Appellate Practice

4th Cir. Upholds Jury Verdict for McGuireWoods in FMLA Case

An attorney working as a legal secretary at McGuireWoods lost at trial and has now lost again on appeal in a case alleging that the law firm retaliated against her for asserting her right to take family medical leave to care for her ailing mother and libeled her after she…

Aug 6, 2009 11:31 PM CDT

Calif. Supreme Court Allows ‘Narrowly Tailored’ Employee Surveillance

The California Supreme Court has ruled in an invasion of privacy suit that a company isn’t liable for installing secret video equipment in an employee’s office for legitimate business reasons. The court said placement of the camera in an office shared by two workers in a facility for abused children…

Aug 5, 2009 1:00 PM CDT

Reverse $3.5M Verdict Due to Taint of Corrupt Judges, Overseer Tells Top Pa. Court

Asked to make a recommendation to the state’s top court about allegations that two corrupt judges might have influenced the result of a $3.5 million libel verdict against a Pennsylvania newspaper, a court-appointed jurist says the case should be retried. Although Lehigh County Judge William Platt made no finding that…

Aug 4, 2009 9:13 PM CDT

Calif. Lawyer Suspended Over Trial Blogging While Serving as Juror

A 40-year-old California attorney has had his law license suspended for 45 days over a trial blog he wrote while serving as a juror. Because of a blog post by Frank Russell Wilson, an appeals court reversed and remanded the felony burglary case, reports the California Bar Journal. Although reportedly…

Aug 4, 2009 7:58 PM CDT

Simpson & Co-Defendant Argue for Bail, Separate Trial Based on His Notoriety

In arguments today before Nevada’s top court, a lawyer for O.J. Simpson and a co-defendant rested their respective cases on a similar basis—his notoriety. Simpson isn’t a flight risk, if he is released on bail while appealing his kidnapping and robbery conviction, attorney Yale Galanter told a three-judge panel of…

Aug 3, 2009 9:41 PM CDT

Fired By Ashcroft, Hired By Holder: Guendelsberger Again Tapped for BIA

In a symbolic move, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has made his first appointment to the nation’s highest immigration appeals panel. His selection: John Guendelsberger, a former immigration law professor and eight-year veteran of the Board of Immigration Appeals who lost his seat in 2003 when then-Attorney General John Ashcroft…

Aug 3, 2009 8:58 PM CDT

SCOTUS Insiders Discuss Changing Court Dynamics as Souter Exits #ABAChicago

The U.S. Supreme Court in the Obama era may be more conservative than under President George W. Bush because retiring Justice David H. Souter was the only one who could sweet-talk Justice Anthony M. Kennedy into voting toward the left. That’s one of the many insider tidbits to emerge Saturday…

Aug 2, 2009 4:03 PM CDT

Sentence Nacchio Based on Actual Qwest Insider Profit, 10th Circuit Says

In a move that could nearly halve the six-year prison term that former Qwest Communications chief executive Joseph Nacchio got for insider trading, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals today ordered that he be re-sentenced. Both Nacchio’s prison term and the amount of money he is required to forfeit…

Jul 31, 2009 10:32 PM CDT

N.Y. Appeals Court Fires Lawyer Who Never Met 11-Year-Old Client

Saying that an attorney’s representation of an 11-year-old client in a family law matter did not comply with court administrative and legal ethics rules, a New York appellate court fired the attorney and ordered that new counsel be appointed for the youth. J. Mark McQuerrey’s young client “was, at the…

Jul 31, 2009 9:25 PM CDT

3rd Circuit Rules Arbitrator Can’t Sue Stradley Ronon Over Bias Claim

A federal appeals court has ruled that a private arbitrator may not sue Stradley Ronon and one of its lawyers for allegations made in a quest to disqualify him. The Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Stradley Ronon and partner Andre Dennis are protected from suit because of…

Jul 31, 2009 1:33 PM CDT

En Banc 9th Circuit to Hear Gun Case, Though Neither Side Requested It

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has scheduled an en banc hearing in a case that applied the Second Amendment to the states, though neither side had sought additional review. University of Pittsburgh law professor Arthur Hellman told the Recorder that gun-control supporters on the San Francisco-based…

Jul 31, 2009 12:02 PM CDT

Is Affirmative Action Dead?

Has the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Ricci v. DeStefano ended affirmative action in America? Political commentator Juan Williams thinks so. “Affirmative action, age 45, is dead,” he writes in the Washington Post. The decision on behalf of white firefighters “cut the last legal underpinnings for affirmative action,” he…

Jul 27, 2009 6:32 PM CDT

Top Pa. Court Will Save Some Juvie Files, As Lawyers Take Issue to Fed’l Court

Before a federal judge could hold a scheduled hearing on Monday, the top court in Pennsylvania has acceded to some of the demands made in an unusual federal filing by lawyers representing individuals allegedly jailed improperly as juveniles because of judicial corruption in Luzerne County. In an order today, the…

Jul 22, 2009 11:04 PM CDT

Scary Discovery Sanctions Case Packs 3rd Circuit Courtroom

Daunting discovery sanctions imposed by a federal judge on defense lawyers who were, many colleagues say, simply doing their job in a medical insurance coverage case filed by a group of doctors packed an appellate courtroom during a recent oral argument. Although the underlying case settled after U.S. District Judge…

Jul 22, 2009 6:08 PM CDT

Lawyers Seek Order Barring Top Pa. Court from Destroying Juvenile Records

A bizarre case in which two senior Pennsylvania judges in Luzerne County are accused of having profited from putting hundreds—or perhaps even thousands—of youths into juvenile detention for relatively minor offenses has now taken a strange new twist. In an extraordinary filing, lawyers representing individuals allegedly improperly jailed as youngsters…

Jul 21, 2009 10:59 PM CDT