Ethics

Judge Targeted for Refusing After-Hours Lethal Injection Appeal

Twenty lawyers have filed an ethics complaint against the presiding judge of Texas’ top criminal court contending she should have kept the court open past 5 p.m. to accept an emergency appeal on behalf of a death-row inmate scheduled to die later that day. The complaint against Presiding Judge Sharon…

Oct 11, 2007 4:42 PM CDT

Anti-Porn Lawyer Wins Round in Judge Dispute

An anti-porn crusading lawyer says he is no longer at risk of being referred to a court ad hoc grievance committee for attaching gay-sex photos to a court filing. Florida lawyer Jack Thompson says the judge vacated an order to show cause why he should not be referred to the…

Oct 10, 2007 6:42 PM CDT

GA Suspends Lawyer for Drug Conviction

A divided Georgia Supreme Court decided yesterday to suspend a 20-year practitioner for two years because of his guilty plea earlier this year to a charge of cocaine possession. Two justices wanted attorney John M.B. Lewis IV disbarred, reports the Augusta Chronicle (reg. req.). One of them, Justice Carol Hunstein,…

Oct 10, 2007 3:18 PM CDT

Four NJ Judges Investigated in Parking-Ticket Probe

The New Jersey attorney general is investigating whether four municipal court judges in Jersey City fixed parking tickets for friends and family. One of the judges under investigation is Wanda Molina, who was the chief judge until she resigned last month, the New York Times reports. Officials told the newspaper…

Oct 10, 2007 1:09 PM CDT

Qualcomm Laptop Becomes Focus in Sanctions Case

The focus is turning to a Qualcomm’s engineer’s laptop in court papers filed in advance of a Friday hearing on whether to sanction the company’s outside lawyers for discovery mistakes. During pretrial discovery, lawyers at Day Casebeer Madrid & Batchelder failed to search the laptop to learn whether engineer Viji…

Oct 10, 2007 12:54 PM CDT

Lawyer Likely to Turn Witness in Ex-Client’s Stock Fraud Trial

The ex-lawyer for a former dot-com billionaire is expected to testify against him in his stock-fraud trial. Lawyer Preston Burton is expected to testify about allegations that Charles “Junior” Johnson pushed him to introduce fake e-mails as evidence, the Washington Post reports. Prosecutors have added a charge of obstruction of…

Oct 10, 2007 11:52 AM CDT

Fax Cited in Hearing Against FL Lawyer

A lawyer for banking regulators pointed to a fax in an effort to show intentional wrongdoing by a former Greenberg Traurig lawyer accused of hiding evidence of $20 million in losses for a now-defunct bank. Special Counsel Lee Strauss argued that Florida lawyer Carlos Loumiet split pages of a fax…

Oct 10, 2007 11:18 AM CDT

Counsel: PI Lawyer’s Aide Was FBI Mole

A former legal assistant to one of three jailed personal injury lawyers accused of bilking $65 million from clients in diet drug litigation allegedly spied on her boss for the FBI and wore a wire to confidential attorney-client meetings. In a federal-court filing in Kentucky last week, counsel representing Melbourne…

Oct 9, 2007 8:01 PM CDT

Court Reinstates Malpractice Verdict

A Pennsylvania appeals court has reinstated a $3 million verdict against an insurer and law firm for failing to settle a defamation case. A Philadelphia jury had ordered the insurer, Continental Casualty Co., to pay $2.1 million for breach of contract and ordered lawyer Jonathan Herbst and his law firm,…

Oct 9, 2007 12:15 PM CDT

FL Lawyer Accused of Hiding Bank Losses

A former partner at Miami-based Greenberg Traurig goes before an administrative judge today to contest allegations that he suppressed material evidence to hide $20 million in losses for a bank client. The Office of Comptroller of the Currency is seeking a cease-and-desist order against Carlos Loumiet that would prevent him…

Oct 9, 2007 11:47 AM CDT

E-Discovery Trips Up Lawyers

Outside lawyers for Qualcomm Inc. will appear at a Friday hearing that considers whether they should be sanctioned for failing to turn over e-mail in a patent dispute with Broadcom Corp. The dustup has gotten a lot of ink in the legal press, but Qualcomm’s problems are not unique, the…

Oct 9, 2007 11:04 AM CDT

Congress Probes Latest Torture Concerns

Congressional committees are launching investigations, after a New York Times article today revealed that two secret Department of Justice opinions in 2005 endorsed prisoner interrogation techniques some consider tantamount to torture. However, the White House has reiterated prior assertions that the U.S. doesn’t torture prisoners. The Democratic chairs of both…

Oct 4, 2007 9:22 PM CDT

CO Lawyer Charged in Child-Witness Case

A longtime Denver criminal defense attorney has been charged with 11 felony counts in a case concerning the alleged intimidation of a child witness against his client in a prostitution case. Charles “Chuck” Leidner, 64, was released on $6,000 bail after being arrested at his home yesterday and charged with…

Oct 4, 2007 7:48 PM CDT

Top NJ Judge Joins 2—Yes, 2—Family Firms

When it came time to retire from the bench and return to law practice, former New Jersey Chief Justice James Zazzali had a hard time making a choice between two family law firms. So he didn’t. Zazzali is now counsel at both a Newark, N.J., law firm started by his…

Oct 4, 2007 7:05 PM CDT

Focus on Day Casebeer in Discovery Probe

New court filings put the spotlight on a Silicon Valley law firm in a judge’s effort to find out why Qualcomm Inc. failed to turn over hundreds of thousands of discovery documents. Declarations filed yesterday focused on 21 potentially damaging e-mails that were withheld from Broadcom Corp. in a patent…

Oct 4, 2007 11:08 AM CDT