2nd Circuit Court

Federal judge rebukes Apple for its conduct to court-appointed monitor, defends his $1K hourly rate

Weighing in for the first time on a long-simmering dispute between Apple Inc. and a court-appointed monitor, a federal judge in New York on Monday rebuked the company for its treatment of the monitor and defended his $1,100 billable hourly rate. The computer Goliath had sought an order removing Goodwin…

Jan 14, 2014 5:10 PM CST

Defendant in high-profile insider-trade trial was expelled from Harvard Law School, prosecutors say

A 39-year-old defendant in a high-profile insider trading case didn’t simply drop out of Harvard Law School to earn a master’s in business administration degree at Stanford University, as has been previously reported, prosecutors say. They contend in a federal court filing that former SAC Capital Advisors fund manager Mathew…

Jan 9, 2014 11:40 PM CST

Did inmate really plot to kill a federal judge and prosecutor, or was it just ‘tough talk’?

An imprisoned con man didn’t really mean it when he allegedly talked with fellow inmates in 2012 about killing a federal judge and prosecutor in a gruesome manner, his lawyer told jurors on Thursday as he outlined an entrapment defense. Joseph Romano, 50, resorted to “tough talk” to protect himself…

Jan 9, 2014 8:50 PM CST

Apple feuds with court-appointed BigLaw monitor over his access, firm’s 2-week $138K bill

The relationship between Apple Inc. and a Goodwin Procter partner appointed by a federal court to monitor the company’s compliance with antitrust laws concerning its e-book marketing hasn’t been going well. In a Monday filing in the Manhattan case accompanied by hundreds of email copies, monitor Michael Bromwich says Apple…

Dec 31, 2013 6:09 PM CST

Federally indicted lawyer accused of telling clients to pay him in cash calls case ‘a DOJ vendetta’

Accused of telling clients to pay him in cash and wire transfers routed to his American Express account, a New York lawyer is calling the federal indictment against him for allegedly failing to report and pay taxes on $3 million in income “a DOJ vendetta.” The Department of Justice, says…

Dec 31, 2013 4:40 PM CST

Madoff’s $17B fraud began in 1970s, witness says in testimony against former colleagues

As testimony rolls on in the first criminal trial concerning Bernard L. Madoff’s massive $17 billion Ponzi scheme, at least one high-level ex-employee is saying that the fake trades on which his Manhattan investment firm was built dated back to the 1970s. For more than a decade, officials have said,…

Dec 2, 2013 8:19 PM CST

State AG: Only a small fraction of stop-and-frisks end with convictions; NYC: Report is ‘flawed’

Stopping and frisking certain individuals without initially having probable cause for an arrest is a controversial police tactic, albeit one approved by the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark Terry v. Ohio decision. New York City is defending a civil rights case over its stop-and-frisk practices and recently won a…

Nov 14, 2013 8:09 PM CST

Ex-Miss USA contestant told to pay Donald Trump $5M files malpractice suit against her former lawyer

Ordered to pay $5 million to Donald Trump earlier this year in a federal-court ruling upholding an award in a defamation and breach-of-contract arbitration she didn’t attend, an ex-participant in his Miss USA contest has now sued her former lawyer. Sheena Monnin is not alone in blaming attorney Richard Klineburger…

Nov 13, 2013 11:00 PM CST

Ouster of 3 federal appeals court judges sought by plaintiffs in hard-fought NYC stop-and-frisk case

Will three federal appeals court judges who booted a federal district court judge from overseeing a lawsuit about New York City police stop-and-frisk practices get a taste of their own medicine? In a brief (PDF) filed Monday, lawyers for the plaintiffs challenging the city’s stop-and-frisk practices ask not only for…

Nov 13, 2013 10:20 PM CST

Stop-and-frisk judge fights her removal from case; brief says she was ‘completely blindsided’

Judge Shira Scheindlin is fighting her ouster from the New York stop-and-frisk case with some help from a team of high-profile law professors. In a brief (PDF) filed Wednesday on behalf of Scheindlin, New York University law professor Burt Neuborne claims the judge was “completely blindsided” when the New York-based…

Nov 7, 2013 2:01 PM CST

2nd Circuit stays NYC ‘stop-and-frisk’ ruling, boots judge from case

A federal appeals court has stayed U.S. District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin’s ruling restricting and requiring monitoring of the city police department’s stop-and-frisk program and ordered that she be replaced in the case, the New York Times (reg. req.) reports. Meanwhile, the appeal is expected to proceed on the merits.…

Oct 31, 2013 9:00 PM CDT

Goldman Sachs must pay legal bills for programmer it accused in code-theft case, federal judge rules

Goldman Sachs Group accused its former computer programmer Sergey Aleynikov of stealing its confidential source code. Now the company must pay his legal bills, a federal judge in Newark, N.J., has ruled. “Immediate advancement of fees is required, subject only to an unsecured undertaking to repay them if the applicant…

Oct 24, 2013 3:30 PM CDT

Racketeering case filed by Chevron against lawyer who won $18B enviro award goes to trial

Having won an $18 billion environmental judgment against a deep-pockets corporate defendant after nearly two decades of litigation, attorney Steven Donziger, one might think, would be living high on the hog. Instead, the Harvard Law School graduate is a defendant in a civil racketeering trial brought by Chevron Corp. Trial…

Oct 16, 2013 7:10 PM CDT

As shutdown continues, more federal courts ‘tell Congress to go to hell,’ as blogging judge puts it

Instructed to prepare for the possibility of an ongoing government shutdown if Congress doesn’t resolve a budget impasse and restore funding this week, a growing number of federal courts have taken a more aggressive approach. By declaring all employees “essential,” court administrators are in a position to insist that workers…

Oct 15, 2013 7:15 PM CDT

Did the 2nd Circuit wrongly interpret a comma? Expert takes aim at ‘arbitrary principle’

A federal appeals court has been “bamboozled by a comma,” according to a new critique by the author of a book on contract drafting. Kenneth Adams, an ABA Journal Legal Rebel, argues the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals got it wrong when it said a modifier phrase after a…

Oct 9, 2013 12:23 PM CDT