Government

Judge OKs Teen’s Church of Body Mod Beliefs, Says School Must Let Her Wear Nose Stud

A lawyer for a 14-year-old high school freshman kicked out of school for wearing a peridot nose stud says a federal judge in Raleigh, N.C., ordered today that she be readmitted. However, an attorney for the school district declined to comment, reports the Associated Press. Ariana Iacono and her mother…

Oct 8, 2010 4:42 PM CDT

Calif. AG Sues 2 Companies, 3 Attorneys & Others for $60M, Says Homeowners Duped Into Suing Banks

Updated: Saying that consumers got little or nothing for hefty upfront fees and put their homes at greater risk of foreclosure by listening to purported home-rescue schemes marketed by two California-based companies that promoted dubious litigation, the state attorney general has a filed a $60 million lawsuit. It names as…

Oct 7, 2010 7:41 PM CDT

Court: Metadata in Citizen’s E-Mail Is Public Record, Justifying Search of Official’s Home Computer

Ruling on a case of first impression, the Washington Supreme Court today held that metadata in a citizen’s unsolicited e-mail sent to a public official on her home computer is a public record that must be disclosed upon request to another citizen, under state public records law. The court also…

Oct 7, 2010 6:45 PM CDT

EEOC Sues Port Authority, Alleges Women Lawyers Paid Less, Older Female Attorneys Fired

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed a direct action against the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, alleging that it pays women lawyers in non-supervisory jobs less than men who do substantially the same work and has fired two women lawyers in their fifties in order to…

Oct 6, 2010 9:26 PM CDT

Fla. AG Can’t Probe Law Firms in ‘Foreclosure Mill’ Investigation, Judge Says

A probe of four “foreclosure mill” law firms by the Florida attorney general’s office suffered a setback today. Palm Beach Circuit Judge Jack Cox not only quashed a subpoena against one of the firms as overbroad and unduly burdensome but suggested in his ruling that the AG lacks power to…

Oct 4, 2010 10:38 PM CDT

Newspaper: ‘Weak-Kneed’ Discipline Council Stumbled in Probate Judge Matter

In a 2004 will, Josephine Smoron left almost all her considerable assets, which included a dairy farm, to her longtime caretaker. A subsequent estate document in 2006 explained that she had expressly disinherited several churches. But as she lay dying in 2009 her court-appointed conservator transferred her assets to two…

Oct 4, 2010 6:58 PM CDT

Defunct Debt Collection Law Firm Found Liable for Nearly $24M

A shuttered debt-collection law firm has been found liable for $23.7 million in a suit claiming it withheld money from a onetime client: an Illinois agency pursuing debtors who defaulted on student loans. The Illinois Student Assistance Commission had claimed the firm, Friedman & Wexler, failed to turn over at…

Oct 4, 2010 11:31 AM CDT

Ohio Official Asks Federal Prosecutor to Review Chase Mortgage Foreclosures

Upping the ante in a mortgage foreclosure mess that already reportedly has prompted the attorney general’s office in six or more states to initiate probes of various lenders, an Ohio official has asked a federal prosecutor to take a look at Chase Home Mortgage and a company that was created…

Oct 1, 2010 3:33 PM CDT

City Attorney Exonerated in Criminal Probe re $15K in Work Monthly Sent to His Own Law Firm

The top lawyer in Chattanooga, Tenn., has been exonerated in a criminal probe over his reported practice of contracting out some $15,000 in legal and secretarial work to his own law firm. Although there were technical violations of state law, said District Attorney General Russell Johnson, of Kingston, Tenn., in…

Oct 1, 2010 2:59 PM CDT

Asst. AG On Leave After Blog Tirades Against ‘Radical Homosexual’ Student Leader

Updated: A report in the Detroit News this morning said Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox had reversed course and decided to suspend a lawyer in his office who attacked a student leader as a “radical homosexual activist” in his blog. The newspaper has now published a revised story that says…

Oct 1, 2010 11:36 AM CDT

Law Student Seeks Pardon of Assault Conviction So He Can Take Bar

Originally charged a decade ago with attempted murder, Shay Golden pleaded guilty to first-degree assault and was sentenced to three years in prison. Now the 31-year-old second-year student at Birmingham School of Law is seeking a pardon of that conviction so he can take the Alabama bar, reports the St.…

Sep 30, 2010 9:50 PM CDT

Shapiro & Fishman Squares Off with Fla. AG, Calls Law Firm Foreclosure Probe an Abuse of Gov’t Power

One of three so-called “foreclosure mill” law firms under investigation by the Florida attorney general has returned fire, calling his probe an abuse of government power. Attorney Gerald Richman of Richman Greer, who is defending the law firm that is the subject of the probe, Shapiro & Fishman, says in…

Sep 30, 2010 6:46 PM CDT

Two Ohio Public Safety Lawyers Ousted Over Allegations of E-Mail Snooping

Two lawyers in the Ohio Department of Public Safety are jobless after the agency’s director accused them of routinely intercepting possibly confidential employee e-mails. Former top public safety lawyer Joshua Engel is accused of intercepting e-mails sent to the state inspector general and to the Columbus Dispatch newspaper, the Columbus…

Sep 30, 2010 2:07 PM CDT

Ex-Legislator’s Indictment re Law Firm ‘Retainer’ Fees Spurs Call for Ethics Reform

Critics are calling for ethics reform, following news of a claimed bribery scheme. It was allegedly conducted under the guise of legal fees paid by one New Jersey law partner to a counterpart at another law firm who also happened to be a lawmaker and chair of the state Senate…

Sep 29, 2010 5:45 PM CDT

Israeli’s Pork Cookbook Creates Controversy

In a country where religious law against consuming pork is also municipal law in a number of communities, a retired Israeli cardiologist’s self-published pork cookbook is creating controversy. Although the author doesn’t follow dietary law, a number of other Jewish citizens consider it an affront to their shared nationalism, reports…

Sep 29, 2010 2:00 PM CDT