge Paul Huck in Miami said in a ruling yesterday that the fruit and vegetable producer can't be forced in the U.S. to to pay a $97 million verdict issued by...
Sweden's ap-peels to free speech coax Dole to drop "Bananas!*" suit
Posted on October 20, 2009The Dole Food Company has dropped its suit against Fredrik Gertten, the director of Bananas!* The documentary told the story of workers who claimed they were injured by a pesticide while working on a Dole banana plantation in Nicaragua in...
Project approval may be derailed by perception of conflict of interest
Posted on October 20, 2009This summer, developer Donald Ecker launched a newspaper ad campaign in The Press-Enterprise and spent more than $100,000, proclaiming the need for a mega-medical complex at March Air Reserve Base and claiming support of dozens of influential Riverside County officials,...
Poseidon Resources sued over desalination plant - again
Posted on October 20, 2009Opponents of the desalination plant proposed in Carlsbad filed a new lawsuit Friday in Superior Court for the county of San Diego, seeking to block it. The suit says that the city of Carlsbad failed to adequately review the project's...
'Expired ordinance' invalidates med-marijuana ban in LA, says judge
Posted on October 19, 2009If you're experiencing whiplash, nobody would blame you: Judge James C. Chalfant determined today that Los Angeles' moratorium on new medical marijuana dispensaries is invalid and granted a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the ban sought by a dispensary that...
Legal costs for Los Angeles County skyrocket
Posted on October 19, 2009Los Angeles County government's legal expenses have jumped 16 percent to reach $114 million. That's well above the previous high of $109 million set in 2002-03. The cost of settlements and verdicts jumped in one year by 20 percent to...
Attorney arrested in fake-visas-for-burial-plots scheme
Posted on October 19, 2009Kelly Einstein Darwin Giles, owner of a West Covina law practice, was taken into custody Thursday by customs agents on suspicion of selling dozens of fake employment visas and then laundering the profits by buying vacant burial plots. Joseph Wai-man....
SoCal cities approve med-marijuana bans in light of Claremont v. Kruse
Posted on October 19, 2009Inland cities are embracing a recent court decision that they believe gives them authority to ban medical marijuana dispensaries, and officials across the region are struggling to decide whether to allow the businesses. A state appellate court decision, stemming from...
Settlement reached (mostly) in derailment lawsuits
Posted on October 14, 2009Metrolink, the Southern California commuter rail agency, will pay about $30 million to settle most of the lawsuits from a disastrous derailment that killed 11 people in 2005. Jerome Ringler, a lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said Metrolink agreed to...
MOVERS: Lubic leaves Sonnenschein for K&L Gates
Posted on October 14, 2009The Los Angeles office of global law firm K&L Gates LLP announced today the addition of Michael B. Lubic as a partner in its bankruptcy and insolvency practice. Lubic joins K&L Gates from Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP. Lubic counsels...
Screenwriter gives up the Chais
Posted on October 14, 2009Hollywood screenwriter Eric Roth, whose credits include "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" and "Forrest Gump," filed a lawsuit in December against Stanley Chais, the Beverly Hills investment manager who is accused of handing over millions of dollars in client...
9th Circuit grants permanent injunction against evicting Morton tenants
Posted on October 13, 2009In a decision last Friday, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an injunction preventing a landlord from evicting 22 low-income tenants of a local apartment complex in order to raise the rent on their units. They decided that...
CA differs by city in tackling medical marijuana
Posted on October 13, 2009California voters cleared the path for medical marijuana in 1996 with the passage of Proposition 215. But voters up and down the state have also put into office politicians with very different views on medical cannabis. For example, in San...
MOVERS: Veteran counselor Shaffer becomes a member of Sedgwick's Construction Practices Group
Posted on October 12, 2009Sedgwick, Detert, Moran and Arnold, LLP have announced that Robert H. Shaffer has joined the firm?s Construction Practices Group as special counsel in our Los Angeles office. Shaffer's practice focuses on litigation, arbitration and mediation of construction claims, delay and...
Medical marijuana battle continues, as dispensary may open under DA's attack plan
Posted on October 12, 2009In Gilroy, the City Council will vote today on a controversial medical marijuana ordinance that could pave the way for one of the county's first dispensaries - even as the Los Angeles D.A. has announced he will prosecute medical marijuana...
MOVERS: VMWare gets Smith from MoFo
Posted on October 12, 2009Dawn Smith will be general counsel at VMWare Inc., one of Silicon Valley's biggest new companies. The virtualization software company announced in a Sept. 23 8-K filing that Smith would be replacing Rashmi Garde as legal chief. In the filing,...
$1.1 million in restitution sought in boat-injury case
Posted on October 08, 2009Prosecutor Dennis Cooper is seeking $1.1 million in restitution from Roger Guzman, a Southern California resident convicted of running over an 11-year-old boy with his boat in Shaver Lake. A hearing has been set for October 15. Guzman will be...
Ryan loses wrongful termination suit
Posted on October 07, 2009Four days after former Haven Humane Society CEO Norman Ray Ryan was sentenced for thefts in Shasta County, a Los Angeles jury dismissed a million dollar-plus wrongful termination suit he'd filed against another former employer. Ryan sued the Los Angeles...
Prominent Silicon Valley attorney unexpectedly passes away
Posted on October 07, 2009Prominent Silicon Valley attorney and venture capitalist Craig Johnson was remembered Monday as an accomplished and "innovative" legal entrepreneur as the news spread that he had died Saturday night. Johnson, who was 62, was an attorney who represented tech startups...
Montana town backs off of prison deal with Hilton amid fraud claims
Posted on October 07, 2009Mike Hilton and his newly minted Santa Ana, Calif.-company, American Police Force, had struck an agreement with the city of Hardin, MT, to take over an empty jail. But last week allegations of a history of fraud on the part...
Smelt plan left humans out of the equation, says judge
Posted on October 05, 2009More water news from last week: U.S. District Judge Oliver W. Wanger said Friday that the federal government failed to conduct a critical environmental analysis before approving a controversial set of rules for the endangered delta smelt. He went on....
Latest ruling may open door for more water-for-fish payback
Posted on October 05, 2009The U.S. Court of the Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ruled that the federal government must compensate the Stockton East Water District and the Central San Joaquin Water Conservation District for water diverted to preserve the environment. After a...
Paso Robles lender execs to plead guilty
Posted on October 05, 2009At the beginning of a preliminary hearing today in San Luis Obispo Superior Court, former Estate Financial executives Karen Guth and Joshua Yaguda are expected to plead guilty to 26 felony counts in what is the biggest financial fraud case...
Ninth Circuit rules free speech to be messy, but not litter
Posted on October 05, 2009The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled Friday that San Clemente's ban on placing leaflets on car windshields parked in the street can't be justified as an anti-littering measure and probably violates free speech. In the...
Urge to merge is back in the Valley
Posted on October 05, 2009Mergers and acquisitions are back on the front burner in Silicon Valley. The optimism arises from the renewed confidence in the economy. Deals such as Cisco's $3 billion acquisition last week of Tandberg, a videoconferencing innovator, and Adobe's $1...
DA Jagels to retire
Posted on October 05, 2009District Attorney Ed Jagels will not be running for reelection in 2010. Since Chief Deputy District Attorney Lisa Green announced she was interested in the job back in 2007, this doesn't come as much of a surprise. But Jagels went...
CA Attorney General on Chris Kelly's mind
Posted on October 01, 2009Chris Kelly, a top lawyer at Facebook, is running for California attorney general along with San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris and Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo. Assembly members Alberto Torrico, Pedro Nava and Ted Lieu are also running...
Ninth Circuit tosses out attorney-client privilege in Broadcom case
Posted on October 01, 2009The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday that statements William Ruehle made to his lawyers (who represented the company at the same time) were not protected by attorney-client privilege. The opinion reverses a decision this year by U.S....
Harkonen found guilty of wire fraud
Posted on September 30, 2009Yesterday a jury found former InterMune Inc. CEO W. Scott Harkonen guilty on one felony wire fraud count. The conviction carries a maximum of 20 years in jail. Federal prosecutors accused Harkonen of exaggerating the efficacy of the drug Actimmune....
Cal Bar Foundation presents scholarships and grants Thursday night
Posted on September 30, 2009The California Bar Foundation said Tuesday that it is awarding $250,000 in scholarships and grants to law students and aspiring public interest lawyers. The nonprofit organization said 23 students from eight California law schools will receive a total of $130,000...
Two new bankruptcy judges appointed by Ninth Circuit
Posted on September 30, 2009Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski said on Tuesday that the Circuit's judges have appointed two Los Angeles attorneys to serve as judges of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California. Contingent upon approval of background clearances,...
Ryan gets six months in jail, three years formal probation, for Haven hoodwink
Posted on September 30, 2009Former Haven Humane Society CEO Norman Ray Ryan was convicted by a Shasta County jury in May of five felonies: embezzlement by a public officer, two counts of identity theft and two counts of grand theft. Yesterday he lost his...
Christian Legal Society to challenge appellate 'viewpoint neutral' ruling
Posted on September 29, 2009The Christian Legal Society's chapter at the University of California Hastings College of Law is challenging a lower appellate court ruling that the law school's open membership rule prohibiting registered students groups from discriminating on the basis of religion or...
MOVERS: Reinhold joins Hopkins & Carey
Posted on September 29, 2009Last week Hopkins & Carey announced that Karen Reinhold will be joining the firm in San Jose. Karen practices in the firm?s Litigation and Employment Law practice groups focusing on employment-related litigation and advice, including trade secret, harassment, wage-and-hour and...
State Bar to decide on conduct of Toyota 'whistleblower'
Posted on September 28, 2009Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge John L. Segal has referred Dimitrios Biller, former national managing counsel in the legal services group in charge of Toyota's rollover litigation program, to the State Bar of California for possibly violating the rules...
CA Court of Appeals leaves med-marijuana decisions to cities
Posted on September 28, 2009Last Tuesday the California Court of Appeal published an opinion upholding a lower court's injunction stopping a medical marijuana dispensary from operating in Los Angeles County. In that case, the city of Claremont issued a moratorium preventing the issuance of...
MOVERS: Larson to join Girardi & Keese after resigning the bench
Posted on September 28, 2009Girardi & Keese announced on Friday that U.S. District Judge Stephen G. Larson will join the firm as a partner when his resignation takes effect in the beginning of November. Larson recently informed his colleagues that he was going to...
MOVERS: Chief Judge Brandenburg joins JAMS in San Diego
Posted on September 28, 2009Chief Judge Anthony J. Brandenburg has joined JAMS, The Resolution Experts, the nation?s largest private provider of mediation and arbitration services. He will resolve disputes involving contracts, employment, environment, evictions/exclusions, gaming, intertribal, land use, personal injury and various issues in...
No plea reinstatement for Samueli
Posted on September 28, 2009A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has refused to reinstate a plea deal between Henry Samueli, the co-founder of Broadcom Corp., and federal prosecutors who are pursuing criminal charges related to stock options backdating....
Proposed medical center prompts competition, traffic, other concerns
Posted on September 28, 2009Donald Ecker, managing member and project leader of March Healthcare Development, has said Riverside County is in short supply of health care services, including hospital beds. He proposed a large-scale medical complex at March Air Reserve Base that would provide...
State's ethics enforcement agency says charges against Schwarzenegger will not be back
Posted on September 28, 2009The Fair Political Practices Commission, in a letter earlier this month, told a lawyer for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that a complaint filed by the California Democratic Party four years ago in connection with a consulting contract he reached with a....
Chrysler to pay $24 million to Long Beach family in personal injury settlement
Posted on September 25, 2009Richard Mraz, 38, was working as a longshoreman when the transmission of his Dodge pickup malfunctioned, shifting the vehicle into reverse. The truck knocked him down, inflicting a skull fracture. Mraz died 17 days later. In 2007, a Los Angeles...
Lawyers to DirecTV: stop the surprise fees
Posted on September 25, 2009Lawyers for California customers of The DirecTV Group Inc. filed a preliminary injunction motion on Sept. 21 in Los Angeles Superior Court seeking to stop the satellite television service from automatically withdrawing early cancellation fees from customer bank accounts and...
Students and civil rights groups come to the support of AB 540
Posted on September 25, 2009Yesterday a coalition of 80 civil rights, student and community organizations representing Asian and Pacific Islander Americans today filed a legal brief with the California Supreme Court supporting a state law that allows undocumented students to pay in-state fees at...
MOVERS: Chang joins Axiom from Hogan Hartson, Cartwright rejoins Latham
Posted on September 23, 2009Axiom, a new model professional services firm focused on the high-end legal market, announced last Thursday that David G. Chang has joined as Engagement Manager in their Los Angeles office. Prior to joining Axiom, Chang was an intellectual property litigator...
Former California Education Secretary nominated to Customs post by Obama administration
Posted on September 23, 2009The White House announced yesterday the nomination of Alan Bersin to be the new commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the nation's largest law enforcement agency. Bersin, a veteran of federal border enforcement and a former San Diego schools...
Redding's Earl Murphy dies
Posted on September 23, 2009Earl Murphy, Redding's city attorney throughout the 1960s and 1970s, died on September 14. He was 90 years old. Murphy helped create The Mall in downtown Redding and the Civic Auditorium. He worked with officials on the city's first comprehensive...
Trans World vs. Financial Systems Innovation: It's on, again
Posted on September 23, 2009Trans World, who owns the f.y.e. chain of music and video stores, filed a federal lawsuit in Albany on Sept. 22 asking for a judgment it didn?t infringe on the patent for an electronic system to process credit card and...
Brown files suit against Chais
Posted on September 23, 2009California Attorney General Jerry Brown filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court against Beverly Hills financial advisor Stanley Chais, who allegedly steered hundreds of millions in investor dollars to Bernard L. Madoff's Ponzi scheme. Brown contends that from...
FEC and CREW marshall forces against O'Donnell
Posted on September 23, 2009Not a week after Pierce O'Donnell's case goes to appeal, prosecutorial support arrives. In a brief filed on Sept. 23 with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, the Federal Election Commission called a trial judge's ruling throwing...
MOVERS: SoCal Bingham gains Proskauer vet Silbergeld
Posted on September 23, 2009Arthur F. Silbergeld, a former partner in the Los Angeles office of New York's Proskauer Rose, has moved to Bingham McCutcheon. Silbergeld worked at Proskauer for 10 years.Bingham's Southern California offices have attracted other prominent attorneys in recent months...
Emissions suit reinstated against utilities
Posted on September 22, 2009A U.S. Appeals Court reinstated on Monday a 2004 lawsuit by eight states, including California, and the city of New York against five of the largest U.S. utilities over their carbon dioxide emissions. The lawsuit, originally dismissed by U.S. District...
Questions of causation and politics plague global warming suits
Posted on September 22, 2009At Anderson Kill's 12th Annual Policyholder Advisor Conference, a panel discussed the hurdles involved in bringing global warming suits against companies. But they said one case worth watching is Native Village of Kivalina v. Exxon Mobil, et al., in which...
MOVERS: Grunfeld joins Kaye Scholer
Posted on September 22, 2009Kaye Scholer LLP announced yesterday that Dan Grunfeld, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy in the office of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, has joined Kaye Scholer as Co-Chair of the Los Angeles Litigation Department, effective November 2. Areas of...
MOVERS: Deitsch elected to Public Law chair
Posted on September 22, 2009Stephen P. Deitsch, a Best Best & Krieger attorney who serves as city attorney for four California cities, was elected this month to chair the Public Law Section of the State Bar of California. Deitsch, a BB&K partner who specializes...
Loan modification crackdown continues with unveiling of alleged attorney offenders
Posted on September 22, 2009In an unusual move, the State Bar of California identified 16 Southern California attorneys who are under investigation for loan modification misconduct. Interim Chief Trial Counsel Russell Weiner said in the release that the seriousness of the issue warranted releasing...
Federal judge argues futility of sealing Toyota suit
Posted on September 22, 2009U.S. District Judge George H. King has refused to seal a wrongful termination suit in which a former in-house attorney for Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc. has asserted that the auto manufacturer hid and destroyed evidence in numerous rollover lawsuits....
MOVERS: Katten Muchin's Kim new president of Women Lawyers LA
Posted on September 22, 2009Attorney Helen B. Kim, a securities litigation partner in Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP?s Los Angeles and New York offices, is the new president of the Women Lawyers of Los Angeles. She assumes the WLALA presidency less than a year after...
City of Fullerton and Orange County at odds over using funds to redevelop "blighted" areas
Posted on September 17, 2009The city of Fullerton wanted to use tax increment funds to revitalize 1,165 acres in the southwest and southeast sections with public improvements, affordable housing funds and small business loans. But the county and Friends for Fullerton's Future, a local...
New DNA-for-freedom plan under fire in OC
Posted on September 17, 2009Orange County has begun an "informal" program, according to district attorney Tony Rackauckas, in which people who have been arrested are offered a deal: offer up some DNA and get your charges dropped. The plan became public when Rackauckas sought...
MOVERS: Buchalter Nemer continues to grow in Orange County, San Francisco and Scottsdale
Posted on September 16, 2009Three new attorneys have joined Buchalter Nemer as Shareholders. LeslieAnn Haacke and Glenn P. Zwang joined the firm?s Litigation Practice Group in its and San Francisco offices, respectively. Kambiz Izadi joined the firm?s Business Practices Group in its Orange County...
Small Silicon Valley IP firms making strides
Posted on September 16, 2009Two former Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges senior associates, Douglas Colt and Thomas Wallerstein, launched their own practice last week. Colt and Wallerstein said that they weren't laid off from Quinn Emanuel, although that firm too has conducted layoffs,...
A "conduit" by any other name: O'Donnell case goes to appeal
Posted on September 16, 2009Federal prosecutors argued in a brief filed on Monday before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that Pierce O'Donnell did violate the Federal Election Campaign Act by contributing $26,000 to a presidential candidate in the names of 13 other...
Immigrant holding center suit settled
Posted on September 16, 2009Civil rights groups announced today that a lawsuit against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement over "barbaric" conditions at the basement holding center known as B-18 has been settled. The ACLU, the National Immigration Law Center and a private law...
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot - but whose is it?
Posted on September 15, 2009Three years ago New York-based developer Joseph Moinian bought four acres of land across the street from Staples Center for $80 million, intending a project including two towers of 53 and 37 stories, 860 market-rate units, a 222 room hotel...
A journey from teacher to bankruptcy attorney
Posted on September 14, 2009Business is bad for everybody lately - which means business is booming for Amy Goldman, the co-chair of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency department for the law firm Lewis Brisbois in Los Angeles. A profile in last Friday's Los Angeles Downtown...
New women's legal association formed
Posted on September 14, 2009Laura Crane, a real estate attorney based in the Ontario office of Best Best & Krieger, has founded the Inland Empire Legal Association of Women. The group will hold a 7 p.m. Sept. 19 gathering at a private residence in...
Four class action suits threaten RV maker
Posted on September 14, 2009At least four class action suits have been prepared against former executives of Riverside-based Fleetwood Enterprises alleging violations of the Securities Exchange Act by issuing false and misleading statements about the company's financial condition between Dec...
MOVERS: Paone joins Theodora Oringher in OC
Posted on September 14, 2009Tim Paone, formerly a partner of Manatt Phelps & Phillips, has joined the Orange County office of Theodora Oringher, where he will oversee the expansion of the Firm?s Real Estate and Land Use Group. Paone will continue to provide entitlement...
No rescue at dawn for Greens in FCPA case
Posted on September 14, 2009Last Friday a jury found Gerald Green, 77, and Patricia Green, 52, guilty of conspiring to bribe a former Thai government official to obtain contracts that provided for, among other things, control of the annual Bangkok International Film Festival. The...
All eyes on Pate
Posted on September 14, 2009R. Hewitt Pate was hired in July as vice president and general counsel of Chevron Corp., the nation's third largest corporation and the target of billions of dollars worth of litigation. Now he has moved to Chevron's San Ramon, Calif.,...
MOVERS: Former associate White House Counsel Kenneth Lee joins Jenner & Block
Posted on September 11, 2009Kenneth K. Lee, former Associate Counsel to President George W. Bush, has joined Jenner & Block?s Los Angeles office as a partner. Mr. Lee also practiced law with another prominent law firm and acted as special counsel to the Senate...
MOVERS: Raines Law Group Elevates Three to Partnership
Posted on September 11, 2009Beverly Hills business and real estate firm Raines Law Group LLP said Thursday that it has named Daniel Brozost, Jennifer Tullius and Randal Ivor-Smith to partner. Brozost joined the firm in 2007. He represents clients in real estate matters including...
Arson convictions overturned for Caltech student with Asperger's
Posted on September 11, 2009A Caltech graduate student convicted five years ago of conspiracy and arson for vandalizing 125 SUVs has had his arson convictions overturned and his sentence vacated by a federal appeals court. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in...
UCI settles a dozen fertility fraud suits
Posted on September 11, 2009The UC Board of Regents has quietly settled a dozen lawsuits stemming from fertility fraud uncovered nearly 15 years ago. In all, the University of California has paid out more than $24 million for 137 separate incidents in which eggs...
MOVERS: Khorrami Pollard chooses Kerns for Controller
Posted on September 10, 2009Khorrami Pollard & Abir, one of the largest plaintiff-only firms in California, announced the hiring of Adam E. Kerns as Controller. Most recently, he was an associate with the law firm Saul Ewing LLP. Mr. Kerns also previously worked as...
I'll cover you: ACLU settlement with school district mandates harassment training
Posted on September 10, 2009The ACLU's Southern California branch sued the Newport-Mesa Unified School District back in March for allegedly breeding an atmosphere hostile to female and gay students. That case has been settled, with the provision that the district will hold "mandatory training...
There and back again: suit settlement allows 'Hobbit' films to go forward
Posted on September 09, 2009Last year, two of Tolkien's children, Christopher, 84, and Priscilla, 80, sued New Line, now a unit of Warner Bros., for an estimated $150 million that they claimed was owed from the three Lord of the Rings movies. The lawsuit,...
Recession is forcing law schools to keep it real
Posted on September 09, 2009The movement to incorporate practical skills into legal education isn't new, but legal educators and researchers report that the floundering economy is increasing incentives for law schools to revamp their curricula to prepare students for the realities of the legal...
MOVERS: Cooley Godward's Sato joins Acucela's Board of Directors
Posted on September 09, 2009Acucela, a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing new treatments for blinding eye diseases, announced today the appointment of Glen Y. Sato, a partner in the Life Sciences and Corporate practice groups of the law firm Cooley Godward Kronish LLP,...
MOVERS: Schill leaves UCLA for UCLS
Posted on September 09, 2009Michael Schill, who has served as dean at UCLA School of Law since 2004, will assume his new position as the head of the University of Chicago Law School in January. Schill replaces Saul Levmore, who has served as the...
MOVERS: Lambert's new home is Gilchrist
Posted on September 08, 2009The law firm of Gilchrist & Rutter PC, which conducts a broad practice in the areas of real estate, business and commercial transactions, environmental law, land use and civil and complex business litigation, has announced the addition of attorney David...
MOVERS: Two new attorneys join La Bella
Posted on September 08, 2009La Bella & McNamara LLP has added two new attorneys to its ranks, Daniel M. Benjamin and Meghan Ashley Wharton. Daniel M. Benjamin, Of Counsel, focuses his practice on commercial and complex civil litigation. Mr. Benjamin earned his J.D. from...
Law students suffer another job prospect blow with lowered associate offer rates
Posted on September 04, 2009Summer associate offer rates are down significantly at many big California firms. Some firms are still compiling numbers, but most offer rates are in the range of 60 to 85 percent. One firm, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, offered jobs to...
Staffer at Wilson Sonsini charged with office supply scam
Posted on September 04, 2009According to an indictment filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, John Masakazu Tashiro, a purchasing specialist at the Palo Alto firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, helped a San Francisco office supplier defraud the company of some $1...
Researcher's survey shows death penalty issue 'much more unsettled'
Posted on September 04, 2009Support for the death penalty has dropped from 79 percent to 66 percent in California, according to a survey conducted by Craig Haney, a UC Santa Cruz psychology professor and lawyer. Haney says the survey also shows that most Californians...
Avalon makes number 33 for BB&K
Posted on September 02, 2009The City of Avalon on Santa Catalina Island has hired Best Best & Krieger LLP as its city attorney, becoming the 33rd city in California where the firm holds that key position. Terms of the contract were approved last night...
Out-of-state conduct and due process at issue in unpublished Cal CoA decision
Posted on September 02, 2009The California Court of Appeal issued an unpublished decision yesterday in Walmach v. Foster Wheeler in which it decided that contrary to arguments put forth via State Farm v. Campbell, the state of California may indeed punish a defendant for...
Ruehle case raises new issues and requires supplemental advisement, say judges
Posted on September 02, 2009Yesterday a three-judge panel for the 9th Circuit in Pasadena decided outside input was necessary to help decide the case before them. The issue is whether William Ruehle, the former chief financial officer of Broadcom Corp., should have assumed that...
Schwarzenegger requests delay in inmate-release order
Posted on September 02, 2009Yesterday the Schwarzenegger administration asked the federal courts to delay an order requiring California to reduce its inmate population over the next two years. In the filing, the administration said a court-ordered inmate release could boost California's crime rate by...
MOVERS: Allen Matkins adds Pernicka to litigation practice
Posted on September 01, 2009Allen Matkins Leck Gamble Mallory & Natsis LLP announced today the addition of Charles Pernicka as senior counsel in the firm's San Diego office. Pernicka has represented clients in all aspects of real estate development litigation, including purchase and sale...
Former Toyota lawyer turns whistleblower on automaker with claims of concealing evidence
Posted on September 01, 2009Dimitrios P. Biller of Pacific Palisades, a former managing counsel for Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc., filed a lawsuit in federal court on July 24th that legal experts predict could reopen cases that the automaker had won or settled over...
MOVERS: Cooley Godward gains White & Case IP trio
Posted on September 01, 2009Heidi Keefe, Mark Weinstein and Mark Lambert joined Cooley Godward on Monday. The former White & Case lawyers said they were going to Cooley because of its local connections with tech companies. The three represent clients like Facebook, Cisco Systems...
MOVERS: Handzlik joins Greenberg Traurig
Posted on September 01, 2009Greenberg Traurig announced yesterday that Jan L Handzlik has joined its Los Angeles office as a shareholder in the Litigation Group. Prior to joining Greenberg Traurig, Handzlik was a partner with Howrey LLP. He is a nationally recognized trial lawyer...
Cal Supremes to hear opinion letter confidentiality case
Posted on September 01, 2009On Wednesday the California Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a years-long attorney-client privilege case arising from a 22-page opinion letter containing both legal advice and factual information. At issue will be whether or not factual information in opinion...
Supplemental benefits for judges jumps a constitutional hurdle
Posted on August 31, 2009In an order issued Aug. 20 and released Friday, First District Court of Appeal Justice James Richman, sitting on assignment as a Los Angeles Superior Court judge, granted summary judgment in favor of Los Angeles County continuing to pay benefits...
Sands CEO sues contractor for breach of contract and negligence
Posted on August 31, 2009Las Vegas Sands Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Sheldon Adelson filed a lawsuit this month in federal court in California against Linden & Associates Inc. of Los Angeles over a 12-year-old, $1.6 million construction contract for a luxury home...
Medical center in involuntary bankruptcy filing under siege by creditors
Posted on August 31, 2009Attorneys at Carlsbad-based DiCaro, Coppo & Popcke have sued the new owners of Shasta Regional Medical Center, alleging that an attorney represented the hospital for a two-week doctor's peer review hearing last summer and was never paid for the service...
L.A. area lawyer and former Associate Justice among newly appointed commissioners
Posted on August 31, 2009Mayor Villaraigosa has announced the appointment of 11 new commissioners. Included in the appointments are Armand Arabian, the former Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court and superior Court judge, and lawyer Yolanda Orozco. Justice Armand Arabian received his J...
Settlement reached in Broadcom second-largest in derivative action
Posted on August 31, 2009Broadcom Corp. has agreed to pay $118 million to settle allegations of stock options backdating, in one of the largest such deals in a derivative action to date. The proposed settlement, subject to approval by U.S. District Judge Manuel Real...
Masry & Vititoe bankruptcy numbers numbers at leat four lawyers and law firms among top creditors
Posted on August 28, 2009Masry & Vititoe, the personal injury law firm of Erin Brockovich fame, said in bankruptcy court papers that it has spent $3 million defending lawsuits filed by the family and estate of former name partner Edward Masry, who died in...
Imminent closure of Stark makes some hopeful about future of youth correction
Posted on August 28, 2009The Heman G. Stark Correctional Facility in Chino will soon shut its doors to juvenile offenders in a move to shift a system away from adult-style punishment for youthful offenders. Stark now houses 390 men, including 32 from Northern California,...
Countrywide settles class action retirement suit
Posted on August 28, 2009U.S. District Judge John Walter of the Central District of California has preliminarily approved a $55 million settlement between Countrywide Financial Corp. and its former employees, who were seeking compensation for losses to their retirement plans...
Judge dismisses shareholder action against Downey
Posted on August 27, 2009U.S. District Judge John Walter of the Central District of California has dismissed a shareholder class action against the former officers and directors of Downey Financial Corp., a mortgage lender that filed for Chapter 7 liquidation in November. Downey Financial,...
Opening statements made yesterday in entertainment "bribes-for-contracts" trial
Posted on August 27, 2009The Associated Press reports that opening statements were delivered in the first case to charge entertainment industry figures under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Jonathan Lopez, a senior trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, told the seven man-five...
Judge's environmental report ruling gums up high-speed rail project
Posted on August 27, 2009Judge Michael Kenny called into question the environmental report backing a controversial high-speed rail project yesterday, calling it "inadequate" because it failed to address Union Pacific's recent announcement that it would not allow the speedy trains to run along its...
Drug bust ensnares San Bernardino locals
Posted on August 27, 2009Among the 16 suspected drug runners indicted by the Imperial County Grand Jury yesterday are two San Bernardino County residents, Lorena Lara of Fontana and Juan Berumen Sandoval of Rialto. All have been charged with conspiracy to transport cocaine and...
Exclusion policy needs explaining, says appeals panel
Posted on August 26, 2009A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the Federal Bureau of Prisons to reconsider the application for sentence reduction from Jerry Crickon, a federal prisoner in a Long Beach halfway house due for release in...
Bond sales cost Californians over $1 billion
Posted on August 26, 2009In 2006, the Compton Unified School District refinanced $50.8 million in taxpayer- approved bonds, with an eye to save the district money. Officials took out $6.5 million in cash, which they said would be used for school construction and repairs....
Appointment of openly gay assistant police chief in Riverside County a sign of changing times
Posted on August 26, 2009Raymond Gregory began working for the Sheriff's Department in Blythe in 1990. When he moved to the Coachella Valley eight years later and volunteered for the sheriff's association in Riverside, he also decided to live his life publicly as a...
Liver transplant still on hold for Sellers
Posted on August 26, 2009Ronald "Joey" Sellers, who petitioned the government for a life-saving liver transplant, has found his request on hold yet again. U.S. District Judge Kent Dawson said at a hearing yesterday morning that the government could pay for an operation but...
MOVERS: Jeffrey Morgan joins Moiré Marketing
Posted on August 26, 2009Legal marketing pioneer Jeffrey Morgan has joined Moiré Marketing Partners as a principal and head of the firm's new West Coast operations. Prior to joining Moiré, Morgan was senior vice president and chief marketing officer for Best Lawyers in America,...
Retrial of smoking case nets plaintiff half of original damages
Posted on August 25, 2009A Los Angeles jury awarded $13.8 million in punitive damages against Philip Morris USA on Aug. 24 in the retrial of a case that originally netted a record $28 billion to a lifetime smoker. The smoker, Betty Bullock, who was...
Lawyer indicted on charges of bribery and obstruction of justice
Posted on August 25, 2009Alfred N. Villalobos, a California lawyer who allegedly agreed to accept more than $100,000 in bribes in exchange for coaching his client to lie to a grand jury investigating immigration fraud, has been indicted on obstruction of justice charges. Federal...
Cal Supremes unanimous in clarifying attorney fees rule
Posted on August 25, 2009The California Supreme Court affirmed the Fourth District Court of Appeal's unpublished 2007 ruling that a woman in a 2003 car accident needed to be ?made whole? as to all damages, but that her attorney fees in securing compensation from...
Art recovery statute ruled "too broad"
Posted on August 24, 2009The 9th Circuit ruled last week that a 2002 statute allowing Californians to recover art stolen by Nazis is unconstitutional and goes beyond providing redress. According to circuit Judge David R. Thompson, the law's language "suggests that California's real purpose...
First graduating class of Chapman prosecutors includes two deputy district attorneys
Posted on August 24, 2009Monterey County District Attorney Dean Flippo announced that Deputy District Attorney Pamela L. Ham and Deputy District Attorney Carol Reed received masters of law in prosecutorial science degrees from Chapman University School of Law. Ham received her undergraduate degree at...
Cooley still doing deals
Posted on August 24, 2009Craig Jacoby, a partner in the San Francisco office of Cooley Godward Kronish, led a team of Cooley lawyers representing SpringSource in its $420 million sale to software virtualization company VMware Inc., announced Aug. 10. San Mateo's SpringSource is a...
Taggers hanging out can be arrested under new "Nuch" proposal
Posted on August 24, 2009Los Angeles City Attorney's Carmen Trutanich latest idea is raising some sticky constitutional issues. In an interview, Trutanich said his staff has begun amassing street-level intelligence and reviewing legal strategies that would pave the way for a series of injunctions...
MOVERS: New IP partner at K&L Gates in Palo Alto
Posted on August 20, 2009K&L Gates LLP announced yesterday the addition of Charles D. Holland to the firm?s Palo Alto office as a partner in the intellectual property practice. Holland joins K&L Gates from Morrison & Foerster LLP. A patent lawyer and engineer who...
MOVERS: Sheppard Mullin gains healthcare expert Yood
Posted on August 20, 2009Kenneth Yood has joined the Los Angeles/Century City office of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP as a partner on the firm's Healthcare team and in the Corporate practice group. Yood joins Sheppard Mullin from Fulbright & Jaworski in Los...
Governor's prison plan includes 11th-hour commission addition
Posted on August 20, 2009Governor Schwarzenegger's plan to reduce costs by trimming California's prison population by nearly 30,000 inmates will get its first airing today before the state Legislature. If approved by the Senate and Assembly, the governor's proposal would release or divert from...
Nurse Connection head charged with insurance fraud
Posted on August 20, 2009Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner said yesterday that Joseph Baiden surrendered to the Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday. Baiden is accused of falsifying payroll figures at his medical staffing business, Nurse Connection Inc., between 2001 and 2007 to underpay the...
Samueli wants closed hearing for appeal
Posted on August 19, 2009Say what you will about him, Henry Samueli won't give up the fight. He's not only appealing Judge Carney's rejection of his plea deal, but he also wants that hearing to be closed to the public. Through his lawyers, Samueli...
Activists aim to change towing and impound policies in CA
Posted on August 19, 2009The ACLU, Latin American Alliance for Immigrant Rights, and other advocates for undocumented immigrants are scheduled to meet with new Police Chief George Gascon in San Francisco to discuss the trend of city residents having their cars impounded by police...
Liver transplant request being shot down by feds
Posted on August 19, 2009Ronald "Joey" Sellers is charged with racketeering for crimes allegedly committed as head of the white supremacist Aryan Warriors gang. He is being held at the Federal Correctional Institution at Terminal Island in Southern California. His lawyers are making a...
Governor signs 'Good Samaritan Bill' and others into law
Posted on August 18, 2009Among the 131 of the 140 pieces of legislation that Governor Schwarzenegger signed after being put on hold pending budget negotiations, two have emerged that affect personal injury lawsuits. The first, Assembly Bill 83 (otherwise known as the "Good Samaritan...
UC not quite united in its endorsement of Google books deal
Posted on August 18, 2009The University of California has long been considered one of Google's first and closest allies in the company's book-digitizing plan, but a letter to the court suggests there may be dissension in the ranks. A group of prominent UC faculty...
Obama administration defends, and objects to, DOMA in Orange County case
Posted on August 18, 2009Yesterday the Obama administration made its objection to the Defense of Marriage Act abundantly clear -- even as the Justice Department finds itself defending DOMA in an case brought by an Orange County gay couple. Assistant Attorney General Tony West...
Former Nuggets star's business manager in misappropriation suit
Posted on August 18, 2009A lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Sacramento, California, yesterday alleges that Denver Nuggets star Carmelo Anthony's former business manager misappropriated more than $2 million of the player's assets. Larry Harmon and employees of Larry Harmon & Associates are...
Arsonist needs treatment before sentencing, defense attorney charges
Posted on August 17, 2009Attorney Susan Dondershine, the defense lawyer for a man convicted of arson in 2007, charges in a strongly worded pleading to the U.S. District Court that her client is suffering from severe mental health issues in Santa Clara County Main...
Appeals decision defines requirements for Sarbanes Oxley whistleblower cases
Posted on August 17, 2009The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last Thursday that whistleblowers must show only that they called attention to what they believed was fraud in order to sue their employers for wrongful termination under the Sarbanes Oxley Act. The...
Former U.S. attorney nominated to police commission
Posted on August 17, 2009Last Thursday Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa nominated a former U.S. attorney to serve on the police commission and help choose the next chief. Debra Wong Yang, 49, who served as the nation's first Asian-American U.S. attorney from 2002-07, was nominated to...
USC student stabbing death trial begins today
Posted on August 17, 2009The trial of Travion Ford, a 24-year-old man charged with murdering Bryan Frost, a University of Southern California student from Idaho, is expected to begin today in Los Angeles Superior Court. Ford pleaded not guilty during a Sept. 26 arraignment...
Loan modification sinks two Southern California lawyers, with a third in the wings
Posted on August 13, 2009The State Bar announced yesterday that it has obtained the resignations of Christian Dillon of Dana Point and Nabile Anz of Irvine, and that charges have been filed against Christopher Diener of Irvine. All were accused of loan modification activities...
Kaleidescape victory overturned in another victory against DVD copying
Posted on August 13, 2009Right on the heels of the victory against Real and its DVD-copying technology, California's 6th District Court of Appeal threw out a trial court win for Sunnyvale's Kaleidescape yesterday. Kaleidescape also makes high-end home entertainment systems that allow people to...
Lisker's freedom still in limbo, but at least he's out of jail
Posted on August 13, 2009Bruce Lisker may be out of jail, but the question of just how free he remains has yet to be answered. Though he is no longer in prison, Lisker is not a free man. He must be in federal court...
San Fernando Valley man freed from life sentence
Posted on August 12, 2009Bruce Lisker has been serving a life sentence for the March 1983 stabbing and beating death of his 66-year-old mother, Dorka, at her Sherman Oaks home. U.S. District Judge Virginia A. Phillips in Riverside overturned his conviction Friday, concurring with...
SDG&E shutoff plan denied, save for a possible experimental season
Posted on August 12, 2009Administrative Law Judge Timothy Kenney recommended yesterday that the five-member California Public Utilities Commission reject San Diego Gas & Electric Co.'s controversial proposal to cut power to as many as 130,000 residents of rural San Diego County during Santa Ana...
White-collar practices on the rise in LA
Posted on August 12, 2009White-collar defense practice groups have gotten some serious bolstering in recent weeks. It was announced this week that Thomas O'Brien, the sitting U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, would join Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker in the fall...
Digital piracy no longer a Real possibility
Posted on August 12, 2009Hollywood studios scored a crucial win in the war against digital piracy on Tuesday when U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel issued a pretrial junction on RealNetworks, preventing it from either selling the DVD-copying technology known as RealDVD or licensing...
Pepperdine conservative scholar named new ambassador
Posted on August 11, 2009Unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate on August 7th, Douglas W. Kmiec is the United States Ambassador to the Republic of Malta. He will be on leave from Pepperdine University as the Caruso Family Chair in Constitutional Law during his...
Prop 8 suit still has supporters on different pages
Posted on August 10, 2009The Recorder reported a couple weeks back about the clash between attorneys and civil rights groups in the federal challenge of Proposition 8. That clash seems to continue to heat up. Now that a trial is nearing, the lawyers who...
Northwestern Law gets 19-year-old Irvine student
Posted on August 10, 2009Kate McLaughlin, who turned 19 last week, skipped six grades, enrolled in community college at age 12 and graduated from UC San Diego at 17. Now she's headed to Northwestern University this fall for law school. According to the OC...
New Obama appointees reflect heretofore underrepresented communities
Posted on August 10, 2009President Obama has named four new federal judges for California, three of them Asian Americans, who have long been underrepresented on the federal bench. The president named U.S. Magistrate Judges Edward M. Chen and Richard G. Seeborg to the Northern...
The potential chilling effects of tolling provisions at issue in Supreme Court review
Posted on August 07, 2009The question of what constitutes a stay in court proceedings has been taken up by the California Supreme Court in the form of a March 23 ruling by Los Angeles' 2nd District Court of Appeal. That ruling, a 2-1 decision,...
Suit against Pasadena hospital alleges understaffing and no overtime
Posted on August 07, 2009Former employees of Aurora Las Encinas Hospital, a private psychiatric facility in Pasadena, filed a class-action lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court yesterday alleging that chronic understaffing has forced the staff to work past the ends of their shifts,...
MOVERS AND HONORS: Ogletree, Horvitz, and Sedgwick
Posted on August 07, 2009Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C. has announced that Stuart D. Tochner has joined its Los Angeles office as a shareholder. Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Tochner was a labor and employment partner at Musick Peeler in Los...
Web site copyright infringement suit allowed
Posted on August 06, 2009Brayton Purcell, a Novato-based personal injury firm, was handed a victory against two-lawyer San Diego-based Recordon & Recordon yesterday by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in an Internet copyright infringement case. Brayton Purcell, a 50-lawyer personal injury and...
Western State accredited
Posted on August 06, 2009The American Bar Association has granted Western State University College of Law full accreditation, giving the state 19 fully accredited law schools. The school first won provisional accreditation from the ABA in 1998, but did not secure full approval within...
Former Warner Bros. GC to head new program at USC
Posted on August 06, 2009John Schulman, who retired from his post as general counsel of Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. last year, has joined the University of Southern California Gould School of Law to open and run a new entertainment law program. Schulman joined USC...
State ordered to reduce prison popluation
Posted on August 05, 2009A panel of three federal judges on Tuesday ordered California to reduce its prison population by 40,000 inmates over the next two years. The order cited Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's own words when he proclaimed a state of emergency in the...
Taser lawsuit settled in Santa Paula
Posted on August 05, 2009The city of Santa Paula agreed to pay Andrew S. Hernandez $250,000 to settle a lawsuit he filed in federal court in Los Angeles. The lawsuit alleges that in 2006 he was forcibly taken to the ground by Santa Paula...
Chemerinsky, Nelson newest members of ABA economic commission
Posted on August 05, 2009The American Bar Association yesterday announced that Los Angeles attorney Matthew Nelson and Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of UC Irvine?s law school, have joined the group?s newly-created Commission on the Impact of the Economic Crisis on the Profession and Legal Needs...
Press wants Krugel transcripts unsealed
Posted on August 05, 2009The Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times, along with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, filed a motion Tuesday challenging a federal judge's decision to seal court transcripts from a recent civil trial in Los Angeles involving...
Carrion police shooting settled for $1.5 million
Posted on August 05, 2009San Bernardino County has tentatively agreed to pay $1.5 million to Elio Carrion, a U.S. Air Force serviceman who was unarmed when a sheriff's deputy shot him following a high-speed chase three years ago. If approved by the county Board...
Redlands courthouse to shutter
Posted on August 05, 2009On July 7, the San Bernardino County Superior Court announced that it would reduce the hours at two other courthouses in Big Bear and Needles beginning on September 8. They have now announced that its courthouse in Redlands will close...
Suit against LAPD dismissed
Posted on August 04, 2009A judge on Monday threw out a lawsuit filed by the mother of a toddler killed by a SWAT officer's bullet during an attempted hostage rescue in 2005. L.A. County Superior Court Judge Rolf M. Treu granted the city's motion...
Prosecutors claim Ruehle knew his statements weren't confidential
Posted on August 04, 2009Federal prosecutors in the William Ruehle case argued in a recent brief before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit that the former chief financial officer of Broadcom knew that statements he made to his attorneys at Irell...
Blue Cross accused of deliberately underpaying out-of-network hospitals
Posted on August 03, 2009Methodist Hospital of Southern California has accused Blue Cross and Anthem affiliates in 10 states of RICO and ERISA violations. Methodist alleges that Blue Cross refuses to let it transfer patients from emergency rooms, then underpays the hospital and sticks...
Challenge to county and state benefits for LA judges dismissed, again
Posted on August 03, 2009An appellate court justice has dismissed a taxpayer lawsuit challenging the dual payment of county and state benefits to Los Angeles County Superior Court judges for the second time in less than three years. In a 17-page decision, Justice James...
Coupons in lieu of cash no victory for consumers
Posted on August 03, 2009Sacramento County Superior Court Judge David De Alba authorized the settlement of a class action that lawyers argued could be worth as much as $500 million to people who owned Ford Explorers during the 1990s. It was a complex case...
Heat illness preventions to be updated, ACLU still not satisfied
Posted on August 03, 2009A day after the ACLU filed suit, the Department of Industrial Relations' Division of Occupational Safety and Health filed a proposal with the Cal/OSHA standards board to update California's first heat illness prevention regulations. The action also follows the July...
Hiring trends in recession basis for new course at Santa Clara
Posted on August 03, 2009Santa Clara University School of Law has rolled out a new program that utilizes advice from working attorneys on how to understand the looming recession and its impact on recruiting. According to Vicki Huebner, the assistant dean for law career...
Judge's rule city intrusion into state's jurisdiction with grocery worker ordinance
Posted on August 03, 2009A state appellate panel has upheld a lower court ruling that overturned a Los Angeles ordinance requiring new owners of grocery stores to retain existing workers for 90 days. The city ordinance, enacted in 2005, cited a threat to health...
Sheppard Mullin gives Yahoo a Pass
Posted on August 03, 2009Brian Pass, an entertainment and IP partner at Sheppard Mullin, helped negotiate the ten-year Internet search and advertising deal Yahoo struck with Microsoft last week, a partnership that might help Yahoo break Google's dominance in that particular market...
MOVERS: Ice Miller and Laquer Urban
Posted on July 31, 2009Ice Miller LLP announced this week that Mark Neyland has joined the firm as senior counsel in the collegiate sports practice. Neyland previously served as an assistant director of enforcement at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Neyland was the...
Producers allegedly made payoffs to ensure little Dieter flight
Posted on July 31, 2009A closely watched criminal trial begins Aug. 4 in a Los Angeles federal court involving a pair of Beverly Hills film producers. In a 22-count superseding indictment, federal prosecutors outline a case alleging that Gerald and Patricia Green, whose recent...
ACLU to sue state over inadequate heat protections
Posted on July 30, 2009The American Civil Liberties Union, the United Farm Workers of America and a number of farmworkers are announcing a lawsuit against the state of California and its Division of Occupational Safety and Health, accusing them of failing to protect the...
Second Amendment ruling under review by 9th Circuit
Posted on July 30, 2009The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided Wednesday to review en banc a panel ruling that had significantly broadened Second Amendment protections by applying them to state and local governments. This holding, arrived at by Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain, is...
Professors say 'broader life experience makes for better decisions'
Posted on July 30, 2009Daria Roithmayr of the USC Gould School of Law, in collaboration with Duke Law School's Guy-Uriel Charles, has a column over at CNN.com that tackles the ideas of race and experience as they pertain to decision-making. They touch on new...
SLO County to cough up defense cash for jailed Paso Robles firm family
Posted on July 30, 2009Thanks to a judge's ruling, a jailed mother and son who were also the president and vice-president of a bankrupt money lending company will be unable to pay for their defense, leaving San Luis Obispo with the bill. Superior Court...
Illinois demands shuttering of allegedly false charitable organization
Posted on July 29, 2009Morrell Steven Neely is listed as the director of the Center for AIDS Prevention, which describes itself as a Beverly Hills-based nonprofit that provides information on HIV and AIDS. However, court documents filed last week in Illinois allege Neely was...
Dole defamation defense goes to Lathrop & Gage
Posted on July 29, 2009Earlier this month Dole Food Co. filed suit against the makers of a documentary of the first U.S. trial involving the pesticide claims against Dole. "Bananas!" was screened during Film Independent's Los Angeles Film Festival and, according to Dole, excluded...
Abergil gang to be extradited to the U.S.
Posted on July 28, 2009A motion to extradite Yitzhak Abergil and accomplices to the United States to stand trial on charges including murder, extortion, and drug dealing was granted today by the Jerusalem District Court. According to an indictment, Yitzhak Abergil took part in...
Death sentence upheld for East Palo Alto woman
Posted on July 28, 2009Celeste Carrington, 47, admitted fatally shooting Victor Esparza, 34, a janitor at a shoe factory in San Carlos, in January 1992, and Caroline Gleason, 36, a property manager at a real estate office in Palo Alto, in another robbery two...
Biometric verification: doubters say 'devil is in the details'
Posted on July 28, 2009Lawyers are expressing both skepticism and criticism about the concept of using biometric data, such as fingerprints and retina scans, to verify if employees are eligible to work in the United States. Senator Charles Schumer, who also chairs the Senate...
Governor intervenes on behalf of disabled student's bar exam case
Posted on July 28, 2009Sara Granda, a recent graduate of the University of California, Davis School of Law and a paraplegic, failed to meet a June 15 online application deadline for the bar exam. Her attorney, Stewart Katz, of the Law Offices of Stewart...
Southwestern professor's daughter abducted near school, found murdered
Posted on July 28, 2009The recent abduction and murder of a 17-year-old girl, the daughter of a partner at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck who had just finished a summer course as an adjunct professor at Southwestern University School of Law, has sent shockwaves through...
Smaller firms lead by example in lean times
Posted on July 28, 2009Berliner Cohen. Hoge, Fenton, Jones & Appel Inc. Ropers Majeski Kohn Bentley PC. What do these firms have in common? Layoffs have been the norm in stories about big firms lately. While giants crumbled and others restructured salary arrangements for...
Recession making it difficult to discuss it in Hollywood
Posted on July 27, 2009Hollywood's dream machine is not immune to the recession. The Motion Picture Association of America, which represents the major studios, reported the release of 284 movies in the United States between January 2 and July 21, compared to 336 films...
Forget it, Jake - it's San Bernardino County
Posted on July 27, 2009Taking on corruption is no easy task, but it would seem in San Bernardino County the difficulties magnify a hundredfold. Leonard Gumport was hired by the county in mid-2000 to investigate former top county officials who took bribes and kickbacks...
Former California 'evangelist' found guilty on all counts
Posted on July 27, 2009There has been some pretty lurid testimony delivered in the Tony Alamo case over the past couple of weeks. Four "Jane Does" have come forward to testify to Alamo's penchant for young girls. One, now 17, said the evangelist married...
UC law school faculty to see pay cuts and furloughs
Posted on July 24, 2009Law school faculty in the University of California system will see furloughs and a cut in pay for the upcoming school year. Although not unforeseen, says UC Davis school of law dean Kevin Johnson, "it's not a morale booster." The...
Wilson closes JDL civil trial amid claims of First Amendment violations
Posted on July 24, 2009U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson perplexed Constitutional scholars and advocates of freedom of the press when he closed the two-day trial in a case involving the 2005 prison killing of Jewish Defense League activist Earl Krugel. Wilson issued a....
SEC tells Maynard to reimburse $4.1 million to CSK
Posted on July 23, 2009The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission demanded that CSK Auto Corp.?s former chief executive officer forfeit $4.1 million he received during an accounting fraud he didn?t orchestrate. Maynard L. Jenkins was ordered to return bonuses and stock-sale profits he earned...
Prison guard's brutality convictions reinstated by Ninth Circuit
Posted on July 23, 2009A federal appeals court has reinstated the brutality convictions of a Southern California prison guard for yanking two shackled inmates from a van and throwing them to the ground headfirst. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco...
Attorneys and civil rights groups unhappy with one another in Prop 8 challenge
Posted on July 22, 2009Gay rights groups' attempt to intervene in a federal challenge of California's Proposition 8 has created a rift with the high-powered attorneys heading the case, turning erstwhile allies into head-butting competitors. Civil rights groups worry that Theodore Olson, David Boies...
Tax evasion takes center stage in Hollywood civil suit
Posted on July 22, 2009Hollywood tax lawyer Matthew Krane is suing his former client, entertainment industry billionaire Haim Saban, over a $36 million fee Krane was paid for referring Saban to an investment fund run by the Quellos Group. The suit charges Saban with...
Nuch working day and night to resolve Jackson memorial taxpayer dilemma
Posted on July 22, 2009City Attorney Carmen Trutanich has been reviewing the procedures that led the city to spend an estimated $1.4 million for police protection and other city services for the star-studded Michael Jackson's memorial at the Staples Center. Investigators have apparently turned...
Real money = less money
Posted on July 22, 2009A federal judge in Los Angeles, ruling on an issue that had been remanded to his court by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, has granted attorney fees to two law firms that objected to the $49...
Former SEC trial attorney joins Greenberg Traurig
Posted on July 21, 2009Michael Piazza, a former Regional Trial Counsel for the Los Angeles office of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, has joined Greenberg Traurig's securities litigation practice group as head of the Orange County office's practice. Piazza moves to Greenberg...
Governor gives seal of approval to stay seal removal
Posted on July 21, 2009Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed a bill that may allow federally protected harbor seals to stay in the Children's Pool at La Jolla beach, despite a judge's earlier order to begin chasing them away. Earlier Monday, a San Diego Superior...
Lawsuit alleges shelters' routine refusal of homeless with service dogs
Posted on July 21, 2009The Southern California Housing Rights Center and the Disability Rights Legal Center have filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority over what they say are discriminatory practices toward homeless people who rely on service dogs...
Former Broadcom CFO wants "ethical misconduct" finding sustained against I&M
Posted on July 21, 2009The former chief financial officer of Broadcom Corp. has urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to sustain a lower court that blasted Los Angeles-based Irell & Manella for "ethical misconduct" in a criminal backdating case. In...
Fiscal crisis may yield Chapter 9 work for firms
Posted on July 20, 2009Despite the dire financial outlook for California's cities, most lawyers don't expect the economic downturn to let loose a flood of municipal bankruptcies. But many are preparing for an uptick in Chapter 9-related work. For instance, while Pacific Grove is...
Korea Law Center established by UC Irvine
Posted on July 20, 2009UC Irvine School of Law has established a Korea Law Center to promote practical solutions to problems arising at the intersection of U.S. and Korean law. The center, part of a new, multi-continent UC Irvine International Commerce & Law Institute,...
Haven can sue HHS over Medicare cap
Posted on July 20, 2009A federal judge has tentatively ruled that Los Angeles Haven Hospice Inc. has standing to sue the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services over the validity of a regulation that governs how much a provider may receive in Medicare...
District court judge says we watch o'er the Ramparts et al. no longer
Posted on July 20, 2009On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Gary Feess lifted the controversial consent decree that for more than eight years had guided an independent monitor overseeing sweeping reforms of the Los Angeles Police Department. The consent decree resulted from the LAPD's...
Crisis yields new partnerships between bankers and law firms
Posted on July 20, 2009In Los Angeles, the law firm of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips has joined forces with commercial real estate investment banking firm George Smith Partners to help borrowers restructure their debt. Bank problems with commercial real estate loans led the Manatt...
Released diocese records paint permissive atmosphere for potential abuse in Monterey
Posted on July 20, 2009Records released by the Diocese of Monterey paint a damning picture of an era that church officials say has since ended, revealing a flawed system that led to the repeated sexual abuse of at least two children, an 11-year-old altar...
Cox to join Bingham
Posted on July 17, 2009Christopher Cox, the former top U.S. securities markets watchdog when George W. Bush was president, announced today that he will join law firm Bingham McCutchen LLP as a partner in Southern California. Cox, 56, will be part of Bingham's corporate,...
Cal legislature on harassment cases: nothing to see here, move along ...
Posted on July 16, 2009State Senate officials have secretly approved a $70,000 legal settlement that prohibits a staffer who accused a former colleague of harassment from going public with the charges. The payment, made last month, is the latest in a string of such...
Attorney general Brown & FTC collaborate on Operation Loan Lies
Posted on July 16, 2009The Federal Trade Commission is sending out a DVD in an effort to curb the calls and mailers that have helped dupe hundreds of thousands of homeowners out of hundreds of millions of dollars in the name of mortgage relief....
ERISA stock drop case dismissed
Posted on July 15, 2009Earlier this week, a ERISA suit against Computer Sciences Corporation was dismissed on summary judgment by Los Angeles federal district court judge James Otero. The plaintiffs had alleged that the company and its retirement plan committee had breached their fiduciary...
Los Angeles to close courtrooms every third Wednesday
Posted on July 15, 2009Leaders of the Los Angeles and Mendocino, Calif., superior courts decided they could no longer wait for a coordinated, statewide closure plan to emerge from the mire of legislative budget negotiations. Instead, they'll shutter hundreds of courtrooms today, keeping a...
Tolkien heirs to New Line: And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost ... like our percentage
Posted on July 15, 2009J.R.R. Tolkien sold movie rights to his ''Lord of the Rings'' novels 40 years ago for 7.5 per cent of future receipts. Three films and $6 billion later, his heirs say they haven't seen a cent from Time Warner. New...
Settlement in kickbacks lawsuit costs defendants over $15M
Posted on July 15, 2009A total of $5.5 million in refunds are in the mail to more than 50,000 Californians who allegedly overpaid for natural hazard disclosure reports because the real estate brokerages that listed their homes were taking kickbacks from the company producing...
ACLU sues Santa Monica over treatment of the homeless
Posted on July 15, 2009Yesterday the ACLU sued Santa Monica in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, saying city police routinely violate homeless people's constitutional rights by harassing and arresting them, even as the city fails to provide sufficient shelter beds. The suit is...
New addition at Century City Reed Smith office
Posted on July 14, 2009Reed Smith announced the addition of James L. Sanders as a partner in the Global Regulatory and Enforcement Group of its Litigation Department. Mr. Sanders is resident in the firm?s Century City office, where his practice focuses on securities litigation,...
Close the old jail, not the new one, says ACLU
Posted on July 14, 2009The American Civil Liberties Union yesterday asked a federal judge to bar the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department from closing a 1,600-bed jail near Castaic Lake without planning for the detrimental impacts such an action might have on other jails...
As CA goes, so DE should go in Medicaid case, says lawyer
Posted on July 14, 2009A lawyer representing pharmacy groups suing Delaware for cutting Medicaid drug reimbursement rates believes a recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruling stopping California from trimming state Medicaid payments to medical providers strengthens the groups' position in...
CA Supremes won't hear asbestos case
Posted on July 14, 2009The California Supreme Court has denied a petition to review an asbestos liability case in which a Los Angeles judge blasted the plaintiff's firm, Waters & Kraus, for engaging in a "type of judicially sanctioned extortion." The case involves a...
Plaintiff gives up the Chais
Posted on July 13, 2009A Los Angeles woman who lost millions of dollars after investing funds through Stanley Chais, alleged to have funneled those funds to Bernard L. Madoff, has voluntarily dismissed her class action against the California investment manager. Daphne Brogdon filed a...
In the wake of Chaney's dismissal, DBCP = Don't Bother Claiming Pesticide (Exposure)
Posted on July 13, 2009The unraveling of multimillion-dollar Los Angeles cases alleging that Nicaraguan men had been sterilized by pesticide exposure is now threatening to upend hundreds of other claims in U.S. courts, as judges examine charges that plaintiffs' lawyers orchestrated an extraordinary international...
Dole files suit against 'Bananas!' filmmakers
Posted on July 09, 2009Dole Food Co. has filed a defamation suit in Los Angeles against two Swedish filmmakers whose recently screened documentary chronicles a lawsuit alleging that workers in Nicaragua were rendered sterile after being exposed to the pesticide DBCP on Dole's banana...
Senate bill says lay off lawsuits offering discounts to furloughed workers
Posted on July 09, 2009Since Governor Schwarzenegger ordered the 235,000 state workers under his authority to start three-day furloughs per month, Sacramento-area businesses have marketed to furloughed workers with targeted discounts on everything from lift tickets to oil changes...
'Larger than life' lawyer back in business
Posted on July 09, 2009After a nearly year-long fight to clear himself of charges of illegally funneling money to John Edwards' campaign, Pierce O'Donnell found those charges either dismissed or dropped by mutual agreement. And so, as he says, "I have my life back."...
More arrests in gang takedown effort
Posted on July 09, 2009Following a similar takedown this past May, federal authorities announced yesterday that 11 additional members of the Varrio Hawaiian Gardens street gang had been arrested. Additionally, 16 members and associates from other gangs wanted on state and federal charges were...
L.A. area lawyers just beat it for Jackson memorial
Posted on July 08, 2009As tens of thousands of Michael Jackson fans poured into downtown Los Angeles' Staples Center for the King of Pop's memorial service on July 7, attorneys who work in offices just blocks from the star-studded event opted to stay home....
More vexation on the horizon for "vexatious litigant"
Posted on July 08, 2009As if things weren't hard enough for Mitchell W. Roth. In January, U.S. District Judge Manuel Real of Los Angeles declared Roth a vexatious litigant and ordered him to refund fees to nine clients. Then Bar prosecutors shut down Roth's...
Couple claims "knowing how to know" no treatment at all in Scientology suit
Posted on July 08, 2009In a lawsuit filed June 29 claiming breach of contract, misrepresentation and attempts at religious conversion, Sarah Locatelli claims her husband, Daniel, received no drug treatment, education or otherwise for the $20,000 they paid to Narconon Southern California in Newport...
Cancer shmancer, pot is the answer, says MPP
Posted on July 08, 2009State lawmakers are bitterly debating how to close a $26.3 billion budget deficit that likely means cuts to state services. The Marijuana Policy Project, unsurprisingly, has a suggestion via another 30-second television spot with the pitch that legalizing and taxing...
Climan, Flaum, and Reifschneider not your Cooley anymore
Posted on July 08, 2009The heart of Cooley Godward?s Silicon Valley M&A practice ? Richard Climan, Keith Flaum and Eric Reifschneider ? has defected to Dewey & LeBoeuf. Leading M&A lawyers Climan and Flaum are rainmakers and longtime leaders at Cooley. Reifschneder was the...
MGA swaps counsel for Orrick
Posted on July 08, 2009The manufacturer of Bratz dolls has replaced its lawyers for the second time this year in preparation for the next phase of its long-running copyright battle with Mattel Inc. In a July 7 order, Larson approved MGA's request to replace...
Ziffren Brittenham founding partner gifts UCLA Law School with $1M
Posted on July 08, 2009Ken Ziffren, founding partner of Ziffren Brittenham and chairman of the UCLA School of Law $100-million endowment campaign, has given a $1 million leadership gift to the school. The gift is in both his and his wife Ellen's names. In...
Hayes back
Posted on July 07, 2009After an eight-year absence, David J. Hayes has reclaimed both the California water portfolio and the title as deputy secretary of the Interior. Hayes will coordinate the Obama administration?s role in California water use. This is familiar territory for the...
Multitasking not a stretch for Estrich
Posted on July 07, 2009Yesterday's Am Law Daily featured an interview with Susan Estrich, who wears three hats: lawyer at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, professor at the University of Southern California's law school, and political commentator on television and in syndicated newspaper...
Michael Jackson: The will has brought some fortune, but to whom?
Posted on July 06, 2009Much has been made in several corners, including this one, about the debt Michael Jackson left behind in the wake of his passing. However, according to the Los Angeles Times, the reality is Jackson's assets outweigh his debt by at...
Katherine Jackson no longer in control of her son's estate
Posted on July 06, 2009Judge Mitchell L. Beckloff denied Katherine Jackson's request to remain temporary special administrator of her son's estate, replacing her with two longtime advisors of Michael Jackson, lawyer John Branca and music executive John McClain. Branca and McClain were named co-executors...
9th Circuit: immigration petitioners not to blame for tangled bureaucracy
Posted on July 06, 2009Lawyers in Los Angeles involved in representing immigrants seeking permanent residency in the United States are continually frustrated with multiple governmental agencies that often don't coordinate with one another. The problem is particularly acute in Los Angeles, which has more...
Environmental regulators call the pot kettle black
Posted on July 06, 2009State environmental regulators last month voted to place marijuana smoke on its list of hundreds of substances known to cause cancer. Scientists with the state's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment found that marijuana smoke and tobacco smoke share 33...
Critics of LA police wanna be startin' somethin'
Posted on July 06, 2009The Los Angeles police are under scrutiny for their actions following the death of Michael Jackson. While the police say proper procedures were followed based on the circumstances officers encountered when they were called to the home, others are saying...
Noted sports law attorney joins Arent Fox in Los Angeles
Posted on July 06, 2009Arent Fox LLP today announced noted sports attorney Maidie E. Oliveau, 55, has joined the firm as counsel in its Los Angeles office. Ms. Oliveau has worked on a number of major sports-related transactions, negotiating and administering more than 200....
'There is a lack of respect for law down there'
Posted on July 01, 2009You may recall LALP reporting on the Nicaraguan farm workers' lawsuit against Dole that was ultimately thrown out by Judge Victoria Chaney (not to mention the resulting film). In yesterday's OC Register Chapman University Law Professor Ronald Rotunda addresses the...
Ruling delayed on PEMGroup asset freeze
Posted on June 30, 2009U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez yesterday postponed ruling on whether assets of Southern California financier Danny Pang and his PEMGroup funds should stay frozen until Pang's civil trial begins. Gutierrez told Pang's lawyers and Securities and Exchange Commission attorneys that...
Cablevison foes say new DVR ruling will disrupt vast revenues
Posted on June 30, 2009Hollywood studios and television networks lost their bid Monday for the Supreme Court to block the use of a new digital video recorder system that could make it cheaper and easier for viewers to record shows and watch them when...
Attorneys spell for a good cause
Posted on June 30, 2009The Fifth Annual Lawyers for Literacy Spelling Bee is scheduled for July 8 in Los Angeles. More than 100 lawyers, associates and staff from 10 law firms in Los Angeles will test their spelling prowess at the event, which will...
Can life sentences really save the budget?
Posted on June 30, 2009A new argument has been taken up by death penalty opponents: we can't afford it. According to abolitionists, by commuting all 682 death row inmates' sentences to life without the possibility of parole, the state could save up to $1...
Kenneth Julian, successful prosecutor of Mike Carona, joins Manatt Phelps
Posted on June 30, 2009Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP, announced today that Kenneth B. Julian has joined the firm as a litigation partner in the national trial practice. He will be based in the firm?s Orange County office. Prior to joining Manatt, Julian was...
9th Circuit: I always feel like somebody's watching me
Posted on June 29, 2009From prisoners' rights to environmental protection, laws set by the 9th Circuit were overturned in 15 of the 16 cases reviewed this term by the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices shot down four rulings seen as protecting nature against industrial...
Schenk tapped to serve on governing body of world?s largest trial bar
Posted on June 29, 2009Frederick Schenk ? a longtime partner with Casey Gerry, San Diego?s oldest plaintiff?s law firm ? has been elected to serve on the Board of Governors of the American Association for Justice (AAJ), which with more than 55,000 members is...
Homeless suit settled with city
Posted on June 29, 2009Laguna Beach agreed to settle a lawsuit over its treatment of disabled homeless people by constraining police from interfering with those asleep in public places. Under the agreement, the city's police officers will not cite, arrest or harass people under...
Injunction junction, what's its function?
Posted on June 29, 2009Gang injunctions, like the most recent one issued against the Barrio Van Nuys gang, remain controversial in some legal circles. For supporters, injunctions make neighborhoods safer because gang members can be penalized for actions that otherwise would be legal, such...
"Security threat" Su files suit against FBI
Posted on June 29, 2009In a lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Haiping Su, a UC Santa Cruz scientist, asked a federal judge to order a hearing to "clear his name" and recover damages from the federal government. Su...
The troubled legacy of the King of Pop
Posted on June 26, 2009To say Michael Jackson's death was the most noteworthy news item yesterday is an understatement. As seemingly the entire world mourns his passing, everything about the King of Pop is under scrutiny, from the circumstances surrounding his death to his...
Northwestern Mutual defends itself against individuals who 'are not, and have never been, employees'
Posted on June 26, 2009A $200 million class action lawsuit was filed by two former California financial reps and one former Georgia financial representative for Northwestern Mutual in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California in San Diego and alleges the...
School's in for summer at Chino
Posted on June 26, 2009Administrators at two Southern California schools face a $7 million penalty from the state after cutting a few school days too short. The Chino Valley Unified School District discovered in April that Friday class schedules at Rolling Ridge Elementary School...
Acquittals and guilty pleas in Ralphs record falsifying case
Posted on June 25, 2009A former vice president of the parent company of Ralphs supermarkets and two ex-employees of the chain were acquitted Monday in Los Angeles federal court of conspiring to secretly hire locked-out union workers and falsify records during a grocery strike...
Decision helps with Rocky's revival
Posted on June 25, 2009L.A. County Superior Court Judge Mark V. Mooney ruled this week that former Los Angeles City Controller Laura Chick lacked legal authority to conduct performance audits of programs managed by City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo, ending a yearlong power struggle...
CA Carbon fees considered
Posted on June 25, 2009Attorney General Jerry Brown gets a car case dismissed, but global warming takes front and center yet again in California. Air regulators today will consider leveling the nation's first statewide carbon fee on utilities, oil refineries and other industries as...
Sprint hopes group suit rejection is a Pre-cursor to more decisions in its favor
Posted on June 25, 2009Sprint Nextel Corp. won't face a nationwide class-action lawsuit over claims it overcharged data-card customers for taxes and refused to issue refunds. U.S. Judge Robert Bryan concluded Sprint customers couldn?t show that being allowed to press claims about wireless-network card...
9th Circuit and AG rescue the car, not the frog
Posted on June 25, 2009The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has granted California Attorney General Jerry Brown's motion to voluntarily dismiss the state's global warming lawsuit against six of the nation's largest automobile manufacturers. The June 24 order put an end...
Engineer's space secrets trial winds down in Calif.
Posted on June 24, 2009SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) ? The fate of a Chinese-born engineer accused of stealing trade secrets critical to the U.S. space program will soon be in the hands of a federal judge. Attorneys are expected to deliver closing arguments Wednesday...
Developer faces fraud charges
Posted on June 23, 2009From the LA. Times: An El Monte developer behind the city's $1.2-billion redevelopment project has been arrested and is expected to be charged with fraud and embezzlement, police said Monday. John Leung, president and chief executive of El Monte-based Titan...
L.A. Sheriff's dept. halts DNA testing for rape cases
Posted on June 23, 2009The L.A. Times reports that the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has suspended its faltering effort to analyze DNA evidence from thousands of rape and sexual assault cases, due to budget and staffing shortfalls. Sheriff's Department officials said they expected...
Three former Ralphs managers acquitted of charges in labor dispute
Posted on June 22, 2009A former vice president of the parent company of Ralphs supermarkets, and two ex-employees of the chain were acquitted today in Los Angeles federal court of conspiring to secretly hire locked-out union workers and falsify records during a grocery strike,...
City's inspector general wants indepenence from PD
Posted on June 19, 2009The Daily Journal turns its spotlight today on André Birotte Jr., inspector general of the Los Angeles Police Department. The Justice Department and the city have asked U.S. District Judge Gary A. Feess to release the city from a consent...
Fired assistant O.C. sheriff wins back pay
Posted on June 19, 2009Orange County is on the hook for $485,000 to George Jaramillo, a former assistant sheriff whom Carona fired in 2004, according to the Orange County Register. Plus attorney fees. Judge Andrew P. Banks ruled that Carona broke the law in...
Obama's FCC pick gets a grilling
Posted on June 17, 2009Variety reports that senators on the Commerce Committee on Tuesday closely questioned Julius Genachowski, President Barack Obama's choice to become head of the Federal Commission. Genachowski is set to take over an FCC that's been blasted for policy fumbles by...
Feds sink suit against L.A., Long Beach ports
Posted on June 17, 2009The agency that regulates ports has dropped a lawsuit that challenges portions of the "clean trucks program" at the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports. Here's the Associated Press story via the San Jose Mercury News.
City wants LAPD consent decree lifted
Posted on June 17, 2009The L.A. Times reports that the city wants the feds to lift a nine-year-old consent decree that gives the Justice Department oversight powers over the Los Angles Police Department. Attorneys for the city of Los Angeles and the U.S. Department...
Owner of LA signature-gathering firm admits fraud
Posted on June 17, 2009LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Authorities say the owner of a firm that collects signatures for petition drives has pleaded guilty to misdemeanor voter registration fraud in exchange for prosecutors dropping felony charges. Mark Jacoby, the 26-year-old owner of Young Political...
Hearing set for lawyer accused of extorting Dole
Posted on June 17, 2009LOS ANGELES (AP) ? A lawyer accused of taking part in a scheme to extort Dole food company for billions of dollars is under orders to appear at a contempt hearing Wednesday. Juan Dominguez is accused of bringing fraudulent claims...
Decision on letting LAPD oversee itself delayed
Posted on June 16, 2009In 2007, U.S. District Judge Gary A. Feess, who oversees the department's reforms, angrily rejected the idea that the LAPD was ready to police itself and added three more years to the life of the so-called consent decree. Now, with...
Nuch reveals more of his transition team
Posted on June 16, 2009Los Angeles City Attorney-elect Carmen Trutanich yesterday unveiled the members of his transition team whom he has organized into 12 working groups to focus on areas he had slated for reform during his campaign. That team includes: Assistant District Attorney...
Controversial Gunther ADA decision overturned
Posted on June 15, 2009The California Supreme Court overturned a Santa Ana-based Court of Appeal decision that required plaintiffs in Americans with Disabilities Act-type cases to prove that businesses purposely violated the law by not making their facilities usable by wheelchair-bound customers...
Parts of new Chinese filtering software alleged to be stolen
Posted on June 15, 2009Solid Oak Software of Santa Barbara said Friday that parts of its filtering software, which is designed for parents, are being used in the "Green Dam-Youth Escort" filtering software that must be packaged with all computers sold in China from...
Governor's inmate plan draws fire
Posted on June 15, 2009Governor Schwarzenegger wants to change sentencing guidelines so that offenders who commit such low-level felonies as auto theft or drug possession could be charged with only misdemeanors -- allowing them to serve sentences in county jails instead of state prisons...
Leave taxes alone, say prominent LA sheriff and prosecutor
Posted on June 15, 2009Lee Baca, sheriff of Los Angeles County, joined with police officers to ask state legislators to refrain from using property taxes to balance the state's 24-billion-dollar budget. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has said he may borrow local property and gas tax...
Corpse seller sentenced
Posted on June 12, 2009Ernest Nelson, the former mortuary worker convicted in a $1.5 million cadaver carve-and-sell scheme, was sentenced yesterday to 10 years in prison Thursday and ordered to pay more than $1.7 million. "This is one of those cases so outrageous it...
Cop claims disability discrimination, may result in jury trial
Posted on June 12, 2009Travis Henry, who worked for the Lompoc Police Department between Oct. 1, 2005, and Aug. 23, 2006, filed a lawsuit in Santa Barbara County Superior Court in 2007 alleging harassment, discrimination based on his disability, retaliation, failure to accommodate, improper...
First rule of arbitration: show up
Posted on June 12, 2009Last month a Los Angeles Superior Court judge affirmed an arbitration award of more than $4.1 billion to Paul Thomas Chester, a former executive at iFreedom Communications Inc. Chester brought wrongful termination suit against his former employer, its affiliated businesses...
Hal can't help it
Posted on June 12, 2009Harold Goldstein, 64, of Newport Beach, posted an ad on Craigslist claiming to be a retired attorney looking for lawyers to do contract work. When someone responded, Goldstein asked for the attorney's letterhead and business cards, federal authorities said...
Buzzkill: Marijuana dispensary owner finally sentenced
Posted on June 12, 2009After nearly a two-month delay, Judge George H. Wu sentenced Charles C. Lynch, who ran a marijuana dispensary in Morro, to a year in prison, a sign that providers of medical marijuana still face the possibility of jail time despite...
?Loncheros? prevail against city
Posted on June 11, 2009Francisco Gonzalez, operator of a mobile catering vehicle in East Los Angeles for more than 12 years, wanted to challenge the thousands of dollars in citations he received during the past year under a city ordinance aimed at cracking down...
Several rulings resolve church property disputes
Posted on June 11, 2009On June 9, the San Diego-based Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled unanimously that the Diocese of Los Angeles is legal owner of property currently occupied by St. Luke's Anglican Church. The appellate court ruling affirmed a 2007 trial court...
Informational privacy ruling may be back in Obama's court
Posted on June 11, 2009The federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists will not be forced to choose between losing their jobs and consenting to secret government investigations of their medical, financial and sexual histories. Led by Senior Research...
Ponzi scheme of the week: SEC charges two CA men who targeted Korean-Americans
Posted on June 10, 2009A Los Altos man and his Danville business partner were charged in civil proceedings by the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday with running an $80 million Ponzi scheme targeting Korean-American investors. Peter Son and Jin K. Chung had about...
Venable adds eight tax & estate planning attorneys to their LA office
Posted on June 10, 2009The Los Angeles office of Venable LLP added eight Los Angeles attorneys - seven from the firm Reish Luftman Reicher & Cohen and one from Freeman, Freeman & Smiley LLP. The new Venable partners include Brad Cohen, Michael Foster, Robin...
Slot machine cap prompts tribes' suits
Posted on June 10, 2009On multiple fronts, tribes are challenging a California slot machine limit set under 1999 gambling compacts with 61 tribes. While individual tribes were allowed up to 2,000 slot machines, the state imposed a 32,151 statewide limit on the calculation that...
Back to the drawing board for the Fisheries and Wildlife Services
Posted on June 10, 2009Judge Marilyn Patel of the U.S. District Court of Northern California ruled that federal agencies violated the Endangered Species Act when they reviewed plans on how to manage Los Padres National Forest and three other Southern California forests. Both the...
Newly discovered recording may clear Numero Uno founder of racketeering charges
Posted on June 10, 2009George Torres, founder of a successful chain of 11 Numero Uno supermarkets, was ordered released from jail yesterday on $1 million bond after federal prosecutors discovered a recording that may exonerate him in racketeering charges asserting he ordered a rival...
WaMu and JPM accused of squeeze-and-freeze in SoCal suit
Posted on June 10, 2009Michell Kimball, a San Diego-area resident who took out a $500,000 home equity credit line from Washington Mutual in the fall of 2007, has filed a lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase and WaMu, alleging the two companies illegally reduced or froze...
Wilton Rancheria regains recognition
Posted on June 09, 2009U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel on Monday announced his approval of a settlement that restores federal recognition to the Wilton Rancheria, one of 41 California tribes that lost official status as a result of federal legislation passed in 1958...
FBI justifies informant use despite complaints
Posted on June 09, 2009Yesterday FBI Director Robert Mueller defended the agency's use of informants within U.S. mosques, despite complaints from Muslim organizations that worshippers and clerics are being targeted instead of possible terrorists. "We don't investigate places, we investigate individuals," Mueller said during...
Julian goes out on career highpoint
Posted on June 09, 2009Federal prosecutor Ken Julian is leaving the U.S. Attorney's Office. He has spent the last 11 and a half years as a federal prosecutor, eight in Orange County. During that time he has tried 15 federal cases, all of which...
Attorneys say we'll soon be soaking in claims of 'greenwashing'
Posted on June 08, 2009The so-called green movement has sprouted a fresh crop of lawsuits: greenwashing claims, in which companies are getting sued for making bogus eco-friendly statements about their products. Among the recent suits: In March, a consumer filed a class action against...
Dasher on for Roos
Posted on June 08, 2009Last month we reported the rumor that Wilson Sonsini's John Roos had been chosen by the Obama administration as the ambassador to Japan. The choice of a Washington outsider with no obvious Japan experience raises a lot of questions. Richard...
Dole finds new documentary to be a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham
Posted on June 08, 2009Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Victoria Chaney ruled in late April that the attorney who serves as the centerpiece of a new documentary called ?Bananas!? was involved in a ?blatant extortion? of Dole Food Corp. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the documentary paints...
SEC charges Countrywide's Mozilo, Sambol & Sieracki in civil fraud suit
Posted on June 05, 2009Federal regulators yesterday charged Angelo Mozilo, the former chief executive officer of mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp., and two other company executives with civil fraud. The Securities and Exchange Commission?s civil lawsuit, filed in federal District Court in Los Angeles,...
Scruggs steroid distribution falls flat in court, faces 25-year sentence
Posted on June 05, 2009U.S. Attorney Joseph P. Russoniello and DEA Special Agent in Charge Anthony D. Williams announced that Dr. Ramon Scruggs, a Tustin doctor who counted former Angels Troy Glaus and Scott Schoeneweis as patients, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to illegally...
Orange County 'mosque spy" seeks $10 million from FBI
Posted on June 05, 2009Craig Monteilh, a fitness consultant from Irvine who says he spied on mosques for the FBI, has filed a claim alleging the agency did not pay him for his services and allowed him to be sent to prison for actions...
Government center part of unprecedented "safety zone" in gang injunction
Posted on June 04, 2009Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James C. Chalfant granted a new injunction against the Barrio Van Nuys gang, singling out the Van Nuys government center and the Van Nuys High School as part of a "safety zone" needing special protection...
Budget crisis closes Ventura County clerk's offices an hour early, daily
Posted on June 04, 2009The Ventura County Superior Court has announced that its clerk's offices will close for one hour early every day beginning on July 1. The clerk's office will be open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., rather than the customary 5...
New partners for Dykema and Venable in LA
Posted on June 03, 2009Dykema and Venable LLP each announced the addition of a new partner to their Los Angeles offices yesterday. Thomas F. Hanley III made a lateral move from Freeman, Freeman & Smiley to join Dykema?s Real Estate Practice Group, while labor...
San Diego appeals court awards Starbucks a venti reversal
Posted on June 03, 2009A California appeals court reversed a ruling that had ordered Starbucks Corp. to pay more than $100 million in restitution for allowing shift supervisors to share baristas' tips. A class-action lawsuit brought by Jou Chau, a former barista, alleged that...
Irell & Manella's contract with San Bernardino County doubles as assessor lawsuit continues
Posted on June 03, 2009The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday doubled the county's contract with attorney John C. Hueston so he can take the lead in a lawsuit against former Assessor Bill Postmus. Postmus, four of his former executive staff members...
Student's suicide ruled 'unforeseeable and extraordinary' but not result of negligence
Posted on June 03, 2009The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found the Ontario-Montclair School District cted appropriately in disciplining four students who skipped school to attend an immigration rally, even though one boy was so traumatized by threatened punishments that he committed suicide...
Weiss-supportive firms must build bridges to Nuch, say experts
Posted on June 03, 2009Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich ? an environmental litigator at Trutanich-Michel, a boutique firm in Long Beach, Calif. ? defeated Jack Weiss, a prominent Los Angeles city councilman, and became city attorney with more than 55% of the vote on May 19....
Settlement may finally spoil Bratz litigation
Posted on June 03, 2009According to the LA Business Journal, a settlement may be imminent in the Bratz brouhaha. An order issued Tuesday by federal court judge Stephen Larson referred to a settlement conference that was held in Los Angeles on Monday. The order...
One kickback scheme, five lawsuits
Posted on June 03, 2009No fewer than five lawsuits have been filed related to the arrest of Ausaf "Omar'' Siddiqui, a former executive at Fry's Electronics. Siddiqui was charged for allegedly masterminding a multimillion dollar kickback scheme to fuel his gambling habit. Siddiqui was...
Federal judge allows seals to return to San Diego - for now
Posted on June 02, 2009Yesterday U.S. District Court Judge William Hayes reaffirmed his order blocking the city government from doing anything to roust seals from the Children's Pool beach in La Jolla. The clash between federal law, which calls for protecting the seals, and...
Injunction aims to put Norteņos on notice
Posted on June 02, 2009On Monday the Solano County District Attorney's Office filed for an injunction in Solano County Superior Court against the local branch of the Norteņos gang. The complaint seeks injunctive relief to abate a public nuisance. District Attorney David Paulson said...
Parole agent settlement reaches $900,000
Posted on June 02, 2009Rebecca Hernandez, a Southern California parole agent who filed a lawsuit against the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation two years ago, has been awarded a $900,000 settlement. A supervisor in the agency's Huntington Park parole unit, Hernandez had sued...
Emulex wants the skinny on Nicholas before Broadcom takeover
Posted on June 02, 2009Emulex Corp. has asked a court to block a $764-million hostile takeover bid from Irvine chip maker Broadcom Corp. until Broadcom comes clean about messy criminal charges pending against its former chief executive, Henry Nicholas III. The lawsuit, which was...
Trutanich names chief deputy, chief of staff and transition team
Posted on June 02, 2009Los Angeles City Attorney-elect Carmen Trutanich Friday named former chief deputy district attorney Curt Livesay as his chief deputy and former Assistant U.S. Attorney William W. Carter as his chief of staff. Carter is currently a partner with Musick Peeler...
Lawsuits hope to stop proposed NFL stadium in Industry
Posted on June 02, 2009On Sunday a new round of lawsuits were filed against the NFL Stadium being built in Industry, citing the Brown Act as their legal grounds. The Brown Act, which was put into California legislation back in 1953, prohibits secret meetings...
City council committee may no longer bogart the loophole
Posted on June 02, 2009Two years ago, the Los Angeles City Council approved a temporary moratorium on new medical marijuana dispensaries. The purpose of the interim ordinance, which will expire on Sept. 14, was to give city leaders time to draft regulations that limit...
Davis death sentence upheld, but faces years of appeals
Posted on June 02, 2009The California Supreme Court yesterday upheld Richard Allen Davis' death sentence for the 1993 kidnap and murder of 12-year-old Polly Klaas, ending the first step in an appeals process that likely has a decade or more left to go. The...
Firm collaboration yields new child care center in LA
Posted on June 02, 2009On June 1, Munger, Tolles & Olson and O?Melveny & Myers, along with investment firm Oaktree Capital Management, started work preparing a new joint child care and early education center in downtown Los Angeles. Operated by Bright Horizons Family Solutions,...
MGA says pre-appeal transfer of Bratz worst case scenario
Posted on May 27, 2009MGA Entertainment Inc. asked a federal appeals court on Tuesday to halt the transfer of its Bratz dolls to Mattel Inc. while it appeals a judge's ruling. In an emergency motion, MGA contends a court order to hand over trade...
Perata kickback investigation ends
Posted on May 27, 2009Federal prosecutors on Wednesday declined to file corruption charges against former state Senate leader Don Perata, clearing the way for his campaign for Oakland mayor next year. The U.S. attorney's office in Sacramento announced its decision 2 1/2 months after...
Infiltrated Mongols motorcycle gang hit with racketeering indictment
Posted on May 27, 2009A number of Mongol motorcycle gang members have pleaded guilty to charges stemming from an indictment that accused them of drug trafficking, murder and other offenses. In October, law enforcement agents served more than 100 arrest warrants in six states...
Embattled former Countrywide CEO still has cards to play
Posted on May 27, 2009According to prosecutors and legal experts, the sheer volume and complexity of the cases against Angelo Mozilo, the former Countrywide CEO, open opportunities for shrewd legal maneuvering. He could use the federal and state courts against each other to stall...
Governator's budget plan eliminates billions from state programs
Posted on May 27, 2009Faced with a ballooning deficit and a clear signal that voters won't pay more to fix it, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger released a budget plan Tuesday that would eliminate welfare, drop 1 million poor children from health insurance, cut off...
Prop 8 supporters and opponents prepare for ongoing battle
Posted on May 27, 2009Less than 90 minutes after the California Supreme Court released its ruling on Proposition 8, both sides had already e-mailed supporters soliciting funds anticipating a new ballot measure on gay marriage that could reach voters in 2010. Gay leaders say...
Credit rater monopoly status questioned in pending suit
Posted on May 26, 2009Ron Grassi, who had retired five years ago after a 35-year career as a trial lawyer, is back in the game. setting up a war room in his Tahoe City home to single-handedly take on Standard & Poor's, Moody's Investors...
Two choices to relieve overcrowding: redistribute or release
Posted on May 26, 2009Local officials have vowed to fight a proposal by the governor to shift 23,000 state prisoners to overcrowded local jails during the next three years, in order to cut $1 billion from the state budget. The governor wants to slow...
Hate crime status unlikely for Your Black Muslim Bakery slayings
Posted on May 26, 2009The July 2007 slaying of Michael Wills, in which two members of Your Black Muslim Bakery have been charged, was tinged with racial overtones, yet those men aren't charged with a hate crime. Experts say hate-crime cases are particularly difficult...
Prop 8 decision expected today
Posted on May 26, 2009The clock is ticking on the state Supreme Court's official ruling on Proposition 8. The decision is expected to post to the Court's web site at 10 A.M. Pacific time. In the days after the passage of Proposition 8, three...
Sotomayor Obama's pick for Souter's replacement
Posted on May 26, 2009President Barack Obama, speaking at the White House, said he is nominating Circuit Judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter. Sotomayor, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, would become the...
Supreme Court revisits Hamlet in decision to uphold Prop 8: "We shall have no more marriages ... the rest shall keep as they are"
Posted on May 26, 2009The California Supreme Court today upheld Proposition 8, the voter-approved law restoring a ban on same-sex marriages in the state, but at the same time left intact the more than 18,000 marriages for gay and lesbian couples who wed last...
SoCal residents charged with defrauding Medi-Cal
Posted on May 22, 2009Twenty-five Southern California residents were charged Thursday with seeking payment from the state for providing in-home care to clients who were, in fact, dead, hospitalized or in jail, according to prosecutors. The charges, involving $93,053 in fraudulent claims, were filed...
Federal and local agencies achieve massive 'Hate Gang' takedown
Posted on May 22, 2009Five indictments charged a total of 147 members and associates of the Varrio Hawaiian Gardens gang, and federal and local agencies had arrested 63 people in a sweep early Thursday. According to the indictments, the Latino street gang waged a...
Ticketmaster finds it hard to be a saint in New Jersey, moves for venue change
Posted on May 22, 2009In recent months, 10 putative class-action suits have been filed in federal courts in six states over Ticketmaster's alleged practice of redirecting online shoppers for concert tickets to the Web site of a subsidiary, TicketsNow, that sells them at a...
Rumor mill yields Wilson Sonsini CEO as ambassador to Japan
Posted on May 22, 2009According to various published reports in the Japanese media, the head of Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati has been chosen as the U.S. ambassador to that country. John Roos has been Wilson, Sonsini's CEO since 2005 and has been a...
Delta smelt controversy spawns a new lawsuit
Posted on May 22, 2009The Pacific Legal Foundation, a Sacrament-based conservative legal organization, filed a lawsuit Thursday on behalf of three San Joaquin Valley farming operations, claiming that the federal government has no constitutional authority to oversee the endangered smelt...
Schiavone development case resurfaces
Posted on May 20, 2009The city of Riverside spent $132,826 in public money in 2007 and 2008 defending and settling an environmental group's legal challenge to a subdivision being developed by Riverside City Councilman Frank Schiavone. The group, Friends of Riverside's Hills, sued the...
Closures and furloughs on the docket for LA Superior Court
Posted on May 20, 2009Facing a $90 million shortfall in the upcoming year, the Los Angeles Superior Court will close most courthouses' doors and furlough employees once a month starting July 15, according to Court leaders who made the announcement yesterday. Courts would close...
Hasta la vista, Resident Evil: Governator and AG want violent videogame ban reinstated
Posted on May 20, 2009Governor Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown will appeal the US Supreme Court to reinstate a law banning the sale and rental of violent video games to minors. A federal appeals court struck down the law in February claiming it...
WilmerHale welcomes David Marcus to the LA office
Posted on May 19, 2009Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP has announced that David C. Marcus has joined the firm?s Los Angeles office as a partner. He will be a member of the firm?s Litigation/Controversy Department and its complex commercial and intellectual property...
Connolly Bove adds former White & Case partner to LA office
Posted on May 19, 2009Connolly Bove Lodge & Hutz LLP announced the addition of Glenn W. Trost to its Los Angeles office as a partner in the firm's Intellectual Property Group. Glenn Trost focuses his practice on intellectual property litigation, acting as lead counsel...
Grant for environmental law clinic goes to UC Irvine
Posted on May 19, 2009The University of California, Irvine School of Law has received a $2 million grant to start an Environmental Law Clinic, the first of several legal clinics envisioned for the new law school. An anonymous foundation of global reach has provided...
LA deputy DA files suit against county on behalf of military reservists
Posted on May 19, 2009In a class-action lawsuit filed May 4, Los Angeles County deputy district attorney Anthony Colannino contends that the county and its district attorney, Steve Cooley, are not giving reservists like himself all the compensation to which they are entitled because...
Class actions get more room to maneuver under Prop 64
Posted on May 19, 2009The California Supreme Court ruled yesterday that class actions over alleged fraud can go forward, even if it's impossible to tell whether every plaintiff was harmed by deceptive ads. The ruling is important because it clarifies that Proposition 64, passed...
Circumventing evidence via Blackberry, but for how long?
Posted on May 18, 2009Here's yet another episode in the ongoing saga of Public vs. Private in the Electronic Age: San Bernardino County officials hired counsel John Hueston of Irell & Manella to investigate allegations of time-card fraud and other problems in the county...
Civil suit reveals widespread abuse in Monterey diocese
Posted on May 18, 2009Next month the Diocese of Monterey faces a lawsuit alleging that a migrant who served as an altar boy in Salinas and Arizona was sexually assaulted by two priests for six years, starting in 1988 when the boy was 8...
Medical marijuana appeals to Supreme Court take a hit
Posted on May 18, 2009The Supreme Court today refused to hear appeals from San Diego and San Bernardino counties regarding Proposition 213, which legalized marijuana in California for medical use. Both counties will not accommodate the state law, saying the justices have never directly...
Body parts scheme ends in guilty verdict for Nelson
Posted on May 15, 2009Not even a month after opening statements, Ernest Nelson was convicted yesterday in the $1.5 million cadaver carve-and-sell scheme. A jury found Nelson, 51, guilty of eight counts, including conspiracy to commit grand theft, grand theft and tax evasion...
Desalination plant, given the final go-ahead, still faces uphill from opponents
Posted on May 15, 2009The San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board voted unanimously on Wednesday to approve permit revisions for the biggest seawater desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere, north of San Diego, which will produce 50 million gallons of drinking water daily,...
Kaiser hit with $250,000 fine for privacy violations
Posted on May 15, 2009California health regulators fined Kaiser Permanente's Bellflower hospital $250,000 yesterday for violating patient privacy laws when several hospital employees inappropriately accessed medical records for octuplet mother Nadya Suleman. The California Department of Public Health found the hospital did not do...
Three SoCal counties begin screening immigration status of inmates
Posted on May 14, 2009Law enforcement agencies in three Southern California counties will soon be able to check the immigration status of arrestees when their fingerprints are taken. Law enforcement officials in Los Angeles, Ventura and San Diego will begin running inmates' fingerprints through...
Wage-and-hour Wachovia/stock broker suit settles to the tune of $39 million
Posted on May 14, 2009U.S. District Judge David O. Carter in Los Angeles has approved a $39 million preliminary settlement to resolve the multidistrict litigation between Wachovia Corp. and more than 10,000 stock brokers who alleged that they were denied overtime pay and other...
2010 may no longer be the year to make contact for law students
Posted on May 13, 2009With no sign of a lasting rebound in the wider economy, some law firm leaders are playing it safe by reducing their 2010 summer programs or skipping them altogether. The latest predictions of adjustments come on the heels of dramatic...
SDG&E under fire for four-generator plan
Posted on May 13, 2009San Diego Gas & Electric Co. officials said in a report Tuesday that the region may want to invest in a pool of four backup generators to make sure there is water to fight fire while power is out in...
Al Capone or the Gallo Brothers?
Posted on May 13, 2009Marijuana advocate Cliff Schaeffer says those are California's choices to run the inevitable pot trade. He claims legalization would not only drive the Mexican drug lords out of business but also single-handedly save Central Valley's farmers as well as cities...
Burger King says money from syrup is honey for ads
Posted on May 13, 2009National Franchise Association Inc., which represents over 75% of Burger King's U.S franchise operators, is trying to block plans by the parent company to divert rebates the store operators receive from buying soft-drink syrup into a beefed-up national advertising budget...
Division and dissent not enough to overturn death sentence
Posted on May 13, 2009Lawyers for Kevin Cooper, a Southern California man convicted of murdering four people after escaping from prison, said Tuesday they would take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court after a bitterly divided Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld...
Unfair representation claim not compelling enough to remove Thelen case from federal court
Posted on May 13, 2009The lawsuit filed against Thelen by former employees seeking unpaid wages and vacation time will remain in federal court under a May 11 ruling. Todd Bennett and Matthew Troup sued the defunct firm in San Francisco Superior Court on behalf...
Attorney general files suit against "rip-off" brothers
Posted on May 12, 2009Attorney General Jerry Brown filed a lawsuit today against two brothers, Sean and Michael McConville, who "ripped off homeowners" seeking help in reducing their property tax assessments by billing them nearly $200 each for property tax reassessment that can be...
Greenberg Traurig expands corporate and land development groups
Posted on May 12, 2009Greenberg Traurig LLP announced yesterday the addition of attorneys in its Corporate and Securities, Environmental and Land Development Practice groups. Allan J. Abshez joins as shareholder in the Environmental and Land Development Practice groups where he will continue to work...
Skilling files federal appeal, claiming murky "honest services" application and "pervasive media coverage"
Posted on May 12, 2009Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling has asked the Supreme Court to overturn his 2006 conviction for insider trading. The current appeal says Skilling was improperly convicted of withholding his "honest services" from Enron's shareholders, which would be a violation of...
Marvell backdating case yields no-cash settlement, with attorney fees delayed
Posted on May 12, 2009U.S. District Judge Ronald M. Whyte in San Jose approved a stock options backdating settlement with Marvell Technology Group Ltd. that involves no cash payments to the company. Whyte approved the substance of the deal on May 8 but delayed...
Appeals court rules U.S. gun makers protected by law
Posted on May 12, 2009A U.S. appeals court in San Francisco yesterday rejected a bid by victims of a 1999 shooting rampage at a Jewish community center in Granada Hills to sue a federally licensed gun manufacturer and a distributor. The court said the...
Pasadena Court of Appeals judge possible candidate for Souter replacement
Posted on May 11, 2009Kim McLane Wardlaw, a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals judge whose chambers are located in Pasadena, is among those considered as a candidate to replace Supreme Court Justice David Souter when he steps down from the bench next month. Wardlaw,...
Teacher unions file lawsuit for more school funds
Posted on May 11, 2009The California Federation of Teachers and the Service Employees International Union Local 99 in Southern California filed a lawsuit against the state of California on Thursday. The lawsuit argues that the state must repay schools the amount it's taking away,...
Emissions credit bill supporters gather at LB Airport
Posted on May 11, 2009Lawmakers joined air quality regulators at Long Beach Airport on Friday to urge passage of emergency legislation that allows thousands of Southland small businesses and public agencies to bypass what they say are unreasonable new air quality regulations...
W.R. Grace acquitted of asbestos charges
Posted on May 11, 2009After a five-year court battle, a Montana federal jury on Friday acquitted W.R. Grace & Co. and three former executives of criminal violations of the Clean Air Act in connection with alleged asbestos exposure at its mine in the town...
Wildman Harrold jumps the money train with Bernstein
Posted on May 11, 2009Frederic I. Bernstein has joined Wildman, Harrold, Allen & Dixon's office in Beverly Hills. The former president of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Cos. joins the Chicago-based firm as a partner, bringing with him associate Gregg Ramer. Both came from...
Looking a GIFT horse in the mouth
Posted on May 08, 2009Investigators from the Orange County District Attorney's Gatekeepers Insurance Fraud Team conducted walk-in visits of chiropractic clinics and law offices in 2006 and 2007, posing as "patients" claiming to be suffering from soft tissue damage from car accidents...
SEC making up for loss time
Posted on May 08, 2009In the aftermath of a tidal wave of accusations that they neglected to prevent Bernard Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme, the Securities and Exchange Commission has stepped up enforcement efforts to crack down on investor fraud and other scams. In Los...
LA-builder alleged to conspire with Countrywide to inflate sales, says Phoenix suit
Posted on May 08, 2009Home-buyers sued KB Home in Phoenix federal court Thursday, claiming the builder conspired with Countrywide Financial to inflate appraisals for home sales in Arizona and Nevada. The class-action suit focuses on home sales in the two states since 2006, alleging...
Gang injunction rejected in OC
Posted on May 08, 2009Superior Court Judge Kazharu Makino in Orange County rejected issuing a preliminary gang injunction against four people on Thursday, ruling that the district attorney failed to prove they were gang members. ?This is an indication of the extent to which...
Lewis & Roca take three White & Case attorneys to their new CA office
Posted on May 08, 2009Lewis and Roca has opened its first California office in Silicon Valley's Mountain View with the addition of three intellectual property attorneys from White & Case. The new office is spearheaded by Frank Hiscox and Dana Brody-Brown, who now are...
CAN-SPAM can supersede, says judge
Posted on May 07, 2009A Los Angeles judge, ruling on a case of first impression, has found that the federal CAN-SPAM Act preempts a California law designed to curb false and misleading commercial emails. The case was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court against...
Judge claims "extortion" in asbestos suit
Posted on May 07, 2009A Los Angeles judge has blasted one of the nation's leading plaintiffs firms in asbestos litigation for attempting to obtain an upper hand in the case through what he called a "type of judicially sanctioned extortion." The judge's statements came...
CA firms take top spots in Diversity Scorecard
Posted on May 06, 2009Four of the top five spots in Minority Law Journal's Diversity Scorecard are taken by CA-based firms. Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, based in Palo Alto, ranks first. They are followed by San Francisco-based Townsend and Townsend and Crew. Los...
Fenwick & West calibrates "excess capacity," lays off 22
Posted on May 06, 2009Fenwick & West, having avoided cutting any of its lawyers while laying off staff this past winter, laid off 15 associates and seven more staff on Tuesday. The cuts, which the firm said account for just under 10 percent of...
LA Greenberg office adds Presant to real estate funds group
Posted on May 06, 2009Greenberg Traurig announced today the addition of Sanford C. Presant to their Los Angeles office. Presant joins as shareholder and as Chair of the firm's Real Estate Funds Group. Presant comes to the firm from DLA Piper, where he served...
Litigation boutique dissolves for Steptoe
Posted on May 06, 2009Three lawyers from Los Angeles litigation boutique McNamara, Spira & Smith, including founder Michael McNamara, have joined Steptoe & Johnson's Century City, Calif., office. McNamara joined Washington-based Steptoe as a partner, while Kirsten Spira joined of counsel and J...
Former Peregrine VP sentenced in financial fraud case
Posted on May 05, 2009Jeremy Crook, the former vice president for Peregrine Systems sales in Europe, Middle East and Africa, was sentenced to 27 months in custody for his part in a scheme that destroyed the software maker once valued at $4.72 billion. Crook...
Manatt Phelps partner nominated to UC Board of Regents
Posted on May 05, 2009George Kieffer has been nominated by Governor Schwarzenegger to the University of California Board of Regents. Both he and former Poway Assemblywoman Charlene Zettel were appointed yesterday to replace former regents Judith Hopkinson and John Hotchkis, whose terms expired in...
Medi-Cal cuts prompt suit
Posted on May 05, 2009In February, Gov. Schwarzenegger and the state Legislature enacted a budget that eliminated the provision of nine Medi-Cal ?optional benefits,? including adult dental, psychology, chiropractic, acupuncture, speech therapy, incontinence creams and washes, audiology, optometry and podiatry services...
Judge finds one out of 19 classroom comments "hostile to Christian beliefs"
Posted on May 05, 2009U.S. District Judge James Selna ruled Friday in a lawsuit student Chad Farnan filed in 2007, alleging that teacher James Corbett violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment by making repeated comments in class that were hostile to Christian...
Supergraphics stay while case is still live, says Collins
Posted on May 05, 2009U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins has issued a temporary injunction barring the city of Los Angeles from taking action against SkyTag's supergraphics (multistory images) on at least 18 buildings while the case goes ahead in court. Five of the buildings...
New territory for former Irell partners
Posted on May 05, 2009Three partners at Los Angeles-based Irell & Manella have left to form their own firm, Kendall Brill & Klieger, which opened on May 4. Richard B. Kendall said that he and his colleagues, Laura W. Brill and Robert N. Klieger,...
Polanski not frantic to return to U.S.
Posted on May 05, 2009In a filing in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Monday, attorneys for Roman Polanski said the filmmaker will not come back to the United States this week to meet a court deadline for his surrender, and nor should he...
SEC hits 144 Opinions for pump-and-dump
Posted on May 05, 2009The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged two attorneys, a California company and the company's owner for preparing and issuing fraudulent legal opinions involving unregistered stock that enabled promoters and others to sell shares in a metro Atlanta-based pump-and-dump scheme...
Salary cuts still a certainty at several firms
Posted on May 04, 2009Associate salaries have been a hot topic in the legal industry for the past few months. It's clear firms are hearing from their consultants that they are paying associates too much, but many firms are reluctant to lower salaries for...
Emissions permits at issue again in court rematch
Posted on May 04, 2009State Sen. Rod Wright is carrying a bill that would essentially overturn a sweeping court ruling last fall that halted hundreds of modernization and construction projects across Southern California, due to being unable to obtain air emissions permits needed to...
Klein joins Greenberg Traurig in Silicon Valley
Posted on May 04, 2009Greenberg Traurig announced Friday that Thomas Klein has joined its Silicon Valley office as a shareholder in the Corporate and Securities Practice. His practice will center on start-up and venture capital transactions, mergers and acquisitions, and public company representation...
The potential liability impacts of swine flu
Posted on May 04, 2009Many offices and factories in Inland Southern California are already doing business with fewer workers because of the dour economic situation. With the swine flu epidemic making headlines, employees have to weigh their fitness to work versus an absence that...
LA Episcopal Diocese goes after Newport Beach church for separation legal fees
Posted on May 04, 2009The Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles will try to recover attorneys fees and court costs from the church and some of its members who voted to break away from the Episcopal Church in 2004, resulting in a bitter legal battle...
U.S. government joins Humane Society in slaughterhouse suit
Posted on May 04, 2009The federal government said Friday it is intervening in the Humane Society of the United States' lawsuit against Chino-based Westland/Hallmark Meat Co., a Southern California slaughterhouse whose workers were caught on videotape abusing cattle, leading to the nation's biggest beef...
City attorney campaign devolves into Mr. Unpopularity vs. Gun Guy
Posted on May 04, 2009As the runoff campaign for city attorney candidates hits its closing weeks before the May 19 vote, City Councilman Jack Weiss and attorney Carmen Trutanich have ratcheted up the rhetoric. Weiss has attacked Trutanich for allegedly representing gun owners and...
New Supreme Court vehicle search limits forces Inland police to adapt
Posted on May 04, 2009In the wake of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that limited officers' ability to search the vehicle of someone they have arrested who poses no threat, Inland police agencies find they may have to revamp some policies. Critics argue...
Duroville to stay open for repairs
Posted on May 01, 2009U.S. District Judge Stephen Larson ruled yesterday that the Desert Mobile Home Park, also known as Duroville, will remain open until alternative housing can be built. He also urged residents to relocate "with all deliberate speed." Larson appointed Tom Flynn,...
DNA evidence links 72-year-old man to decades' worth of murders
Posted on May 01, 2009Police in Los Angeles said the DNA of a 72-year-old Los Angeles insurance adjuster has matched evidence found at five murder scenes spanning over two decades. John Floyd Thomas may be connected to around 30 killings and numerous sexual assaults...
Google and Gogol, via Samuelson
Posted on April 30, 2009"The [Google] Book Search agreement is not really a settlement of a dispute over whether scanning books to index them is fair use. It is a major restructuring of the book industry?s future without meaningful government oversight." Pamela Samuelson, the...
Indictments handed down in Bailey murders
Posted on April 30, 2009A grand jury yesterday voted to indict Yusuf Ali Bey IV, the scion of the defunct Your Black Muslim Bakery, for ordering the killings of journalist Chauncey Bailey and two other men in 2007. Prosecutors are likely to bring the...
Oakland council finds a real friend in potential medical marijuana revenue
Posted on April 30, 2009Oakland's City Council last week approved a 1.8% tax on medicinal marijuana sold in the city. Medical-marijuana advocates say if voters pass the proposal in a July election, Oakland would become the nation's first city to directly tax the drug....
Attorney general wants court order to reform Maywood PD
Posted on April 29, 2009After a 16-month investigation that revealed "gross misconduct and widespread abuse" by the Maywood Police Department, California Attorney Gen. Jerry Brown announced yesterday that he would seek a court order to impose reforms on the troubled force. His comments coincided...
New Los Angeles partner for labor law firm
Posted on April 29, 2009Carlton DiSante & Freudenberger LLP announced today that Dan M. Forman has joined the firm's Los Angeles office as a partner. Mr. Forman is an AV rated trial lawyer who represents employers throughout California in litigation and provides advice and....
Potential terrorism foiler program a civil rights minefield
Posted on April 29, 2009A new system to report suspicious activities that officials say could uncover terrorism plots is being embraced by a growing number of law-enforcement agencies, as civil liberties groups focus on the program's potential for violation of individual rights...
Court of Appeal beckons review for former Fisher & Phillips partner
Posted on April 29, 2009Reversing a trial court, the California 4th District Court of Appeal ruled on April 27 that Robert J. Bekken is entitled to have a state court review a 2006 arbitration award that favored the law firm in a dispute that...
Court of Appeals socks it to Long Beach PTA in airport expansion hearing
Posted on April 28, 2009The city of Long Beach has tried to expand the Long Beach Airport terminal and build a new parking garage since 2006, only to see its efforts stymied by legal challenges over the findings of a required environmental impact report....
Court of Appeal rules church takeover attempt unlawful
Posted on April 28, 2009Iglesia Evangelica Latina Church announced that the California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, ruled today in the case of Iglesia Evangelica Latina, Inc., et al., vs. Southern Pacific Latin American District of the Assemblies of God, et al...
Dreier connection contributes to Mason Miller collapse
Posted on April 28, 2009Marc Dreier, founder and managing partner of Dreier LLP, was charged in December with securities and wire fraud stemming from an alleged investment fraud that led to $400 million in losses and the collapse of his New York firm. Mason...
Guilford to America's Sheriff: Gonna give you some time, Carona
Posted on April 28, 2009Despite the ten-page filing, U.S. District Judge Andrew Guilford sentenced former Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona to 5 1/2 years in prison and ordered to pay a $125,000 fine after being convicted on one count of witness tampering. Federal prosecutors,...
Larson decides Mattel can keep the Bratz
Posted on April 28, 2009It's been almost a year since Mattel and MGA went to battle over the Bratz dolls and whose property they really were. Last summer a jury decided that Mattel was correct in accusing MGA of stealing the Bratz idea when...
Ex-Heller suit calls partners to come out come out wherever they are
Posted on April 27, 2009Former employees of Heller Ehrman sued at least 179 former partners on Friday, demanding $32 million for the largest group of creditors in the defunct firm's bankruptcy. The adversary proceeding filed in the Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of...
California luminaries nominated to Obama administration posts
Posted on April 27, 2009Alejandro Mayorkas, currently a partner at O'Melveny & Myers and the former U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, was named last week to head U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Former California state conservationist Pearlie S. Reed was also named to be...
Qualcomm and Broadcom shake hands, promise no more fighting
Posted on April 27, 2009Qualcomm has agreed to pay $891 million to Broadcom over four years as part of a settlement to end a bitter dispute over handset-technology patents. According to a joint statement released Sunday, the companies will license each other?s patents and...
Malpractice claim back to haunt Perkins Coie
Posted on April 24, 2009The 2nd District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles reinstated a legal malpractice claim against Perkins Coie in a protracted battle between the law firm and one of its former clients. The lawsuit was brought by In4Network, which hired the...
Lawyers go back to court for their BAR/BRI settlement fees
Posted on April 24, 2009Law students and others who purchased the BAR/BRI preparation course for state bar exams will get to keep the $49 million settlement they reached with the course makers in 2007. But attorneys who worked on their behalf will now return...
No surprises here
Posted on April 24, 2009Judge Victoria Chaney dismissed the two pesticide/sterility lawsuits against Dole today on the basis of "widespread fraud."
Delayed sentencing in pot case, with judge suggesting defendant may get off easy
Posted on April 24, 2009A federal judge in Los Angeles yesterday postponed sentencing until June for Charles Lynch, the former owner of a Central Coast marijuana dispensary. Despite having the blessing of the city's mayor and other public officials, he was charged with violating...
Victorville financial crisis analyzed via grand jury
Posted on April 24, 2009A recent audit concluded Victorville is facing a financial crisis with hundreds of millions of dollars in deficits, defaults and overstated assets. With an eye to unraveling all that, the San Bernardino County grand jury has questioned several Victorville officials...
Trial begins in body snatcher case
Posted on April 23, 2009Opening statements were delivered yesterday in the trial of a man accused of trafficking in stolen cadavers. Deputy District Attorney Marisa Zarate said Ernest Nelson took in close to $1.5 million buying and reselling human body parts that were donated...
Cooley-McBee alliance to aid clean energy obtain capital
Posted on April 23, 2009McBee Strategic Consulting LLC and Cooley Godward Kronish LLP today announced a strategic alliance specifically designed to help clean energy technology companies access public-sector capital. Cooley and McBee started working jointly with clients in 2008 to facilitate the preparation of...
Hennesay and McFadden elected to Allen Matkins partnership
Posted on April 23, 2009Allen Matkins announced today that attorneys Ken Hennesay and Michael McFadden have been elected to the firm partnership. Hennesay practices in the bankruptcy and creditors' rights practice group in the firm's Orange County office. He specializes in planning and execution...
Oracle's past history portends post-merger trims
Posted on April 23, 2009There are apparently a lot of unanswered questions regarding the Oracle buyout of Sun Microsystems, but one thing seems certain: job cuts. Case in point: Keith Facer, a commercial transactions lawyer who was working at BEA Systems when it was...
DA and Sheriff butt heads yet again
Posted on April 23, 2009In another chapter of what seems to be an ongoing saga of DA vs. Sheriff, last week Susan Kang Schroeder publicly blamed a fizzled criminal case on a law enforcement "code of silence." The prosecution of Christopher Hibbs, an Orange...
Ogletree's Chang now President-Elect of KABA
Posted on April 22, 2009Ogletree Deakins announced last week that Marrian S. Chang, an associate in the firm?s Los Angeles office, was installed as President-Elect of the Korean-American Bar Association of Southern California (KABA) on April 16 at the KABA?s Twenty-Ninth Annual Installation and...
Homeland Security ordered to reopen immigration cases
Posted on April 22, 2009U.S. District Judge Christina A. Snyder has issued a preliminary ruling ordering the Department of Homeland Security to reopen the immigration cases of nearly two dozen people who were denied green cards because their U.S. citizen spouses died during the...
Thousands of cases under review after lab tech admits lying
Posted on April 22, 2009Lab technician Aaron Layton, according to district attorneys, worked on about 3,700 cases in Riverside County, as many as 4,800 in San Bernardino County and about 3,000 in San Diego County. These cases have been called into question because Layton...
Banana fraud hearings begin
Posted on April 21, 2009A three-day hearing opens Tuesday to review allegations by the Dole Fresh Fruit Co. that two attorneys have recruited clients to make false claims about a pesticide making them sterile while working on Nicaraguan banana farms. Dole accuses Los Angeles-based...
Judge orders FBI to perform CAIRful search for surveillance files
Posted on April 21, 2009A federal district court judge yesterday gave the FBI 30 days to make available for review 48 pages of surveillance memos pertaining to Southern California Muslim organizations that had previously been released only in heavily redacted form. ACLU staff attorney...
Brownstein Hyatt expands employment and litigation group with Johnnie James
Posted on April 21, 2009Johnnie A. James has joined the Los Angeles office of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck as a shareholder in the firm's employment and litigation groups, the firm announced yesterday. With nearly 20 years of experience in employment litigation issues, James? practice...
O'Donnell fights federal indictment as arguments begin in Katrina case
Posted on April 21, 2009Last month, Pierce O'Donnell filed a motion to dismiss a federal indictment against him that claimed he reimbursed members of his law firm, among others, for contributing to a committee supporting a presidential candidate and influenced the committee's treasurer to...
Hiring freeze thaws at Sheppard Mullin
Posted on April 21, 2009Yesterday LALP reported that Sheppard Mullin hired Pamela L. Westhoff from DLA Piper. Turns out that's not all the hiring going on in their Los Angeles office. Yesterday the firm also announced the addition of corporate partner Brian D. Weimer...
Carona's attorneys plead for client's freedom during appeal
Posted on April 20, 2009It took former sheriff Mike Carona's lawyers ten pages to argue why their client should remain free while he appeals a witness tampering conviction. The filing raises several issues that will be argued during the appeal, including U.S. District Court...
Sheppard gains real estate partner in LA office
Posted on April 20, 2009Pamela L. Westhoff has joined the Los Angeles office of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP as a partner in the firm's Real Estate, Land Use and Environmental practice group. She joins Sheppard Mullin from DLA Piper in Los Angeles....
Recession hits venture capital funding hard, with some hopeful glimmers
Posted on April 20, 2009Story in the LA Times today says the recession has pummeled venture capital funding down to pre-dotcom boom levels. This, of course, is no surprise to most California firms. But the article goes on to shed a little positivity on...
Baca, Charlton, O'Malley and Prather named to state posts by guv
Posted on April 20, 2009Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca was named by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to the Corrections Standards Authority on Friday. The governor also announced three attorneys to state posts. Palmdale attorney James Charlton was named to the Lahontan Regional Water Quality...
Seeking the bubble reputation? It's on the 'Net.
Posted on April 20, 2009California schools make a good showing on the 2009 Reputational Scores from U.S. News Surveys of Academics and Practitioners. Brian Leiter lists the top 40 for both academic and lawyer/judge reputation, with some brief methodological explanations, here: have at it.
DLA Piper welcomes Burns and Brown to Los Angeles
Posted on April 17, 2009Yesterday DLA Piper announced the expansion of their international tax practice in Los Angeles and New York. Ray Brown joins the firm as a principal economist in the group, and Paul Burns joins as of counsel. Their team will be...
Million-dollar settlement for patients and their families affected by Kaiser's overburdened transplant program
Posted on April 17, 2009Kaiser Permanente, the nation's largest HMO, has agreed to pay $1 million to settle claims on behalf of five patients alleging mishandling of its kidney transplant program, endangering lives and causing deaths. The arbitration claims were filed shortly after a...
A viable alternative to temping for deferred associates
Posted on April 17, 2009A new LL.M program at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law is said to be designed specifically with deferred associates in mind. According to Dean Michael Schill, the curriculum develops real-world legal skills such as drafting...
Octuplet-encumbered matriarch seeks trademark for nickname
Posted on April 16, 2009According to two applications filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Nadya Suleman is looking to trademark her more widely-known nickname, "Octomom." Filed last Friday, the applications claim Suleman wants the rights to her moniker for use on clothing...
Bankruptcy filing won't stop the shopping
Posted on April 16, 2009General Growth Properties, owner of the Glendale Galleria and other prominent malls, filed today for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, hoping to reduce and restructure its debt. The company had warned last fall that such a move was imminent if negotiations...
Housing expert weighs in on Duroville as civil trial continues
Posted on April 16, 2009Jack Kerin, a former California housing official who worked for 30 years in the Department of Housing & Community Development, testified today in the continuing Duroville trial. Kerin was called by attorneys for Duroville's tenants and said that closing mobile...
New OC DNA program raises privacy and safety concerns
Posted on April 16, 2009Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas, embroiled in a long feud with the Sheriff's Department over who should oversee DNA gathering and analysis, quietly rolled out a program that allows OC defendants charged with some misdemeanors and low-level drug felonies...
English-only allegations yield settlement for Latino workers
Posted on April 16, 2009A class-action lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Los Angeles resulted in a settlement in favor of Latino workers in California and Texas who were allegedly punished for speaking Spanish in their workplaces. The lawsuit alleged...
You say tomayto, I say tomahto: Attorneys and Rocco argue worth of $1.20 ketchup bottle
Posted on April 15, 2009Only one man could steal Chapman U. headlines from John Yoo: Steve Rocco. The self-styled writer/educator and conspiracy theorist is being tried for allegedly stealing a 14-ounce Heinz bottle from a dining area outside the cafeteria at the university...
Former Clinton border czar to be named the same by Obama administration
Posted on April 15, 2009Former U.S. attorney and school superintendent Alan Bersin is expected to be the Obama administration's choice for the new U.S.-Mexico "border czar." Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano may name Bersin to the post today during a visit to the border...
69-year-old charged with murder at Korean retreat
Posted on April 15, 2009Riverside County district attorney's spokesman John Hall said yesterday they would charge John Chong with one count of murder and three counts of attempted murder. Chong, 69, went on a shooting spree at a Roman Catholic Korean retreat in Southern...
Bitter Lawyer's rack story makes Rush's stack of stuff
Posted on April 14, 2009Bitter Lawyer posted a story last week about the effects, for good and ill, of breast implants on a woman's career in the law. (And lest you think LALP is shoehorning on a slow news day, there are a couple...
All eyes on Montali as ex-Brobeck partners argue for taking clients to new firms
Posted on April 14, 2009In a hearing closely watched by both sides of the Heller Ehrman bankruptcy, ten former Brobeck partners and their new firms argued Monday that they were completely in their rights to continue to work with their clients. The ex-partners contend...
Cell phone smuggling holds sway in CA prisons
Posted on April 14, 2009Cell phones have replaced drugs as the contraband of choice among prisoners. Last year California prison officials confiscated about 2,800 cell phones statewide, which is double the number from the previous year. According to officials, cell phones allow gang leaders...
DA's office came, saw, and conquered with a sentence that paves a long way to be happy for Spector
Posted on April 14, 2009After a little over two weeks of deliberations, a jury in Los Angeles found Phil Spector guilty of second-degree murder in the 2003 shooting death of Lana Clarkson. The 69-year-old faces a mandatory life sentence, with 18 years to be...
Jenner & Block make L.A. their new home
Posted on April 14, 2009Jenner & Block announced Monday the opening of its new Los Angeles office, which will be led by two former partners in the Los Angeles office of Chicago's Kirkland & Ellis. Rick Richmond and Brent Caslin have joined Jenner in...
Dewey lawyer thinks of the children first in landmark Iowa case
Posted on April 13, 2009Vivian Polak, chair of Dewey & LeBoeuf's diversity committee, filed an amicus brief on behalf of the National Association of Social Workers, the Middleton Center for Children's Rights and other nonprofit organizations in Varnum v. Brien, the case that went...
ITC puts a stop to high-def TV imports, claiming patent infringement
Posted on April 13, 2009The International Trade Commission issued an order on Friday in favor of Morrison & Foerster client Funio, blocking rival Vizio from importing high-definition televisions into the United States. This confirms a ruling by an administrative law judge in the Washington,...
L.A. county D.A. bombards Brown Act violators with warnings
Posted on April 13, 2009For more than 50 years, California's open meetings law, the Brown Act, has required members of city councils, school boards and a host of other local government agencies to conduct business in public. Every state gives the public the right...
Priest sues bishop and diocese over rumors
Posted on April 10, 2009Michael Nguyen, a Roman Catholic priest who became a diocesan priest in 2003, is suing Bishop Tod Brown, five of his fellow priests and the Diocese of Orange, claiming they have spread lies about him and harmed his reputation. He...
Developers of nonexistent Trump Baja resort get sued by Donald
Posted on April 10, 2009Last month investors in Donald Trump's proposed 526-suite Trump Ocean Resort Baja filed lawsuits in Los Angeles Superior Court when the project fell through and no forthcoming refunds. Buyers were led to think that Trump played an active role in...
Racial profiling prompted cops to get everyone lined up at barbershops, says ACLU
Posted on April 10, 2009A federal lawsuit filed Wednesday accuses Moreno Valley police officers of racial profiling in raiding black-owned barbershops without warrants last April. The lawsuit further contends that the police department, the Sheriff's Department and a state inspection board conducted searches under...
Disner dies at 62
Posted on April 10, 2009Eliot Disner, A former McGuireWoods partner who objected to a $49 million settlement with the parent company of BAR/BRI, the United States' largest provider of bar review courses, died on Saturday in Los Angeles at 62. According to his obituary,...
City reads riot act to College Hospitals over patient Skid Row dumping
Posted on April 09, 2009City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo's office reported yesterday that a $1.6 million settlement has been reached with two Southern California hospitals accused of improperly discharging and dumping psychiatric patients on Skid Row in Los Angeles. Officials allege that over two years,...
Technology and privacy: are they mutually exclusive, especially in the office?
Posted on April 09, 2009US federal law is beginning to delineate the limits of digital privacy in the office. In spite of the Fourth Amendment and the Stored Communications Act of 1986, employers are looking into ways of accessing their employees' emails, texts, and...
Quinn Emanuel cuts 10, despite revenue gains
Posted on April 09, 2009JDJournal had it right yesterday: Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges laid off 10 staff members this week. Urquhart, in an e-mail to The National Law Journal, said that no lawyers had been laid off. He declined to comment further....
Satriani may wait in vain for Coldplay's heads on a silver plate in court
Posted on April 08, 2009A little over four months after guitarist Joe Satriani accused the Grammy-winning band Coldplay of copyright infringement, lawyers for the band denied any stealing of the alleged "substantial portions" of Satriani's song "If I Could Fly" to comprise its big...
"Straw buyer" indictment hits Southern District
Posted on April 08, 2009An indictment unsealed Tuesday charges two dozen people, including a documented gang member, with racketeering offenses stemming from an extensive mortgage fraud scheme based in San Diego. The defendants identified properties throughout Southern California that had been on the market...
Opening testimony in Duroville trial
Posted on April 08, 2009The trial to determine Duroville's fate got underway yesterday in U.S. District Court in Riverside. The U.S. government wants Duroville shut down, arguing that efforts have failed to fix its leaking sewer pipes and bad or no electrical and water...
Edwards Angell gets CA foothold
Posted on April 08, 2009Boston's Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge has opened its first California office in the Los Angeles area. Jon-Paul LaPointe (left), who joined Edward Angell as counsel in the litigation management group from his own firm, will head the new office....
Spector's legal troubles have his finances at an ebb tide
Posted on April 08, 2009Since his arrest, Phil Spector has used the services of at least 11 criminal defense attorneys -- including one who charged $1 million for a year of representation, four private investigators, five paralegals, a jury consultant and a stable of...
Prop 8 debate at Southwestern on April 13th
Posted on April 07, 2009The Southwestern Law School will host a debate on Proposition 8 featuring three law school deans. Arguing pro-Prop will be Dean John Eastman of Chapman University and UC Irvine's very own wallflower Dean Erwin Chemerinsky will be arguing con-Prop. Southwestern's...
Nevada judge hits lawyers, their client, and their firm with over $200,000 in sanctions
Posted on April 07, 2009Last Tuesday U.S. Magistrate Judge Valerie Cooke of Nevada District Court imposed sanctions amounting in a little over $20,000 against the firm Liner Grode Stein Yankelevitz Sunshine Regenstrief & Taylor for the "scorched earth litigation tactics" of two of its...
McIntosh new corporate chair for Allen Matkins
Posted on April 07, 2009Allen Matkins Leck Gamble Mallory & Natsis LLP announces the addition of Daniel McIntosh as chair of the firm's corporate practice group in the firm's Los Angeles and Century City offices. McIntosh joins the firm as the former co-chair of...
CSC ruling puts final nail in body donation suits
Posted on April 07, 2009Evelyn Conroy fought for 10 years to hold the regents of UC Irvine responsible for mishandling her deceased husband's body, which he had donated to the university. That fight ended yesterday, when the California Supreme Court unanimously decided to dismiss...
Phoenix and Los Angeles new stomping grounds for Gonzalez Saggio & Harlan LLP
Posted on April 07, 2009Gonzalez Saggio & Harlan LLP, one of the nation's largest minority-owned law firms, announced today that it continues to expand its nationwide presence with the opening of two offices in Phoenix, Arizona and Los Angeles, California. In Los Angeles, Gonzalez...
Law student conference aims to change some "evil ways"
Posted on April 07, 2009About 50 students from Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford and other premier law schools gathered at Stanford Law School over the weekend as part of Building a Better Legal Profession's National Conference of Student Leaders. The two-day event focused on changing...
Reposting of MySpace rant in newspaper not invasion of privacy
Posted on April 06, 2009Cynthia Moreno posted an unflattering "ode" to her hometown and its inhabitants on her MySpace page while she was a student at UC Berkeley. The posting, meant apparently only for Ms. Moreno's friends, got picked up her hometown newspaper, resulting...
You sign it, you buy it: CA lawmakers approved mandatory supplemental judicial benefits
Posted on April 06, 2009The Recorder builds on a story we reported on last week, about judges in California not giving up perks like gym memberships and car allowances even in the face of massive layoffs and budget cuts. And as Cheryl Miller's article...
Recession hits GCs, especially outside counsel
Posted on April 06, 2009Of all the budget issues confronting general counsel -- and there are plenty -- outside counsel fees and their lack of predictability are the two biggest worries, according to a November 2008 survey of 115 general counsel by Altman Weil....
Future of Duroville at stake in trial before a concerned district judge
Posted on April 06, 2009For more than a year, U.S. District Judge Stephen Larson has rebuffed demands by the U.S. attorney's office and the Bureau of Indian Affairs to close the notorious desert shantytown known as Duroville and displace up to 4,000 poor farmworkers....
State workers' salary cap proposal moves to the next level
Posted on April 06, 2009State Assemblyman Anthony Portantino has introduced a bill that would freeze the pay of state employees making more than $150,000 a year. It was approved unanimously on Wednesday by the Assembly Public Employees, Retirement and Social Security Committee and goes...
As MA, CT and IA go, will CA?
Posted on April 06, 2009The Iowa ruling on gay marriage has constitutional law experts and attorneys predicting an influence over California justices, who will rule on the future of Prop 8 in early June. ?This underscores that these are basic constitutional principles that these...
Medi-Cal reduction still blocked
Posted on April 06, 2009US District Court Judge Christina Snyder in Los Angeles issued a ruling on April 3 rejecting the State?s motion that the court reconsider a previous order that blocked a 5% reduction for Medi-Cal Pharmacy providers that was scheduled to go...
Immigrants win legal victory against wage and other labor violations
Posted on April 06, 2009Courts and government agencies are beginning to deal with longstanding allegations of underpaid immigrant workers. Attorney General Jerry Brown's office has a new Underground Economy Unit that investigates businesses for suspected wage abuse, workers' compensation and tax fraud...
LA firms make impressive showing in NLJ's Appellate Hot List
Posted on April 03, 2009The National Law Journal asked its readers to nominate firms with stellar records in appellate advocacy. Dozens of nominations poured in for firms that really have been shaking things up. Firms that scored at least one significant appellate win since...
Department of Water may have to use city budget money for customer refunds
Posted on April 03, 2009A Superior Court judge has issued a tentative ruling ordering the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to repay its customers nearly $30 million that city officials had hoped to spend on other services. The ruling said the Department's...
AMPAS not amused by faux Oscar use
Posted on April 03, 2009Last Friday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences sued Monte Carlo Productions, Chief Executive R. Bruce Nixon and company president John Brown in U.S. District Court in Atlanta. The Academy accused Monte Carlo of copyright and trademark violations...
The fine art of dealing with startup entrepreneurs in a fragile economy
Posted on April 03, 2009As the recession threatens to take down a whole slew of startups, corporate lawyers are trying to avoid being left with unpaid bills. But in Silicon Valley, attorneys are caught between their law firms' demands for revenue and the need...
ICERS in heat over JPMorgan's securities lending
Posted on April 02, 2009The Board of Trustees of the Imperial County Employees' Retirement System filed a class action lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase Bank on behalf of plans that invested in its securities lending program, which lost most of its value after the collapse...
ACLU sues Immigration over "barbaric" conditions at B-18
Posted on April 02, 2009The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California filed a lawsuit against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement late Wednesday over conditions at a holding facility for immigrant detainees. The suit alleges that up to 200 detainees are at times crammed...
Retired judge vs. AIG over bonus program
Posted on April 02, 2009A lawsuit filed yesterday in Los Angeles Superior Court accuses AIG of constructing an executive compensation program to guarantee bonuses, even as the company knew it was sliding into insolvency due to its fraudulent activities. AIG has countered that it...
Menden joins Sonnenschein's venture technology group
Posted on April 01, 2009Craig Menden has joined Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP as a partner in the firm?s venture technology group. Menden advises technology companies, including those involved with networking, Internet and computer software and hardware. He also works with clients in the...
KPMG sued over New Century audits
Posted on April 01, 2009Legal firm Thomas, Alexander & Forrester LLP filed two suits today on behalf of a trustee of New Century Financial Corp. The suits allege that the company's auditor, KPMG LLP, assisted in and certified "materially misstated financial statements," and that...
First-year associate salary cuts may no longer be off-limits
Posted on April 01, 2009Yesterday Allen Matkins cut first-year associate salaries. All first-years at Allen Matkins Leck Gamble Mallory & Natsis are now making $145,000, and those joining in the fall will make that much as well. Some associates at higher levels will also...
Judge rules Coast Guard not responsible for protecting blue whales
Posted on April 01, 2009The Center for Biological Diversity lost a lawsuit that would have forced the U.S. Coast Guard to better protect blue whales after several were killed by ships in the Santa Barbara Channel off Southern California. The lawsuit was filed after...
Suits against Blackwater keep on rolling in
Posted on April 01, 2009Following quickly on the heels of an earlier lawsuit, the former Blackwater is again accused of random murder and coverup. According to a lawsuit filed today in California federal court, three security guards for the state-owned and operated Iraqi Media...
Witness-tampering conviction to stay against America's Sheriff
Posted on March 31, 2009Earlier this month former Orange County Sheriff Michael Carona asked a federal judge to have his witness-tampering conviction thrown out. That bid was denied today by U.S. District Judge Andrew Guilford, who also denied two other motions aimed at undoing...
CA judges not giving up perks
Posted on March 31, 2009In the wake of worker furloughs and slashed programs to close a $41 billion budget gap, the state of California still has more than 400 judges in Los Angeles County who each make more than the chief justice of the...
Suit demands recognition and health care for veteran "lab rats"
Posted on March 31, 2009Six servicemen are suing the CIA and the US Army on behalf of thousands of American soldiers who underwent chemical, biological and drug tests in the 1950s-1970s during the Cold War. The servicemen say they are seeking recognition and health...
Manatt Phelps lays off 17
Posted on March 31, 2009Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, citing continued challenges caused by the recession, has laid off 17 lawyers and eight staff members, according to the law firm. The Los Angeles firm, which has more than 400 lawyers, issued a statement on Monday:...
First Amendment battle brews in Victorville
Posted on March 31, 2009In a move that legal experts said is patently against the law, a local judge in Victorville ordered a Daily Press reporter on Monday not to print the name of a witness who testified in open court. The Daily Press...
Attorney-client privilege still an issue in Broadcom case
Posted on March 31, 2009Federal prosecutors in the criminal stock options backdating case involving Broadcom Corp. have appealed a recent decision finding that certain statements made by William Ruehle, the former chief financial officer of the Irvine, Calif.-based technology company, are protected under the...
Amex beats travel insurance overcharge rap without having to travel to the courtroom
Posted on March 31, 2009In a rare case of a national class action going to trial, American Express Co. has defeated a consumer class action in California alleging that it overcharged customers as much as $310 million for travel insurance. The win was all...
Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell announce layoffs
Posted on March 31, 2009The chairwoman of Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell, Jerry Clements, announced today the firm laid off associates, counsel and staff for economic reasons. She declined to give a headcount but said the layoffs affected all 13 offices. No partners were...
Karatz opts for a not guilty plea
Posted on March 30, 2009Former KB Home Chief Executive Bruce Karatz entered a not guilty plea before U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Jeffrey W. Johnson in Los Angeles. Earlier this month Karatz was indicted on charges of manipulating stock options and concealing his actions...
Financial and securities fraud cases on the rise, so are associate hires
Posted on March 30, 2009In the midst of so many layoffs, plaintiff firms with securities class action practices are hiring associates. Thanks to an influx of large financial and securities fraud cases, 60-lawyer Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann has added eight associates firmwide since...
Obama noms for Treasury include USC VP
Posted on March 30, 2009Over the weekend President Obama announced his intent to fill three top Treasury Department positions, filling in more of the top ranks under Secretary Timothy F. Geithner at an agency that has been slow to fill vacancies. Among those nominees...
Governor announces Superior Court bench appointments
Posted on March 27, 2009Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has announced several appointments to the Superior Court benches. The governor appointed Thadd A. Blizzard, Ben G. Davidian, Geoffrey A. Goodman and Louis R. Mauro to judgeships with the Sacramento County Superior Court. In El Dorado County,...
Changes in medical marijuana policy get complicated in court
Posted on March 27, 2009In Los Angeles on Monday, a judge postponed the sentencing of a former marijuana dispensary owner and ordered the Department of Justice to put its new position in writing by the end of April, though he said he didn't think...
Even in economic downturn, opportunity knocks in Los Angeles
Posted on March 27, 2009At least eight law firms have opened offices in the Los Angeles area since the start of the current economic downturn about eight months ago ? more than any other major metropolitan region in the nation. To do so, many...
CA prosecutors revive 1985 disappearance case involving "Clark Rockefeller"
Posted on March 26, 2009After decades of inaction on the case, California prosecutors plan to present evidence to a grand jury about the mysterious 1985 disappearance of a couple who rented their guesthouse to the man who now calls himself Clark Rockefeller, the clearest...
San Joaquin River project approved by Congress
Posted on March 26, 2009California's second longest river stands to get water again as part of a massive public lands bill. The $400 million project, approved by Congress, will increase the amount of water released from the Friant Dam near Fresno into the San...
O'Donnell: Contribution prohibition does not include reimbursement
Posted on March 26, 2009Pierce O'Donnell, the lead attorney representing Hurricane Katrina victims in litigation against the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, has filed a motion to dismiss a federal indictment against him, arguing that the statute under which he is charged does not...
Nossaman responds to stimulus plan by adding to infrastructure group
Posted on March 26, 2009Nossaman, in preparation for an influx of government-funded construction projects due in part to the recent economic stimulus plan, has brought on the eighth attorney in the past year to join its growing infrastructure practice group. Kathryn Pett, a former...
Quinn Emanuel move entrepreneurial conditions eastward to Chicago
Posted on March 26, 2009Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, a Los Angeles-based business litigation law firm with about 400 lawyers, has quietly set up shop in Chicago, creating an office of six attorneys this month following the hiring of a new Chicago partner...
Settlement to help CA homeowners taken in by contractor fraud
Posted on March 25, 2009Attorney General Jerry Brown and the Contractors State License Board said Monday they have finalized settlement of a lawsuit that alleged thousands of Californians were overcharged for substandard in-home work. The settlement with the primary company, SRVS Charge Inc...
Alien smuggling and forced labor scheme undone in federal court
Posted on March 25, 2009The owner of two elder care homes in Long Beach has pleaded guilty on March 23, 2009 to bringing undocumented aliens into the United States and forcing two of them to work at her businesses. Evelyn Pelayo, 53, a resident...
Britney's father and revolving door of lawyers run a tight ship, so beware
Posted on March 25, 2009Britney Spears' life is controlled by her father and her affairs handled by a cadre of attorneys seemingly as numerous and indispensable as the backup dancers who surround Spears onstage. At least 17 lawyers and firms have had a hand...
District judge has "no confidence" in state to run prison healthcare
Posted on March 25, 2009U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson, who seized control of California's prison health system in 2006, rejected a bid by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown to end court oversight of healthcare in state prisons and to drop...
Violence against the homeless to be tracked as hate crimes
Posted on March 25, 2009Los Angeles County supervisors on Tuesday unanimously recommended that sheriff's deputies, prosecutors and the county Human Relations Commission start tracking and reporting attacks on the homeless as hate crimes. The vote came as the economy worsens and the number of...
Prosecutor in Spector trial says to know him is to loathe him
Posted on March 24, 2009In a two-hour closing argument supplemented by an elaborate audiovisual presentation, Deputy District Attorney Truc Do portrayed legendary music producer Phil Spector as a spoiled and sadistic celebrity who tormented women with impunity because he resided in an elite "world...
Prison guard union calls for reform at Hastings conference
Posted on March 24, 2009California, with the largest prison system in the country, faces overcrowding levels that have reached nearly 200% of capacity. The federal courts have taken over managing the quality of mental health care in one civil rights suit and the physical...
Biggest pension funds in U.S. want to lead suits against BofA
Posted on March 24, 2009The California Public Employees? Retirement System, or CalPERS, and the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS) asked to lead investor lawsuits over the acquisition of Merrill Lynch & Co. by Bank of America Corp. Investors in the group lawsuits allege...
Federal judge holding on marijuana sentence
Posted on March 24, 2009Last August, a jury convicted Charles Lynch on five counts related to running a dispensary and selling medical marijuana to customers under 21, considered minors under a federal statute that prohibits the sale of marijuana and other narcotics to minors...
Assembly passes extended unemployment benefits
Posted on March 24, 2009The state Assembly on Monday passed a bill to extend unemployment benefits in California, as lawmakers here took the first steps in drawing billions of dollars from the federal stimulus package. The bill was passed 76-0, and would extend unemployment...
Security firm accused of covering up Christmas Eve party murder
Posted on March 23, 2009A federal lawsuit filed in San Diego claims an intoxicated employee of a private security agency randomly murdered an Iraqi vice president's guard after a 2006 Christmas Eve party and the company tried to cover it up. The suit filed...
LA judge finds banana lawsuits a little rotten
Posted on March 23, 2009For more than a decade, dozens of lawsuits have been filed against Dole and many other defendants on behalf of thousands of workers who claim that they became sterile after being exposed to DBCP, or dibromochloropropane, on banana farms roughly...
Feinstein wants less development and Mojave
Posted on March 23, 2009California's Mojave Desert may seem ideally suited for solar energy production, but concern over what several proposed projects might do to the aesthetics of the region and its tortoise population is setting up a potential clash between conservationists and companies...
Assembly's concealed weapon magnum opus under fire
Posted on March 23, 2009A bill introduced in the state Assembly last month would change a state law that currently gives county sheriffs or chiefs of police final say in who can carry a gun. By stripping the local law enforcement discretion, the bill...
DLA announces reductions in partner payouts
Posted on March 23, 2009DLA Piper informed all of its U.S. partners on Friday that it will reduce pay for most of them by 11.5 percent in 2009, while strong performers will get more money. The firm projects revenue will decline 7 percent in...
Countrywide points fingers of their own at AIG
Posted on March 20, 2009In a lawsuit filed this week, Countrywide Home Loans Inc. complained that its insurer American International Group Inc. didn't cover more than $43 million in losses from failed real estate loans, many of which were bundled and sold as securities...
Plaintiffs object to amended complaint in Thelen case
Posted on March 20, 2009Two former Thelen employees who have sued their former employer in San Francisco Superior Court for unpaid wages and vacation time are objecting to a stipulation in a separate case in federal court that allows an amended complaint to be...
AG to announce details of med lab suit
Posted on March 20, 2009The state is suing seven private medical laboratories, alleging they overcharged Medi-Cal as much as 400 percent for lab tests conducted over the last 15 years and costing the program hundreds of millions of dollars. The suit, which was originally...
Courts likely to uphold AIG bonus tax
Posted on March 20, 2009Courts probably will uphold Congress?s effort to tax employee bonuses at American International Group Inc. and other companies receiving federal bailout funds, several legal experts said. ?Given the state of the law, it will be unlikely that the Supreme Court...
Holder nips former pot policy in the bud
Posted on March 19, 2009U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. said Wednesday that the Justice Department has no plans to prosecute pot dispensaries that are operating legally under state laws in California and a dozen other states -- a development that medical marijuana...
Cultural divide over gay marriage inspires negotiation
Posted on March 19, 2009In the wake of Proposition 8, compromise abounds almost as much as contention. Many of these seem to center around removing the word "marriage" from the argument. Last week two Southern California students spearheaded a ballot initiative that would eliminate...
Minesinger reappointed to SoCal Fair Board
Posted on March 19, 2009Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger reappointed attorney Kenneth W. Minesinger on Tuesday to the Southern California Fair Board of Directors. Minesinger has worked as an attorney at Minesinger Law Firm since 2008 and previously worked for Heritage Law Offices in 2007...
Kay comes out swinging at contempt hearing
Posted on March 19, 2009"These charges should never have been brought," a defiant Philip Kay told State Bar Court Judge Lucy Armendariz in an extremely contentious Wednesday morning session in San Francisco. Refusing to answer most questions and demanding to be referred to an...
Two cases reconsider affirmative action ban
Posted on March 19, 2009On March 17 a state appeals court approved the Berkeley school district's voluntary integration plan, concluding that its unique plan to consider the racial makeup of a neighborhood, rather than individual students, does not violate the terms of Prop...
School officials not over the moon about "Rent" symptomatic of deeper issues, says ACLU
Posted on March 18, 2009The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California announced a suit against Newport-Mesa Unified School District and Corona del Mar school officials for allegedly breeding an atmosphere hostile to female and gay students, citing the brief cancellation of a school...
Christensen taps Morrison & Foerster as replacement appeals counsel
Posted on March 18, 2009Terry Christensen, the lawyer who was convicted last year on charges related to wiretapping his opponent in a high-profile child support case, has replaced the attorneys handling his appeal. This month, two lawyers representing Kerkorian in civil litigation associated with...
Shinderman joins Milbank
Posted on March 18, 2009Milbank, Tweed Hadley & McCloy LLP announced last week that Mark Shinderman has joined the firm as a partner. He will be a member of the Firm?s Financial Restructuring Group, resident in the Los Angeles office. Previously, Mr. Shinderman was...
New Yoo review spurs new protests, defenses
Posted on March 18, 2009At the beginning of March, the government released several previously undisclosed memoranda by John Yoo, now infamous for the so-called "torture memos." The Justice Department will soon complete a review of his conduct. According to a Newsweek report, the department...
Hazarding guesses at next bench picks
Posted on March 18, 2009A day after President Obama picked his first nominee for the federal bench, there is rampant speculation over who will fill the vacancies on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In California, three Northern District judges are seen as...
9th Circuit deems open membership rule "reasonable"
Posted on March 18, 2009In a one-paragraph decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the Hastings College of Law of the University of California was within its rights to deny recognition to a branch of the Christian Legal Society....
Legal budget cuts resulting in ousting of in-house
Posted on March 18, 2009While mass layoffs at big law firms have grabbed headlines in recent months, in-house attorneys also have had their jobs taken away. At tech companies like Creative Labs, eBay, Symantec Corp. and Cadence Design Systems Inc., lawyers have been let...
Immigrant detention fees a surprising source of income for cities
Posted on March 17, 2009Roughly two-thirds of the nation's immigrant detainees are held in local jails, and the payments to cities and counties for housing them have increased as the federal government has cracked down on illegal immigrants with criminal records and outstanding deportation...
Eight-year civil suit ends in favor of drinking water
Posted on March 17, 2009On Friday, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Lawrence W. Fry ruled in an eight year old battle over whether Vail Lake should remain a source of drinking water. Bill Johnson and the Rancho California Water District clashed in court over...
Cardinal to testify in clergy abuse case
Posted on March 17, 2009Marking only the second time he has taken the witness stand to answer questions about alleged molestation by priests, Cardinal Roger Mahony is expected to testify in a clergy sexual abuse lawsuit in Fresno today. Two brothers say they were...
Signs still blocking out the scenery in LA
Posted on March 17, 2009In a tentative ruling, U.S. District Judge Audrey B. Collins found the city of Los Angeles in contempt for taking enforcement actions against one outdoor advertising company, World Wide Rush LLC, which has 21 supergraphic sites in the city. The...
Pay cuts may save more than layoffs, group says
Posted on March 17, 2009The Project for Attorney Retention is part of the Center of WorkLife Law at the University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, and it advocates for reduced hours as a way for law firms to retain...
Former DTSC director joins Alston & Bird
Posted on March 17, 2009Alston & Bird LLP named Maureen Gorsen, formerly the Director of California?s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), as a partner in the firm?s Environmental and Land Development Practice. During her tenure as director, Gorsen increased the DTSC?s transparency and...
Ruling allows city to void union contracts
Posted on March 17, 2009In the first ruling of its kind, a bankruptcy judge held the city of Vallejo, Calif. has the authority to void its existing union contracts in its effort to reorganize, holding public workers do not enjoy the same protections Congress...
McMartin defense lawyer to revisit Alamo
Posted on March 17, 2009In 1991, California attorney Danny Davis represented evangelist Tony Alamo in a child-abuse case that never went to trial. Nearly 20 years later, Davis is going to bat for Alamo again to fight federal charges of taking girls across state...
Obama taps Bleich for special counsel
Posted on March 17, 2009Jeffrey Bleich, a partner at Munger, Tolles & Olson, has been asked to become special counsel to President Obama. A former California co-chairman of the Obama for America campaign, Bleich will provide legal advice and counsel to the Office of...
Free associating
Posted on March 16, 2009A handful of Am Law 100 firms are offering stipends to hundreds of law graduates if they work for a public interest group for a year. Legal aid organizations are eager for free help, though they say they need to...
Obama noms for judgeships gotta have heart
Posted on March 16, 2009President Obama is preparing to name six new federal judges for California, an opportunity to put his stamp on the judiciary that has court-watchers recalling his campaign promises to be bipartisan in his selections. Many liberals say they are hoping...
Cleanup costs at Stringfellow are in good hands with Allstate et al., court finds
Posted on March 16, 2009On Monday the court affirmed an appellate ruling that four insurers are liable for over $500 million in one of California's most notorious environmental disaster sites, the Stringfellow Acid Pits in Riverside County, even though the state's own actions were...
"The most extravagant proposal for inmate health care" may go to Supreme Court
Posted on March 16, 2009The legal challenges over California's inmate medical and mental health care systems date back to 1991 and initiated studies that found the system was indeed failing prisoners. Some doctors, for example, reused tongue depressors, passing them from patient to patient...
Hedges, lawyer and archaeologist, succumbs to melanoma at 57
Posted on March 13, 2009George Hedges, the Hollywood lawyer to celebrities such as Mel Gibson and Simon Cowell who became a celebrity himself for his discoveries of the fabled ancient city of Ubar and the frankincense trade route in Yemen, died Tuesday at his...
America's Sheriff says indictment is vague, conviction should be set aside
Posted on March 13, 2009Mike Carona, the former sheriff of Orange County, Calif., who was acquitted on five counts of conspiracy and mail fraud charges earlier this year, has asked a federal judge to set aside a sixth count of witness tampering on which...
Lawyers continue to question the Chevron way
Posted on March 13, 2009Civil rights lawyers, who accused Chevron Corp. of human rights abuses in Nigeria for a decade only to lose a jury verdict in December, now accuse the oil giant of trying to scare off future civil rights cases by seeking...
Furloughs for deputy AGs
Posted on March 13, 2009A Sacramento County Superior Court judge said Thursday that California's deputy attorneys general can be furloughed twice a month just like any other state worker. Judge Patrick Marlette, in affirming a tentative ruling he issued in the morning, said Thursday...
New law school exam may replace the LSAT
Posted on March 12, 2009Two UC Berkeley academics have created a test they say is more predictive of success in the field than the LSAT. Former Berkeley law professor Marjorie Shultz and Berkeley psychology professor Sheldon Zedeck include questions in their exam about how....
New legislation allows judges to reduce mortgage loan balances
Posted on March 12, 2009Federal legislation under consideration that would allow judges to reduce mortgage principals could be a key to Inland Southern California's economic recovery, says one local economist.The so-called "cram-down" measure gives the U.S bankruptcy courts authority to modify existing primary home...
Pass on warrant squeaks by in Ninth Circuit
Posted on March 12, 2009An en banc court ruled 6-5 Wednesday that San Jose cops didn't need a warrant to arrest plaintiff Steven Fisher in his home, after Fisher had holed up there for 12 hours and threatened to shoot the police with his...
Wildman Harrold gains Ginsburg
Posted on March 11, 2009he executive director of the entertainment and media law and policy program at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law, David R. Ginsburg, has joined Wildman, Harrold, Allen & Dixon as of counsel. Ginsburg, a former television...
Pillsbury settles with SonicBlue for $10 million
Posted on March 11, 2009Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman has reached a $10 million settlement in a malpractice dispute with bankrupt client SonicBlue, a court filing Tuesday shows. The firm will pay $7.6 million and forgo $2.4 million in outstanding fees to SonicBlue's estate, according...
Shumway joins Stroock in LA
Posted on March 11, 2009Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP, a leading corporate, entertainment and litigation law firm, has added former William Morris agent Jeff Shumway to its burgeoning entertainment practice. Shumway will join the Los Angeles office's entertainment practice that includes well-known entertainment...
Blood contract not enough and too much in Santa Ana
Posted on March 11, 2009The Fourth District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana agreed with a lower court Monday when it ruled that the blood contract between two Korean businessmen was unenforceable and gratuitous.In October 2004, Jinsoo Kim and his friend Stephen Son were...
I don't like Mondays
Posted on March 10, 2009Four major firms announced job cuts on Monday, totaling more than 300 attorneys and 522 support staff. White & Case plans to cut a total of 200 associates and 200 administrative staff. Morgan, Lewis & Bockius cut 55 attorneys and...
Torah battle goes to court
Posted on March 10, 2009A legal battle between the widow of a San Fernando Valley rabbi and his former assistant will go before a secular judge after the assistant flouted a religious court's ruling that he relinquish a set of Torahs. Rita Pauker's lawyer...
Cussler loses hat over "Sahara" flap
Posted on March 10, 2009Best-selling author Clive Cussler has been ordered to pay $13.9 million in legal fees to Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz's film-production company, Crusader Entertainment, in the wake of Cussler's unsuccessful lawsuit over the movie adaptation of his 1992 book "Sahara," according...
Universal health care attempt in SF may face high court
Posted on March 10, 2009San Francisco's experiment in universal health care has survived a legal hurdle with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' refusal to reconsider its September ruling, setting up an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. On March 9, the 9th...
Police union calls Soliah home from MN
Posted on March 10, 2009The Los Angeles police union Monday called on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to oppose a bid by former Symbionese Liberation Army member and fugitive Sara Jane Olson to serve her supervised parole in Minnesota, where she would be near her family....
First three in First Gov sentenced
Posted on March 10, 2009After pleading guilty to loan-modification fraud, three people connected with a company that scammed hundreds of distressed homeowners in Southern California have received sentences ranging from probation to six years in prison. In November, state Attorney General Edmund G...
Self-help centers crop up in CA
Posted on March 09, 2009In response to a growing tide of pro se litigants in federal courts, legal centers in at least three districts have been set up to provide services and advice to parties who represent themselves in civil cases.The newest center opened...
ACLU goes to bat for homeless in Santa Barbara
Posted on March 09, 2009The American Civil Liberties Union is suing the city of Santa Barbara on behalf of the homeless population, claiming city officials have committed ?unconscionable? violations in prosecuting transients. The ACLU filed the federal lawsuit over the weekend in the hopes...
Obama administration feels for Yoo
Posted on March 09, 2009Mary Mason, senior trial counsel for the DOJ, asked Northern District Judge Jeffrey White to dismiss a complaint against former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo, saying civil litigation is not an appropriate forum to address core national security issues...
Cal Supremes play Hamlet: we will have no more marriages, and the rest shall keep as they are
Posted on March 06, 2009Two justices who backed marriage for gays and lesbians last year signaled they intend to uphold the measure that took that right away. Chief Justice Ronald George and Justice Joyce Kennard, who helped form the 4-3 majority that let same-sex...
New dean at Western State University College of Law
Posted on March 06, 2009William E. Adams Jr., associate dean of the Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad Law Center, has been named the new dean and president of Western State University College of Law in Fullerton, Calif. Adams, who starts in June, replaces Dean...
Millions at stake in Kaiser/Downey suit
Posted on March 06, 2009A judge's ruling today may result in the Kaiser healthcare system paying out millions of dollars to about 2,000 of its employees who allege they were victims of wage and rest period violations, an attorney for some of the workers...
Prop 8 decision may come as early as Thursday, with thousands watching nearby
Posted on March 04, 2009"Sometimes, what's legal and not legal is not the same thing as what you can do or what you should do"
Posted on March 03, 2009Latham softens layoff blow with severance, for present and (hopefully) future
Posted on March 02, 2009Chevron hopes tossing business-license fee isn't reaching for the impossible
Posted on February 27, 2009"Time to match the reality of access to the rhetoric of equality"
Posted on February 26, 2009Clare Pastore, a law professor at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, has a column in today's Delaware Online in which she details the importance of civil counsel and how to fund lawyers for all who need...
Safety goes head to head with right-to-know in animal research fights
Posted on February 26, 2009Scientific researchers whose work involves testing monkeys, dogs or other creatures sometimes face the wrath of animal-rights activists. Now, their employers -- public universities and research institutions -- are curtailing information they once made public to protect the scientists, saying...
Would-be art "collector" will be leaving Las Vegas
Posted on February 26, 2009Authorities today arrested a fugitive living under an alias in Las Vegas, a decade after he allegedly stole close to half a million dollars' worth of art from Laguna Beach galleries, officials said.Detectives of the Laguna Beach police and Las...
New "john school" program aims to lessen the thousand cards to play in street life
Posted on February 26, 2009A new effort by law enforcement officials to stem prostitution in Los Angeles, the Prostitution Diversion Program (or "john school) is built on the belief that a heavy dose of in-your-face shame and scare tactics can do more to dissuade...
Furloughs and shortened hours predicted for California courts
Posted on February 26, 2009In California's budget crisis, the nation's largest state judiciary will be hit by severe budget shortages that may prompt shortened court hours, furloughed employees, loss of 50 new judgeships and less money for state-funded lawyers. Even before the current budget...
McKenna Long adds 17 Brown Winfield lawyers to real estate and litigation practices
Posted on February 26, 2009McKenna Long & Aldridge expanded its Real Estate and Litigation Practice groups today. Seventeen attorneys formerly with Los Angeles-based Brown Winfield Canzoneri Abram, Inc. join MLA?s Los Angeles office. The addition of the Brown Winfield group will bring the firm?s...
Top UC law schools launch Washington, D.C. field placement program
Posted on February 26, 2009Students at UC Berkeley School of Law and UCLA School of Law are learning first-hand how laws are made in a new internship program in Washington, D.C. called UCDC Law. This uniquely collaborative program among the UC law schools places...
Nordman attorneys chosen for 2009 Super Lawyers list
Posted on February 25, 2009Diane Becker, Glenn Dickinson, Ronald Gill, Larry Hines, Jonathan Fraser Light, Joel Mark and William Winfield, attorneys with Ventura County?s largest law firm, Nordman Cormany Hair & Compton LLP, have been chosen for inclusion on the 2009 Southern California Super...
Ackerman and Nedeau join Nossaman
Posted on February 25, 2009Law firm Nossaman LLP today announced that former California Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman has joined the firm as a partner in Orange County. Christopher Nedeau, a seasoned trial lawyer, has joined the firm in San Francisco as a civil...
With civil rights suit on horizon, times are getting rocky for Miley
Posted on February 25, 2009The uproar over the Miley Cyrus photo that some Asian groups have deemed offensive has spilled over to the courtroom. According to court documents obtained by Access Hollywood, a Los Angeles woman is suing Miley over the photograph ? for...
Alleged in-law of al-Qaeda official gets bail
Posted on February 25, 2009Over the strong objections of the government, a federal judge in Orange County agreed to grant bail Tuesday for the brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden's alleged security coordinator in a case that is stirring debate about the FBI's use of...
Payouts to departing Heller partners equal more than $7 million
Posted on February 25, 2009Heller Ehrman paid out more than $7 million to 35 departing or retiring partners in 2008, a Friday bankruptcy filing by the firm shows. The filing paints a picture of Heller's shrinking capital coffers as a steady stream of partners...
The challenges of renewable energy
Posted on February 25, 2009The Recorder continues its Green Letter Law Hot Topics series with a discussion by two Paul Hastings attorneys about the tension between finding alternate energy sources and preserving natural habitats. Check it out here.
Six associates promoted to partnership at Munger Tolles
Posted on February 25, 2009In the Los Angeles office, Manuel F. Cachán will focus on complex litigation. Cachán served as a law clerk to Judge Arthur L. Alarcon of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Cachán received his J.D. from Harvard Law School....
Sheppard Mullin attorney layoffs total 25 for the year
Posted on February 25, 2009Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton announced on Tuesday that by the end of this week, the firm will have laid off 25 attorneys since the beginning of the year.According to an e-mailed statement, some terminations were performance-related while others were...
Kay challenges legitimacy of State Bar Court in his own defense
Posted on February 24, 2009San Francisco trial lawyer Philip Kay is boldly attacking the State Bar's discipline system as inherently unfair in his own defense against the agency. Part of his strategy is referring to documents and reports generated in a former State Bar...
Climate change practice groups emerge in CA
Posted on February 24, 2009The Obama administration has fast-tracked domestic policy related to climate change and energy independence to the top of its agenda. And California is leading the way for the nation in climate change policy changes, including the new Green Chemistry Initiative...
Governator got raw deal with execution moratorium, switches tactics
Posted on February 24, 2009Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his lawyers have switched strategies in the legal battle to resume executions, agreeing to submit revised lethal injection protocols for public review rather than continue appealing state court decisions that the redrafted rules are illegal...
$30 million Tae Bo verdict gets its own transformational training on appeal
Posted on February 24, 2009Seyfarth Shaw will get a new trial in a legal malpractice case brought by the creator of a popular exercise program, who won a $30 million verdict against the law firm in 2005. A California state appeals court has thrown...
Counselor dares Orangewood to move on religious discrimination
Posted on February 23, 2009A counselor is suing the Orangewood Children's Home for religious discrimination after she was suspended for six weeks without pay because a group of teens she was supervising overheard Christian music at the Huntington Beach Pier, the lawsuit says. Maureen...
Relative of Afghan militant arrested for perjury and naturalization fraud, claims blackmail
Posted on February 23, 2009A Tustin man of Afghan origin, who failed to mention in his application for U.S. citizenship that his brother-in-law is designated as an Al Qaeda terrorist, appeared in federal court Friday to answer charges that could send him to prison...
California farmers face a glass less than half full
Posted on February 23, 2009In a blow to California farmers struggling with a persistent drought, federal authorities released projections on Friday showing that little or no water would be available from federal sources this year for agricultural use. State water supplies were also expected...
Disruptive billboards prompt regulation rethink in L.A.
Posted on February 23, 2009Kevin Fry, president of the Washington-based anti-billboard group Scenic America, said Los Angeles has the worst billboard problem in the country. The proliferation has prompted officials to impose a moratorium on new ads as the city considers new regulations aimed...
L.A. firms face 2009 with cautious optimism and fiscal conservatism
Posted on February 23, 2009With looming uncertainty over prospects for 2009, major Los Angeles-based firms are counting 2008's single-digit revenue growth ? or even a slight decline ? as a boon.They're bracing for worse conditions in 2009. Revenue grew slightly at Gibson, Dunn &...
Feds take on war monument, church-state, and donut holes
Posted on February 23, 2009And that's just one case.The Supreme Court said today it would decide whether the government can maintain a cross in a national park to honor fallen soldiers in the latest test of church-state separation. At issue is an 8-foot-tall cross...
Judge rules rights were not respected in government raid
Posted on February 20, 2009An immigration judge has dismissed the case of a Mexican man facing deportation after ruling that federal agents violated his rights during a work site raid last year in Van Nuys. Los Angeles Judge A. Ashley Tabaddor issued a written...
Courts score wins in new California budget
Posted on February 20, 2009After five round-the-clock days of legislative horse trading and stalemates, California's judicial leaders scored two key political victories Thursday as state lawmakers finally closed a $40 billion budget deficit. Among the three-dozen bills legislators sent to Gov...
Ontario PD no longer feel like somebody's watching them
Posted on February 20, 2009The city of Ontario has reached a $2.75 million settlement with 125 of its police officers who sued over being secretly videotaped while dressing in the department's men's locker room. The class-action lawsuit was brought on behalf of the 125...
Law School Admissions Council sued for discrimination by blind student
Posted on February 20, 2009The National Federation of the Blind and a blind law school applicant filed a discrimination lawsuit against the national law school admissions test administrator, The Law School Admissions Council, in a California Superior Court. The lawsuit, which was filed on...
Dean Again offers expertise, gets slammed, rebuts. Must be Thursday.
Posted on February 19, 2009Erwin Chemerinsky is making the rounds, lending his analysis of the Prop 8 legal challenges. Heather MacDonald of the WSJ recently took the dean to task rather harshly for his role in a lawsuit that alleges that authorities in the...
Bonds' team keeping mum on defense strategies
Posted on February 19, 2009Former Giants slugger Barry Bonds made headlines two years ago, first by getting indicted, and then by enlisting a squadron of the Bay Area's best defense attorneys. Now, with jury selection approaching in a case that, from a legal standpoint,...
Breach of contract suit might have Akin wishing for a different Del
Posted on February 19, 2009The Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego has hosted a long list of dignitaries, including 11 U.S. presidents and royalty from at least 10 countries. San Diego's "beacon of grandeur and refinement," a seaside resort and a National Historic Landmark,...
Scholarly impact study includes four CA universities
Posted on February 19, 2009Brian Leiter's Law School Rankings has just released a study of "the top ten law faculties with the most scholarly impact" between 2005-2008. Three California universities make the top 10, with UCLA having been studied but not ranked. The top...
Hells Angels: Trademark suit against Fawn to be filed
Posted on February 18, 2009The Hells Angels motorcycle club is suing a Visalia, Calif., woman in federal court, alleging "cyberpiracy" and trademark infringement. The club says Fawn Myers illegally registered more than 20 Internet domain names associated with the Hells Angels and then placed...
Miss lead? Copper's better for condors in SoCal.
Posted on February 18, 2009Because it is now against the law to use leaded bullets in the "condor range" in parts of southern California, new copper and other non-lead bullets have found a permanent home there. Lead is a toxic heavy metal that has...
Seagate sues insurer over unpaid legal costs
Posted on February 18, 2009Disk drive giant Seagate Technology settled a patent fight with Cornice Inc. two years ago. Problem is, according to Seagate, its insurer won't pick up the tab for its lawyers at Fish & Richardson. With the company now suing its...
Internal Affairs deems defender's actions "very poor judgment" but not fraud
Posted on February 17, 2009A draft report from county investigators faulted Alternate Public Defender Timothy Chandler for ?very poor judgment? for his role in a real estate deal involving his wife and a lawyer he hired, but it concluded there was insufficient evidence that...
Yoo escapes protests at Chapman
Posted on February 17, 2009In Berkeley, city leaders branded him a war criminal and human rights activists put up a billboard to denounce him. But in suburban Orange County, Professor John Yoo -- the primary architect of the Bush administration's policy on harsh interrogation....
Wrongful-death suit names nearly two dozen defendants in killing of teen
Posted on February 17, 2009The family of a gay middle school student who was shot to death in class has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit that accuses the school district, a shelter and a gay rights organization of failing to protect him. The teenager, Lawrence...
New city attorney for Atherton
Posted on February 17, 2009Longtime public law attorney and Bay Area native Wynne Furth has taken over as city attorney for the town of Atherton. Furth was selected to represent the town by its newly contracted law firm, McDonough Holland & Allen PC. Before...
Court-martial in Iraqi unarmed detainee killings begins
Posted on February 17, 2009Opening statements are expected today in the court-martial of one of two Marine Corps sergeants charged with the killing of unarmed detainees during one of the fiercest battles of the Iraq war. A military panel at Camp Pendleton will have...
Bluetooth suits either dismissed or settled with no economic recovery
Posted on February 17, 2009The multidistrict cases alleging that Motorola Inc. and Apple Inc. did not adequately warn consumers about potential hearing loss caused by their Bluetooth headsets have dissipated into a whimper. Regarding Motorola's Bluetooth headsets, a federal judge in Los Angeles approved...
DMV unfairly targeting medical marijuana users, claims suit
Posted on February 16, 2009Americans for Safe Access, which promotes legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes and research, has sued the DMV, asking for a written policy that says medical marijuana should be treated the same as prescription drugs. The suit contends that the DMV...
Kaiser's emergency procedures under fire in statewide suits
Posted on February 16, 2009The Sacramento region's largest health care provider, Kaiser Permanente, runs a special, doctor-to-doctor call operation that has become a target of legal actions alleging malpractice and failure to pay claims. The doctors' telephone hub, unique in California medical care, has...
Tran Organization achieves guilty pleas for cards up their sleeves
Posted on February 16, 2009Tai Khiem Tran, 47, pleaded guilty Saturday in San Diego to conspiring to participate in a racketeering enterprise, the "Tran Organization," in a scheme to cheat casinos across the United States and Canada, Acting Assistant Attorney General Rita M. Glavin...
February 11th deemed a Fine day to be disbarred
Posted on February 13, 2009The California Supreme Court ordered Wednesday that a prominent Beverly Hills attorney be disbarred for filing a stream of disqualification motions and other papers containing what the State Bar Court found to be false and frivolous charges regarding members of...
Taca Airlines sued by passengers for inhumane treatment
Posted on February 13, 2009Dozens of passengers stuck in a grounded airplane for about nine hours at Ontario International Airport have sued Taca airlines, claiming negligence and false imprisonment. The lawsuit, filed Monday on behalf of 75 plaintiffs in Los Angeles County Superior Court,...
Recession robs 800 of their jobs, with more cuts on the horizon
Posted on February 13, 2009Almost 800 associates and legal staff nationwide returned home jobless Thursday after eight firms conducted mass layoffs, citing an unprecedented downturn in demand. California was not left unscathed by Thursday's cuts, although it's unclear how many people in the state...
Offices of "vexatious litigant" shut down by California state bar
Posted on February 13, 2009The State Bar of California has shut down three Southern California offices of attorney Mitchell W. Roth, who was recently declared a vexatious litigant by a federal judge in Los Angeles, according to the State Bar. Roth, who had expanded...
$39.3 million payout may be delayed by appeal
Posted on February 13, 2009A judge has granted final approval of a $39.3 million settlement in a class-action lawsuit that alleged real estate brokers received kickbacks for referring clients to Property I.D. Corp., a company that produces natural hazard disclosure reports. More than 300,000...
High times for often unsuspecting "pot lawyers"
Posted on February 12, 2009California's booming, half-legitimate marijuana economy is throwing off all kinds of legal work, and not just to attorneys advising medical co-ops. It's also meant fees for real estate and tax lawyers who may or may not know their clients' true...
Citing ethics violations, judge suspends ADA for four years
Posted on February 12, 2009A California State Bar judge has suspended an assistant district attorney in Santa Clara County for four years based on findings he withheld evidence and committed other abuses of power.In a scathing 67-page ruling, Judge Pat McElroy described Ben Field...
Malpractice claim settled between Irell & Manella and Charter Communications
Posted on February 12, 2009Irell & Manella has settled a $150 million legal malpractice lawsuit with one of its largest clients, Charter Communications Inc., according to a Feb. 10 filing in the case.The settlement was reached following two months of mediation, according to court...
Revenues, profits per partner drop at O'Melveny & Myers
Posted on February 12, 2009O'Melveny & Myers reported a small decline in revenues and a more substantial drop in profits per partner as the firm grappled with the impact of the economic downturn. The Los Angeles-based firm reported this morning that profits per partner...
Ruling to cease mountain development projects
Posted on February 12, 2009A little-noticed three-month-old Los Angeles court ruling is destined to cause big headaches for Southern California businesses and bring a pair of critical major mountain projects to a halt.The ruling, issued Nov. 3 by Superior Court Judge Ann I. Jones,...
Whittier Law School announces new dean
Posted on February 12, 2009University of Denver law professor Penelope Bryan, an expert in family law, has been chosen as the new dean of Whittier Law School in Costa Mesa. She will start work July 1, after a national search that started in September...
Prosecutors justify trying teen as adult for "execution-style premeditated murder"
Posted on February 12, 2009Ventura County prosecutors provided details of the classroom shooting of 15-year-old Larry King by suspect Brandon McInerney in a document explaining their decision to try the juvenile suspect in adult court. Senior Deputy District Attorney Maeve Fox said Tuesday that...
Will it profit CA if it saves cash but loses state attorneys?
Posted on February 11, 2009On Tuesday, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced that letters will be go out Friday to warn 20,000 low-seniority employees that they may be laid off this summer. Some state lawyers will receive letters, although it's unclear right now how many or...
Live Nation and Ticketmaster countin' on a miracle for merger to go through
Posted on February 11, 2009The world's largest concert promoter, Live Nation, plans to buy Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc. for about $400 million in stock, aiming to create a company with dominant holdings in concert promotion and ticket sales. The merged company, Live Nation Entertainment, would...
After nearly three years of fighting, USC and Tenet reach deal
Posted on February 11, 2009Tenet Healthcare Corp. said Tuesday two of its subsidiaries will sell USC University Hospital and USC Kenneth Norris Jr. Cancer Hospital to the University of Southern California. The university has agreed to pay Tenet Healthcare Corp. $275 million to acquire...
Lawyer for ex-transit officer wants temporary gag order lifted
Posted on February 11, 2009The attorney for a former Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer charged with murder for the shooting death of Oscar Grant III early on New Year's Day is asking a judge to lift his gag order in the highly publicized...
Billionaire loses request for documents in Milberg kickback case
Posted on February 11, 2009Texas billionaire Sam Wyly, who is suing Milberg LLP for malpractice over a CA Inc. shareholder lawsuit settlement, lost his bid to force the law firm to preserve sealed documents related to a criminal investigation. U.S. District Judge John Walter,....
Gibson Dunn's revenues up, profits per partner down for 2008
Posted on February 10, 2009Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher has announced that its 2008 revenues jumped to $957.1 million, up by about 5.4% from the prior year, while average profits per equity partner declined by 1.3% to $1.87 million. The Los Angeles-based firm, which was...
Prisons ordered to scale back inmate populations for health and safety reasons
Posted on February 10, 2009In the first such ruling of its kind, a special three-judge panel has held tentatively that overcrowding in California prisons presents an unconstitutional risk to inmate health and safety and that the prisoner population must be reduced by tens of...
Fees withheld for private appellate counsel as budget crisis continues
Posted on February 10, 2009California's continuing $42 billion budget crisis has hit hundreds of private appellate lawyers who handle indigent criminal appeals in the state. On Feb. 6, state Controller John Chiang began withholding an estimated $5 million in monthly claims submitted from court-appointed...
Court ruling may spark a refund windfall for ticketed CA drivers
Posted on February 10, 2009The California Superior Court's Appellate Division canceled a photo ticket issued to southern California resident Thomas Fischetti because the city of Santa Ana failed to provide a 30-day warning period before issuing tickets from cameras posted at red lights throughout...
Boxer sets up screening committees for federal posts
Posted on February 10, 2009U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer has formed advisory committees to screen candidates for U.S. Attorney, marshal and federal court judge openings, the senator's office announced last week. The committees, which are set up in each of the four federal judicial districts...
No "only my friends" privacy settings in Quinn Emanuel brochure
Posted on February 10, 2009Facebook paid the founders of ConnectU $65 million to settle lawsuits accusing Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg of stealing the idea for the wildly successful social-networking Web site, according to a law firm's marketing brochure. Lawyers in the heavyweight fight had...
Rendition case may clarify new administration's stance on torture
Posted on February 09, 2009The public is likely to get its first close look at the Obama administration's policies on torture, secrecy and prisoners' rights in a San Francisco courtroom today, when federal judges press a government lawyer for a position on the practice...
Dramatic testimony at hearing hopes to spur wildfire safety measures bill
Posted on February 09, 2009The Senate Select Committee on Manufactured Housing and Communities held a public hearing Friday in Sylmar to discuss safety issues raised by last year's wildfires and a bill by state Senator Alex Padilla that would require new fire safety measures...
Brief questions authority vs. responsibility in corporate officer case
Posted on February 09, 2009Attorneys representing the owners of a business who were sued for environmental violations have petitioned the California Supreme Court to overturn a recent appellate decision they claim is an "unprecedented departure" from prior cases because it unfairly broadens an individual's...
Every Nation cannot discriminate at state universities
Posted on February 09, 2009A federal judge ruled Friday that a nondiscrimination policy at San Diego State and Long Beach State universities required for formal campus recognition does not infringe on the rights of religious groups that demand fidelity to Christian ideals and bar...
WARNing: Thelen blames banks, class action says "copout"
Posted on February 09, 2009Defunct firm Thelen is telling state and federal courts its hands were tied when it closed shop last year and did not pay its employees accrued vacation or give 60 days' notice of their impending joblessness. The firm filed a...
O.C. law office shut down for illegal practice of law
Posted on February 06, 2009Prosecutors at the State Bar of California, responding to a tip from the Orange County District Attorney's Office, have shut down an Orange County satellite office of Walter S. Martinez, a solo practitioner in Upland, Calif., on the ground that...
Antitrust, IP litigation push Gibson Dunn's revenues up 5%
Posted on February 06, 2009Gibson,Dunn & Crutcher hasn't made it into the billion dollar club just yet, but with a modest uptick in revenue it's getting closer.The firm reports that gross revenue rose 5.4 percent to $957 million, however other financial metrics fell, presenting...
O'Melveny's James Asperger joins Quinn Emanuel
Posted on February 05, 2009The head of the white-collar crime practice at O'Melveny & Myers, James Asperger, has left for Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges. Asperger, who was an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles from 1983 to 1993, joins Los Angeles-based Quinn...
Revenue up, but profits way way down at Manatt Phelps
Posted on February 05, 2009Revenue at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips remained relatively buoyant in 2008 with a 9% increase from 2007. But profits at the Los Angeles-based firm sank by more than 25 %. Manatt?s gross revenue gain, which went from $242 million in...
'Girls Gone Wild' founder blames flu for court no-show
Posted on February 04, 2009A day after landing in federal custody for failing to appear at his court hearing, Joe Francis, founder of "Girls Gone Wild," was quickly released after he explained his tardiness to the court, according to a release sent out by...
Riding revenue rise, Buchalter Nemer adds five attorneys
Posted on February 04, 2009Five attorneys, including one shareholder, have joined various practice groups of Los Angeles-based Buchalter Nemer. Steven M. Spector, former counsel to Los Angeles-based Jeffer, Mangels, Butler & Marmaro, is joining the 150-lawyer firm's insolvency and financial solutions practice group as...
Former OC exec pleads guilty to bribery charges
Posted on February 04, 2009SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) ? An executive at an Orange County industrial valve manufacturer has pleaded guilty to paying $628,000 in bribes to four foreign utility officials who bought his company's products. Richard Morlok, the former finance director of Control...
Hearing scheduled in Roman Polanski sex case
Posted on February 04, 2009LOS ANGELES (AP) ? A hearing for Roman Polanski's bid to have a 31-year-old sex case dismissed has been rescheduled for Feb. 17. The date was announced Tuesday, a day after Polanski's lawyer lost a bid to disqualify all Los...
Securities class action against Broadcom greenlighted
Posted on February 03, 2009A federal judge in Los Angeles on Monday reversed his earlier decision and allowed a securities fraud class action to proceed against Broadcom Corp. and its billionaire co-founders, setting up a massive stock options showdown.Last October, U.S. District Judge Manuel...
'Girls Gone Wild' in the slammer
Posted on February 03, 2009"Girls Gone Wild" founder Joe Francis landed in federal custody Monday after missing a court hearing regarding his attorneys' request to withdraw as counsel in his tax evasion case.U.S. District Judge S. James Otero of the Central District of California...
Court rejects Polanski bid to disqualify L.A. judges
Posted on February 03, 2009LOS ANGELES (AP) ? An appeals court has rejected a bid by Roman Polanski's attorneys to disqualify all Los Angeles Superior Court judges from considering a request to dismiss a rape case against the fugitive film director. A three-judge panel...
Lawmaker nixes judges' bid to boost perks
Posted on February 03, 2009California Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg on Friday shelved a plan to sweeten judges' benefits as part of an upcoming budget deal after livid labor groups and social service advocates complained.Critics argued that the extra perks, which would eventually...
Lewis Brisbois opens Atlanta office
Posted on January 29, 2009Los Angeles-based Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith quietly opened an Atlanta office this month with eight attorneys pulled from four firms. Atlanta managing partner and litigator Scott Masterson and litigation associate Katherine Barrett both came from Atlanta-based litigation firm Hawkins...
Dreier Stein lawyers jump to Snell & Wilmer, open L.A. office
Posted on January 29, 2009At least eight lawyers from ailing Dreier, Stein, Kahan, Browne, Woods, George are joining Snell & Wilmer to open the firm's first Los Angeles office. The partners in the group are Marshall Horowitz, Susan Grueneberg, Jason S. Kim and Henry...
Wanna be the next LA U.S. atty? Join the club.
Posted on January 29, 2009A lengthy list of lawyers are lining up to be the next top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, even though Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is not yet accepting applications for the job.Thus far, seven people confirmed to the Daily Journal...
Lesbians schoolgirls lose suit over explusion
Posted on January 28, 2009An appeals court in California has decided this week that a private religious school in Riverside County was not a business and therefore did not have to comply with a state law that prohibits businesses from discriminating when it expelled...
Broadcom chief wins bid to sever backdating trial
Posted on January 27, 2009A federal judge has granted a motion by Broadcom Corp.'s co-founder and former chief executive, Henry Nicholas, to sever his upcoming stock options backdating trial from William J. Ruehle, the former chief financial officer of the Irvine, Calif.-based tech company...
Judge tosses seat belt suit
Posted on January 27, 2009In one of the last class actions pending against seat belt buckle manufacturer Takata Corp., a Los Angeles Superior Court judge has tossed out all of the plaintiffs' claims, which defense attorneys estimated involved damages of about $247 million. The...
Lawyer blows $2.7M settlement in stock market
Posted on January 27, 2009An Irvine lawyer on Monday withdrew as counsel from a class action in which he served as the lead plaintiffs' lawyer after he apparently admitted squandering nearly all of a $2.7 million settlement that was supposed to be dispersed among...
Trial opens in arson-murder case
Posted on January 26, 2009The trial of a man accused of setting a series of fires in the San Gorgonio Pass in 2006 that killed five firefighters began on Thursday in Riverside County Superior Court.Opening statements began, along with the testimony of a witness,...
A suicidal woman doesn't buy new shoes, say Specter prosecutors
Posted on January 26, 2009Prosecutors in the retrial of music producer Phil Spector rested their case with the testimony of the mother of Lana Clarkson, the woman he is accused of murdering.Clarkson, an actress, suffered a fatal bullet wound in the foyer of Spector?s...
Former Mayer Brown lawyer at center of latest Ponzi scheme
Posted on January 26, 2009A former Mayer Brown lawyer in Los Angeles is scheduled to turn himself in to custody today on charges he was in-house counsel for an elaborate real estate Ponzi scheme in Orange County that conned $52 million from mostly elderly...
Mayer Brown moves to shore up LA office with executive committee
Posted on January 23, 2009Mayer Brown moved to shore up its Los Angeles office, which saw the departure of four partners this month, by appointing an executive committee to lead the office and announcing that the current managing partner there will shift to the...
Networks agree to pay $4M to settle claims of underpaid employees of reality shows
Posted on January 22, 2009A group of television production companies and networks, including Fox Broadcasting Co., American Broadcasting Cos. Inc. and CBS Broadcasting Inc., have agreed to pay more than $4 million to settle allegations that they underpaid about 400 employees who worked on...
Ervin Cohen acquires 13-lawyer Moldo Davidson
Posted on January 22, 2009Ervin, Cohen & Jessup, based in Beverly Hills, Calif., has acquired 13 lawyers from Moldo Davidson Fraioli Seror & Sestanovich, including its bankruptcy practice and name partners, reports the Daily Journal.The combination, which takes effect on Feb. 1, brings the...
'Pressured to acquit,' say Carona jurors
Posted on January 22, 2009Two jurors in the recent trial of former Orange County, Calif., Sheriff Mike Carona told the judge during deliberations that they felt pressured to acquit the high-profile defendant, according to jurors? notes unsealed on Wednesday. On Friday, the jury acquitted...
No-go for Bratz legal makeover?
Posted on January 21, 2009A federal judge in Los Angeles has raised concerns about a recent decision by MGA Entertainment, manufacturer of the Bratz doll, to switch lawyers just before the second phase of a trade secrets dispute with Mattel Inc. In an unusual...
Dreier Stein's former entertainment chair et al. jump to Robins Kaplan
Posted on January 21, 2009A group of entertainment litigators from Dreier, Stein, Kahan, Browne, Woods, George, has joined the Los Angeles office of Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi.Michael Plonsker, former co-chairman of the entertainment and media department at Dreier, Stein, Kahan, Browne, Woods, George,...
L.A. lawyers in inaugural attendance
Posted on January 20, 2009Several California lawyers made the trek to Washington to attend President Obama?s inauguration on Tuesday.Among the crowds, estimated at between 1.5 million and 3 million people, were lawyers from Los Angeles who obtained tickets to the event, which, at about...
Riverside County judge: I'd rather be jogging
Posted on January 16, 2009California?s Commission on Judicial Performance has charged Riverside County Judge Christopher J. Sheldon with shirking his duties, often taking the afternoons off. The charges, which include willful misconduct in office, persistent failure or inability to perform his duties and conduct...
A mixed verdict for 'America's Sheriff'
Posted on January 16, 2009A federal jury on Friday acquitted former Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona of conspiracy and mail fraud charges in a case alleging that he illegally used his office to enrich himself and his friends and family. Carona, once dubbed "America's...
L.A. DA not shielded from workplace retaliation suit
Posted on January 15, 2009The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley is not entitled to qualified immunity from a retaliation claim filed by a deputy district attorney in his office who spoke publicly about...
Milberg kickback plaintiff Howard Vogel ducks prison -- for now
Posted on January 15, 2009The last defendant to report to federal prison in the criminal kickback case against Milberg LLP, Howard J. Vogel, has received an extension of his surrender date to Jan. 28. Vogel, a former lead plaintiff for the New York firm,...
Chapman founding law dean retires from teaching
Posted on January 15, 2009The founding dean of Chapman University School of Law in Orange, Calif., Jeremy Miller, has retired from his job as law professor.Miller took over as dean before the school opened in 1995. He stepped down two years later after several...
Allegations of homophobia, hostile workplace in Nixon Peabody's LA office
Posted on January 14, 2009A public finance attorney has launched a sexual discrimination lawsuit against Nixon Peabody, alleging that he was subjected to taunting and ridicule while working at the firm's Los Angeles office. Henry Har, now an associate in Holland & Knight's San...
Bratz gets a legal makeover
Posted on January 13, 2009MGA Entertainment, the maker of Bratz dolls, has replaced its legal counsel in preparation for the second phase of a copyright infringement trial against Mattel Inc. On Friday, MGA retained Patricia Glaser, a partner at Los Angeles-based Glaser Weil Fink...
Whittier Law School gets back on track
Posted on January 13, 2009After years of attempting to get off of probation with the American Bar Association, Whittier Law School has reason to celebrate: 84% of its students who took the California bar exam last July passed?the best pass rate the school has...
Two Milberg kickback defendants set to report to jail
Posted on January 12, 2009Two defendants convicted in the criminal kickback case against Milberg LLP, former partner Steven Schulman and Howard J. Vogel, a former lead plaintiff represented by the New York firm, are scheduled to report to federal prison this week. Both were...
Lawyers won't let Polanski lose his nose in Los Angeles
Posted on January 05, 2009Lawyers for film director Roman Polanski, who fled the country more than 30 years ago on the eve of sentencing for having sex with a minor, asked today that his case be moved from a Los Angeles justice system they...
High court rules breakaway parishes rightfully lost ownership rights
Posted on January 05, 2009In a unanimous decision, the California Supreme Court ruled that three Southern California parishes who left the U.S. Episcopal Church over its ordination of gay ministers cannot retain ownership of their church buildings and property. The state's high court ruled...
Conference concludes law education requires rethink
Posted on January 05, 2009The two-day Leading Legal Innovation conference, sponsored by the Southern California Innovation Project at USC's Gould School of Law, drew 30 law firm leaders, professors and entrepreneurs to address necessary improvements for law education. Among the topics on the table:...
UC and Coughlin make new year a little happier for former Enron investors
Posted on January 05, 2009Seven years after joining the federal class-action lawsuit against Enron Corporation in December 2001, the University of California will now begin distributing settlement funds of approximately $7 billion to nearly 200,000 investors, both individual and institutional...
Attorneys leave Mayer for Sheppard "to work both sides of the road"
Posted on January 05, 2009Bryan Daly, Charles Kreindler and Peter Morris joined the Los Angeles office of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton as equity partners this week, each after two years or less at Mayer Brown. They were joined in the move by Barbara...
Tech companies looking to courts for relief from patent case damages
Posted on December 30, 2008Oracle, Apple Inc., Yahoo, Intel Corp. and several others are throwing their weight behind Microsoft Corp. as it tries to persuade the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to overturn a $500 million jury verdict for infringing on...
Two San Diego Superior Court judges retiring next week
Posted on December 30, 2008William Kennedy and Michael Wellington, two of San Diego's more experienced Superior Court judges, will retire next week. Kennedy, 78, was appointed by then-Gov. George Deukmejian in July 1983 after serving as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California...
Heller claims am-Bush partly responsible for Chapter 11 filing
Posted on December 30, 2008Defunct Heller Ehrman filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Sunday, putting a stay on at least five suits filed against the firm since it announced on Sept. 26 that it would dissolve. According to a memo sent from the...
Sonar settlement seen as victory by both sides
Posted on December 29, 2008The Navy and several environmental groups settled a lawsuit that challenged the Navy's use of sonar around the globe as dangerous to whales and other marine mammals, the two sides said Saturday. The Navy said the settlement, reached Friday but...
Nine South Bay projects halted by emissions ruling
Posted on December 29, 2008A Los Angeles Superior Court judgment issued last month has blocked at least nine modernization projects at public and private facilities in the South Bay, including planned upgrades at two public facilities - the Palos Verdes Landfill and the Terminal...
Al Meyerhoff, famed labor lawyer, dies at 61
Posted on December 29, 2008Al Meyerhoff, a prominent environmental and labor lawyer whose landmark cases included the 2002 settlement of a class-action lawsuit against some of America's biggest clothing retailers that alleged sweatshop abuses on the island of Saipan, died December 21st of complications...
Post-Pellicano/Christensen convictions, wiretap civil suits abound
Posted on December 29, 2008The criminal wiretapping convictions of private investigator Anthony Pellicano and lawyer Terry Christensen have re-energized related civil lawsuits filed against five Los Angeles law firms, including Christensen's former firm. At least 15 lawsuits related to Pellicano, who was convicted last...
Writ of attachment may mean bankruptcy on horizon for Heller
Posted on December 29, 2008A San Francisco landlord for defunct Heller Ehrman won a key court ruling earlier this month that means bankruptcy is now likely, according to attorneys who have dealt with similar cases. San Francisco Superior Court granted the landlord, 333 Bush...
Buchalter Nemer adds new litigation shareholder
Posted on December 18, 2008Buchalter Nemer announced that Michael L. Meeks is joining the Firm as a Shareholder in Orange County today. Mr. Meeks? practice encompasses commercial litigation, intellectual property litigation and financial institutions litigation. Meeks has successfully defended numerous clients in high-stakes litigation...
Trend shows outside counsel being left outside as budget cuts increase
Posted on December 18, 2008Demonstrating a trend that has significant implications for law firms, a growing number of California companies are under pressure to control costs and handle more work in house, where they can come closer to paying wholesale rather than retail for...
Makings of a Ponzi-demic
Posted on December 18, 2008Prosecutors in Los Angeles announced the arrest of a real estate broker in an alleged Ponzi scheme that cost investors more than $62 million. Milton Retana, a 43-year-old El Salvadoran national living in Newark and owner of a Huntington Park...
Taser settlement a first for San Jose
Posted on December 18, 2008San Jose officials Tuesday agreed to pay $70,000 to the wife and child of a man who died in 2005 after police jolted him with Tasers, marking the city's first settlement over a fatality linked to the stun guns. The...
Walls of San Quentin among collateral damage as budget crisis halts public works projects
Posted on December 18, 2008With a $40 billion budget deficit looming, California state officials halted thousands of public works projects statewide Wednesday, including the $26.5 million Santa Ana courthouse and expansion of the state's death row at San Quentin.Potentially more troublesome legally is stoppage...
Madoff investors to fight the feeders
Posted on December 17, 2008Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP yesterday filed a class-action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Central District of California on behalf of individuals and groups that invested capital in Bernard Madoff Investment Securities (BMIS) through Stanley Chais...
As Latham goes, so goes the market
Posted on December 17, 2008Latham Watkins said Tuesday it will freeze associate salaries in response to challenging economic times, a move that could signal the rest of the industry to follow suit, observers said.?All associates moving to the next class year on January...
Delta restoration decision may result in water shortages and increasing budget gap
Posted on December 17, 2008Federal biologists on Monday issued new rules that will reduce the amount of water pumped to cities and farms from San Francisco Bay's delta by as much as one-third in some years as part of a court-ordered effort to save...