Careers

This Law Grad Better at Business

If you are wondering if law is really the career for you, the experience of Jim Lanzone could prove inspirational. He attended Emory University law school in Atlanta and “hated it from the moment I started,” according to an article in the New York Times. As a summer associate, “I…

Jul 30, 2007 12:19 PM CDT

NJ Firm Bows Head re Unadmitted Atty

In a rare sanction of a law firm that names no individual partner names, the New Jersey Supreme Court has reprimanded Newark-based Sills Cummis Epstein & Gross for allowing an associate not admitted to the state bar to work on transactional matters for seven years. There are conflicting accounts of…

Jul 27, 2007 12:03 AM CDT

Bar Exam Film Ups Ante for 6 Law Grads

It’s hard enough just studying for the bar exam. But six California law graduates decided to up the ante even further by doing so in the public eye. Responding to a 2006 request by documentary filmmakers, they agreed to allow video footage of everything from crying jags and the struggle…

Jul 26, 2007 6:24 PM CDT

NY Bar Exam Marred by Glitch

Bar examiners in New York suspect a software glitch caused test takers to experience problems this week saving and uploading their essays. Diane Bosse, chairwoman of the Board of Law Examiners, told the New York Law Journal that officials are trying to determine if any answers were lost. She says…

Jul 26, 2007 1:06 PM CDT

Scott Turow: Ban Billable Hour

When Scott Turow’s daughter mentioned that she might want to be a litigator, his reaction was not positive. At the time the best-selling author quit his former job as a prosecutor to enter private practice in Chicago in 1986, attorneys at big firms were expected to bill perhaps 1,800 hours…

Jul 26, 2007 5:52 AM CDT

New Claim: Justice Hecht Fee Discount

A new ethics complaint has been made about Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht. He allegedly was given a discount on the legal fees he paid in a successful defense of an earlier ethics complaint, and a Travis County prosecutor is investigating this new complaint, reports the KWTX television station.…

Jul 25, 2007 8:55 PM CDT

Lawyer, 47, Moves to 6th Firm in 8 Years

If this is a day in 2007, the law firm at which David Wiseblood is working must be Seyfarth Shaw. Or possibly Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Gates, where he hung his shingle earlier this year, or–before its merger with Kirkpatrick & Lockhart–Preston Gates & Ellis. Lawyers leap laterally to new firms…

Jul 25, 2007 8:20 PM CDT

Controversial MA Judge Struggling on TV

After Maria Lopez’s first courtroom gig came to an end, a second judicial career beckoned to the controversial former Massachusetts jurist. She was invited to host her own television show as “Judge Maria,” a role in which she is touted for telling it like it is. Now, however, the 53-year-old…

Jul 24, 2007 8:59 PM CDT

Arrested Attorney Gambled Away $800 K

A run of good luck has apparently ended for a graduate of Yale Law School who has been a member of the Connecticut bar for more than 40 years and reportedly until now has had an unblemished record as a trusts and estates attorney. Richard C. Hannan Jr. was arrested…

Jul 23, 2007 10:37 PM CDT

Downward Spiral for Minn. Attorney

Only a few years ago, Robert Weisberg seemingly was a successful Minneapolis personal lawyer and businessman. Now, the 45-year-old has a newly shuttered newsstand chain business and an empty law office, as of December, when other attorneys walked out. Plus, he is defending not only an attorney discipline complaint that…

Jul 23, 2007 7:30 PM CDT

Alcatraz Visit: Feel Like a Prisoner

The atmosphere is dank, dreary and depressing. Nor are the stories told by those who spent time there accounts of happy times. Nonetheless, Alcatraz, the infamous prison on an island near San Francisco, is one of the biggest tourist draws in the country. Now newly renovated, the Rock–which last housed…

Jul 23, 2007 5:18 PM CDT

Slowdown for Fast-Track Pa. Lawyer

Only a year ago, Michael A. Adler was on a seeming fast track to major career success. For one thing, he had been named a “Lawyer on the Fast Track” by a legal publication in 2006, and had been elected as a Republican committeeman in Lower Merion Township in suburban…

Jul 20, 2007 12:24 AM CDT

President: Morford is New Deputy AG

A career federal prosecutor will serve at least temporarily as the new deputy attorney general in the troubled Justice Department, replacing one of a half-dozen senior officials who have announced their departures in the midst of ongoing controversy over alleged politicization of the prosecutorial process. The White House announced today…

Jul 18, 2007 10:49 PM CDT

Diversity Issue Heats Up in Miami Courts

A simmering controversy over a series of insensitive remarks recently made by Miami area judges has heated up further, following the resignation of a Broward County jurist chairing the court’s newly created diversity board. Elijah H. Williams, the first black to be appointed to the Broward County bench in 20…

Jul 18, 2007 8:35 PM CDT

Texas Firms Pay $447 K to Defend Judge

Law firms and attorneys in Texas donated $447,000 to help an embattled state supreme court justice defend his integrity, according to recently revealed expense reports. With the help of these contributions, Justice Nathan Hecht prevailed in his appeal of an ethics citation for allegedly misusing his judicial office to help…

Jul 18, 2007 7:47 PM CDT