Alabama redistricting challenge stays alive in SCOTUS; Scalia sees majority as ‘standby counsel’

The U.S. Supreme Court is requiring a new look at an Alabama redistricting plan challenged for keeping high concentrations of black voters in districts they already controlled and lessening their voting impact elsewhere. In a 5-4 decision (PDF), the U.S. Supreme Court said the federal district court asked the wrong…

Mar 25, 2015 10:38 AM CDT

SCOTUS ruling raises the stakes for Trademark Trial and Appeal Board hearings

Some trademark issues decided by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board can’t be relitigated in a federal infringement lawsuit, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday. In a 7-2 opinion (PDF), the U.S. Supreme Court said unchallenged TTAB findings have preclusive effect in federal infringement suits if issues in the…

Mar 24, 2015 12:04 PM CDT

Winning app at Hackcess to Justice New Orleans helps clients preserve evidence

Ensuring that all Americans have sufficient access to justice has been one of the top priorities of the American Bar Association. One of the states with the largest gaps between the demand for legal services and the availability of adequate legal resources is Louisiana. According to the National Association of…

Mar 23, 2015 4:15 PM CDT

Oops! Mislabeled docket notices don’t excuse blown deadline in $40M appeal, appeals court says

AT&T’s $40 million appeal of a patent judgment is doomed because its lawyers relied on mislabeled docket notices and missed a deadline, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The appeals court said lawyers for AT&T should have checked the online docket rather than relying on…

Mar 23, 2015 5:45 AM CDT

Hagens Berman argument ‘gives new meaning to frivolous,’ judge says; sanctions imposed

Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro will have to pay reasonable fees and expenses for “bad-faith advocacy” in its pursuit of three thalidomide birth-defect cases. U.S. District Judge Paul Diamond imposed the sanction in a March 9 opinion (PDF), finding that Hagens Berman pursued the cases after the law firm knew they…

Mar 11, 2015 5:45 AM CDT

Chicago lawyer pieces together a missing couple’s story to obtain a court ruling that they died

When Malaysia Airlines flight 370 vanished after takeoff from Kuala Lumpur on March 8, 2014, it never occurred to Richard Campbell that he'd be involved in some of the earliest litigation over the disaster—or any missing-plane-related litigation, for that matter.

Mar 1, 2015 6:20 AM CST

Plaintiffs challenging health law may not have standing; one is unsure how she was chosen for case

Do four Virginia plaintiffs challenging a key component of the Affordable Care Act have standing to sue? Recent news reports have raised questions about the plaintiffs’ ability to sue, but the U.S. government never challenged standing for the reasons cited in the media reports, report the New York Times and…

Feb 24, 2015 9:30 AM CST

Man waited too long to challenge paternity, owes $30K in child support

The mother of a child that authorities say Carnell Alexander fathered in 1987 agrees that Alexander is not the father. In fact, a DNA test also showed that he isn’t the dad. Meanwhile, the actual father of the now-adult child has come forward. However, that doesn’t change the fact that…

Feb 18, 2015 12:00 PM CST

Registration opens for Hackcess to Justice New Orleans

The ABA Journal and the Louisiana State Bar Association will be holding Louisiana’s first access-to-justice hackathon on March 21-22 in New Orleans. The event will bring together coders and legal advocates to produce mobile apps or other solutions to common problems faced by people attempting to navigate the justice system.…

Feb 12, 2015 4:54 PM CST

Lawyer blamed for reversed verdict feels vindicated by appellate ruling that judge abused discretion

A New York judge erred by reversing a jury’s defense verdict based on claimed misbehavior by a lawyer not directly involved in the case, a state appeals court has ruled. Saying that there was no way to determine from the record whether a lawyer attending a dental malpractice trial as…

Feb 11, 2015 12:25 PM CST

Top state court nixes $2.5M personal injury suit because filing fee was $2 short

A lawsuit isn’t officially filed until the full filing fee is paid, Virginia’s top court has ruled. That means a $2.5 million personal injury suit a law firm tried to file a few days before the statute of limitations expired was correctly dismissed by Powhatan Circuit Court, because the filing…

Feb 10, 2015 3:10 PM CST

Supreme Court’s ‘shadow docket’ would benefit from greater transparency, op-ed says

Even modest changes would bring welcome transparency to the U.S. Supreme Court’s orders docket, according to a law professor’s op-ed. Writing for the New York Times, University of Chicago law professor William Baude says the orders docket operates in such obscurity that he calls it the “shadow docket.” This docket…

Feb 4, 2015 6:45 AM CST

Model program brings holistic solutions to divorce

Feb 1, 2015 4:20 AM CST

‘Clear error’ standard of review in factual disputes applies in patent claims, SCOTUS says

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled for a drug company fighting generic competitors in a decision on the proper standard of review in patent infringement cases involving factual issues. In a 7-2 decision (PDF), the Supreme Court held that factual conclusions by trial judges in claim construction cases should be…

Jan 20, 2015 10:45 AM CST

Res judicata bars bias suit by convicted law prof, 8th Circuit rules

The doctrine of res judicata bars a fired law professor from suing Hamline University a second time, a federal appeals court has ruled. The law professor, Robin Magee, was fired in 2011 after her conviction on four misdemeanor counts of failure to file state tax returns, according to the Jan.…

Jan 14, 2015 5:45 AM CST