Massachusetts

Boston Firm Axes 40 Support Staff

No lawyers were let go this week from Boston’s Goulston & Storrs, but some 40 administrative staff and paralegals were given pink slips. Co-managing partner Kitt Sawitsky told the Boston Business Journal that the cuts corrected an overstaffing of secretaries at the firm. Now the secretary to attorney ratio at…

Dec 5, 2008 8:12 PM CST

Police Chief, Gun Club Indicted After Boy’s Death From Uzi

A veteran police chief of the Massachusetts town where an 8-year-old boy fatally shot himself while holding a machine gun at a weapons expo was indicted today along with three others on charges of involuntary manslaughter. Pelham Police Chief Edward B. Fleury owns COP Firearms & Training, which was a…

Dec 4, 2008 9:28 PM CST

Oldest Mass. Inmate, a ‘Criminal Through and Through,’ Dies at 92

Massachusetts inmate Nick George Montos committed his first offense as a teenager and the last at the age of 78. The oldest prisoner in the state, he died Sunday at the age of 92. A former prosecutor once called Montos a “criminal through and through,” the Boston Globe reports. Over…

Dec 3, 2008 4:41 PM CST

Graduate of Non-ABA-Accredited Law School Can Take Mass. Bar Exam

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has waived the usual requirement that all takers of the state bar examination must be graduates of an ABA-accredited law school for a licensed California attorney who got his law degree in 2004 from Concord Law School, a non-ABA-accredited online institution. Describing Ross Mitchell…

Nov 21, 2008 8:26 PM CST

Ex-FBI Agent Convicted in 1982 Murder for Tipping Gangsters

A Miami jury has convicted a retired FBI agent accused of cooperating with Boston’s Winter Hill Gang and providing information to gangsters that led to a South Florida murder in 1982. “Disgraced FBI agent John Connolly, the crime-fighter who fell in with criminals, was convicted of second-degree murder yesterday for…

Nov 7, 2008 6:39 PM CST

Mass. Jury Gives $13.5M to Family of ‘Cured’ Woman Who Died of Treatment

Experimental bone cancer treatment cured a 40-year-old Massachusetts woman, as an autopsy determined after she died of side effects from the treatment. So a Suffolk Superior Court jury awarded $13.5 million yesterday to the family of Amy Altman, finding that the mother of two would have survived if doctors at…

Nov 6, 2008 9:35 PM CST

Company Tax Techniques Could Be Costly in Closely Watched Mass. Cases

Three closely watched Massachusetts cases over aggressive corporate tax avoidance techniques are likely to be decided soon. And if they come down in favor of the state, as some observers say they may, other companies both there and elsewhere are likely to ante up much-needed additional revenue, reports the Boston…

Nov 5, 2008 8:54 PM CST

New Lawyer to Represent ‘Crockefeller’ on Multiple Fronts

An apparently bogus blueblood who made international headlines this summer after he allegedly kidnapped his 7-year-old daughter is putting a high-profile criminal defense attorney in charge of a variety of legal proceedings he is now facing. Jeffrey Denner of Denner Pellegrino will now represent “Clark Rockefeller,” who is believed to…

Nov 5, 2008 6:44 PM CST

Some Lawyers are Reducing Fees as Corporations Seek Discounts

When attorney Mark Peroff moved to the Manhattan office of Hiscock & Barclay, a 200-lawyer firm headquartered in upstate New York, he persuaded clients to follow him by offering a 20 percent fee discount from what they had been paying for his work at his former partnership. Competing for corporate…

Nov 4, 2008 5:57 PM CST

Stealing $1 and Empty Cans From Girl, 10, Brings 9-Month Jail Sentence

A homeless man who, along with another man, allegedly stole a $1 bill and a bag of empty cans from a 10-year-old Massachusetts girl has been sentenced to 9 months in jail. “Robert Rowell Jr. pleaded guilty on Monday to larceny in Attleboro District Court, and was credited with three…

Oct 29, 2008 8:56 PM CDT

Final Answer for Victim’s Family in Boston ‘Big Dig’ Death: $28M

The family of a 38-year-old woman who was crushed to death in 2006 when a portion of the so-called “Big Dig” tunnel ceiling collapsed in Boston will get $28 million in settlements, after reaching an agreement with the remaining defendants in the wrongful death case. “Milena Del Valle’s family agreed…

Oct 1, 2008 8:06 PM CDT

Ropes & Gray Expands Chicago Foothold

A Boston-based international law firm is expanding its foothold in Chicago, moving to new offices and hiring additional lawyers. Ropes & Gray now has 12 attorneys in the Windy City, after bringing in three former Mayer Brown partners to open the office in February. And the 1,000-lawyer firm appears likely…

Sep 26, 2008 4:05 PM CDT

Cross-Dressing Bankruptcy Judge Lands at Boston Law Firm

Former bankruptcy judge Robert Somma has a new job at a Boston law firm. Somma is joining the firm of Posternak Blankstein & Lund as a senior counsel in the firm’s bankruptcy department, the Boston Globe reports. The respected judge made headlines in February when he was arrested for drunken…

Sep 24, 2008 12:20 PM CDT

Law Grads Among Those Competing for Free Furniture

It isn’t just college students in the Boston area who are competing for free furniture in a thriving market for secondhand treasures, scouring Internet listings and keeping an eagle eye on local curbs and a parking lot where Harvard University offers its castoffs on a first-come, first-served basis. Two recent…

Aug 29, 2008 4:15 PM CDT

New England Mafia Reportedly Isn’t What It Used to Be

It’s hard to get good help anymore, not only in ordinary business ventures but in criminal enterprises, too. And, as a result of that generational change, attributed at least in part to a wave of convictions in the 1980s, the Mafia in New England is reportedly losing steam. “In what…

Aug 28, 2008 11:10 PM CDT