With a swagger in his step and a gold tie around his neck, Guido Saveri exuded an air of largesse Wednesday morning.
Moments earlier, a federal judge had approved attorney fees for Saveri and other plaintiffs lawyers who reached a $325 million settlement in a price-fixing case against companies that make DRAM computer chips.
Lead plaintiffs attorneys say an estimated $81.5 million, or 25 percent of the total settlement, will be split as fees between some 40 firms that worked on the case, which was brought on behalf of companies that used the chips in their products.
"Tony, I'll buy you a cup of coffee," Saveri told co-counsel Anthony Shapiro of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, who argued the fee motion before Northern District of California Judge Phyllis Hamilton.
I won't argue that this fee wasn't justified by existing law or was outside the bounds of reason. I know Judge Hamilton, and she has a reputation as being a pretty by-the-book, conservative judge.
But over eighty million dollars??? At my current salary as a public servant, I would have to work for over seven hundred (700) years to earn an equivalent amount. Judge Hamilton would have to work for approximately 560 years. It strikes me that this is somehow insane.
Details here from The Recorder via Law.com.
D.C. administrative law judge Roy Pearson Jr. won't give up after losing his $54 million lawsuit against a local dry cleaner over a missing pair of pants.
Pearson filed an appeal Tuesday with the D.C. Court of Appeals, although the Chung family on Monday withdrew its motion seeking to compel Pearson to pay more than $82,000 in attorney fees. The Chungs have raised close to $100,000 through fundraisers and donations to help cover their legal fees and business losses after international media attention focusing on the case.
Pearson is soldiering on after losing a two-day bench trial in June where he wept over his missing pants, which he'd had altered because he gained weight while he was unemployed before becoming an administrative law judge in 2005.
Chris Manning, the Chungs' attorney, released a statement Tuesday: "The Chungs have done everything possible to put this nightmare behind them and return to their normal lives. They have won resoundingly at trial, raised donations from gracious private donors to pay for their litigation costs, let Mr. Pearson off the hook for personally paying their expenses and extended an olive branch to Mr. Pearson in hopes that he would end this matter and not appeal."
Like most hedge fund managers, James McBride and Kevin Larson expected to make a tidy sum. By the fall of 2003, they seemed well on their way. The series of Veras funds they had launched less than two years before had already attracted around $1 billion in investments.
But then regulators, including then-New York state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and the Securities and Exchange Commission, came after the Veras funds for "late trading," the illegal purchasing of mutual fund shares after the 4 p.m. market close. Veras wound up paying more than $36 million in penalties before shutting down. McBride and Larson each paid $750,000 and were barred from the industry.
But the ex-fund managers are still out for big money, this time from the law firm they claim advised them that late trading was legal. In February, the former hedge fund managers filed suit against Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Their damages claim? A whopping $4.4 billion, not including punitive damages.
In an emotional address to the American Bar Association, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy on Monday implored the nation's lawyers to constantly re-examine their conduct to be sure they exemplify principles of justice and fairness and advocate for the rule of law around the world.
Kennedy, 71, received the association's Medal of Honor, its highest award, for a career of advancing the rule of law and advocating for improvements in the profession and administration of justice. Nearing his 20th anniversary on the nation's highest court, Kennedy recalled his early days as a lawyer and choked up as he thanked his family for supporting his career.
In a reference that could be taken as a defense of his own work on the Court, Kennedy said lawyers "must never cease asking, 'Why am I doing this? What inner voice is telling me to decide the case this way?'" Kennedy told the assembled House of Delegates. Such introspection, he said, "is not indecision, it is fidelity to your oath."
Especially on the newly configured Roberts Court, Kennedy is a crucial swing vote, and his agonizing and occasional vote switches are legendary.
Kennedy said the association and the profession should be proud of its role in advancing justice worldwide. "The American lawyer has an honored place in the history of human progress," Kennedy said. But worldwide, he said, the legal system Americans take for granted is unknown to millions. If American lawyers don't seek to spread legal structures and principles around the world, Kennedy said, "The rule of law and our freedom is not secure.
"There is hurt to assuage ... There is injustice to be confronted," Kennedy concluded. "The work of freedom has just begun."
Attorney Tom Frankovich and his disabled clients sue small businesses to make them accessible - and make millions
Inside his elegant law office in a restored century-old Victorian at the upper end of Van Ness [in San Francisco], with his feet sprawled across an enormous hand-carved desk to reveal the most audacious pair of alligator boots this side of Wyoming, Tom Frankovich projects the swagger of a man at the top of his game.
The cartoon image that greets visitors to his law office Web site may well be the closest thing to a Frankovich self-portrait. In it, the burly, pony-tailed lawyer with a penchant for cowboy hats and bolo ties leads a throng of the disabled from atop a military tank labeled "Access Blaster." A gun-toting female stands guard as Frankovich commandeers a special phone for the hard-of-hearing.
Perhaps not surprisingly, he professes to practice disabilities law the way his favorite role models, World War II generals Rommel and Patton, executed warfare. "The best defense is a good offense," he declares. "You keep going. You don't stop. The only thing that works is firepower; the more the better."
The letter is part confession, part apology and part practical advice. It is shocking in its honesty.
"I have embezzled funds from my clients," business law attorney Jonathan Hoyt wrote to his son, attorney Christopher Hoyt. "Like most lawyers who fall into this trap I always did it with the idea that I would repay the funds, but of course once I started down this slippery slope there was nothing but failure waiting for me at the end."
The letter is dated July 7, one day after Jonathan Hoyt, 58, was last seen in The Hoyt Law Group's Clinton, Conn., office, according to police. As of late last week, he was still missing. Clinton police are investigating his disappearance. Hoyt's tan 1999 Lexus 300 four-door sedan was found by police on July 17 in a private parking lot near the Intermodal Transportation Center in Bridgeport, Conn.
On July 20, Middletown Superior Court Judge Julia L. Aurigemma accepted the state disciplinary counsel's application to immediately suspend the elder Hoyt's law license. A trustee has been appointed to take over the firm's client files.
Since the sudden death of Miami maritime attorney William Huggett three years ago, his widow has been fighting his former staff for taking all her husband's cases to a newly formed law firm and charging her $739,000 for bonuses and vacation pay.
In a stunning twist, a federal grand jury in Miami indicted Sara San Martin, Huggett's former office manager and bookkeeper, in June for allegedly writing fraudulent checks on Huggett's accounts to pay off her mortgage and a truck loan.
San Martin was charged with bank fraud and faces a possible sentence of 30 years in prison. She retained Miami attorney Brian Tannebaum this week.
Sometimes lawyers seem to forget that, in their professional capacities, they owe a duty of loyalty to their clients – even when they no longer like them. And when a lawyer becomes convinced his client is on the wrong side of a particular legal dispute, the lawyer generally has the option of staying out of that dispute. He does not, however, have the option of switching sides and suing a client on behalf of a third party, alleging that the very settlement he obtained for the client in prior litigation actually belongs to the third party. And when the client objects to such an attempt, and sues the lawyer for breach of his professional obligations, the lawyer probably shouldn’t cross-complain back against her, apparently outraged that she has dragged him into the controversy and caused him to expend money to defend himself.
That's the introductory paragraph from PHILIPSON & SIMON v. GULSVIG (Cal. Ct. App., 4th App. Dist. Div. 3, Jul. 30, 2007) No. G037335 (Bedsworth, J.).
The case of District of Columbia v. Heller is barely at the Supreme Court's starting gate, yet nearly everyone involved has a growing sense that this will be the Big One. It is shaping up as the case that finally forces the Court, after nearly 70 years of silence, to decide one of the most keenly debated issues in constitutional law: the full meaning of the right to keep and bear arms declared by the Second Amendment. But as the case heats up, factions on both sides seem to be getting cold feet.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas and several journalists filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday, asking state prison officials to let witnesses see the entire execution process, not just when poison flows into condemned inmates.
Now, media and public witnesses cannot watch as intravenous tubes are inserted and removed from the inmates. The curtains to the execution chamber open to witnesses after the condemned prisoner is already strapped to the gurney, and close once the inmate is dead.
"Witnesses should be allowed to see the entire process, including strapping the condemned down and the insertion of needles," said the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Pine Bluff. "The public has a First Amendment right to view executions from the moment the condemned is escorted into the execution chamber, including those initial procedures that are inextricably intertwined with the process of putting the condemned inmate to death."
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Federal agents raided 10 marijuana clinics Wednesday, the same day city leaders introduced a measure calling for an end to the crackdown on the dispensaries allowed under state law.
The bust netted five arrests, large quantities of marijuana and cash, and was the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's second-largest since California voters approved medical marijuana sales in 1996. The drug remains illegal under federal law.
DEA spokeswoman Sarah Pullen refused to give details of the raids, but said the timing of the bust and the city's action was ''purely coincidental.''
The agency has maintained the clinics are distribution points for illegal drugs and earn their owners big profits.
That's got to piss of the aforementioned "city leaders." Details here from the AP via the New York Times.
DENVER (AP) -- A woman accused of repeatedly hitting her two young children on a flight from San Francisco to Denver has been indicted on assault and interference charges. The indictment against Tamera Jo Freeman was handed down Tuesday and made public Wednesday.
An FBI affidavit alleges that Tamera Jo Freeman, 38, hit and cursed at her 4-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son during the July 16 Frontier Airlines flight. It also alleges that she assaulted and intimidated a flight attendant who intervened.
Freeman was arrested after the plane landed and has been held in jail since. A hearing is scheduled Thursday to determine whether she should be released. Freeman allegedly told an investigator she ''lost it'' and slapped her children during the flight because they were fighting over the window shade and because her daughter had spilled a drink.
The indictment includes one count of interfering with a flight attendant and two counts of assault on a child under 16 on an airplane.
This case is bound to start a vigorous debate about corporal punishment and parental rights. Details here from the AP via the New York Times.
Once in a great while, I come across something that has nothing to do with the law, but is so compelling I can't help but post it. Here's an example:
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) -- Oscar the cat seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, by curling up next to them during their final hours. His accuracy, observed in 25 cases, has led the staff to call family members once he has chosen someone. It usually means they have less than four hours to live.
''He doesn't make too many mistakes. He seems to understand when patients are about to die,'' said Dr. David Dosa in an interview. He describes the phenomenon in a poignant essay in Thursday's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
''Many family members take some solace from it. They appreciate the companionship that the cat provides for their dying loved one,'' said Dosa, a geriatrician and assistant professor of medicine at Brown University.
The 2-year-old feline was adopted as a kitten and grew up in a third-floor dementia unit at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. The facility treats people with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease and other illnesses.
After about six months, the staff noticed Oscar would make his own rounds, just like the doctors and nurses. He'd sniff and observe patients, then sit beside people who would wind up dying in a few hours.
I predict that Oscar's story will make it around the world in the next day or two. Further details are here from the AP via the New York Times.
You might have noted that the post immediately below this one ("Federal Judges to Mull Population Cap for California Prisons") was "guest posted" by Jeff Lewis. Although I've never actually met Jeff, he and I have been "blogging friends" for many years -- Jeff used to blog at the now-defunct Southern California Law Blog, which he started shortly after I started this one. Jeff currently blogs at Nota Bene -- check it out.
Anyway, I recently invited Jeff to post here if and when he feels like it, and it appears that he's already started. His is the first post ever to appear here from anyone other than me. I hope you welcome him, as I have (despite the fact that he's a self-confessed god damned Republican . . . .).
Federal judges seeking to improve prison medical care called the state's latest efforts insufficient Monday and ordered creation of a three-judge panel to consider capping California's inmate population.
The move — the first for a state prison system — has the potential to prompt early release of inmates. Experts and elected officials, however, said that less-drastic measures might appease federal courts and that releases, if necessary, could be made in ways that minimize any threat to the public.
A Hollywood church that burned marijuana during services and distributed it to members is protected under federal law because the drug is a religious sacrament, the leader of the congregation argued in a hearing before his drug possession trial Tuesday. The Rev. Craig X Rubin, 41, the leader of the 420 Temple who has appeared in episodes of the Showtime comedy "Weeds," faces up to seven years in prison if convicted of possessing marijuana for sale. Jury selection was set to begin Tuesday afternoon.
Though ordained in 1990 by the Universal Life Church, police and prosecutors describe Rubin as a drug dealer. The Beverly Hills, Calif.-born minister was arrested last fall and freed after posting $20,000 bail.
Rubin, who is representing himself, has asserted his protection under a 1993 federal law designed to prevent government from imposing laws that restrict religious freedoms.
"We feel pot is the tree of life mentioned in the Bible, so it is incorporated into the ceremony," Rubin said before the hearing began.
Deputy District Attorney Bob Chen told Superior Court Judge Mary H. Strobel there have been no cases in California where marijuana use was acceptable for religious reasons.
Rough spots are common on the road of civil litigation, but it's not every day that a plaintiffs attorney sues his adversary for asking "inhumane" questions during a deposition that allegedly inflict "grievous emotional distress."
That's the thrust of a suit filed July 11 in Essex County, N.J., in which Bruce Nagel claims Judith Wahrenberger, his adversary in a medical malpractice case, acted tortiously by asking a husband whether he felt his wife had played a role in the death of their infant daughter by handling the child roughly.
"Wahrenberger's unsupported and intentional attack upon the parents was beyond any acceptable behavior of a civilized human being," alleges Nagel, of Nagel Rice in Roseland, N.J.
Wahrenberger, the attorney for an emergency room physician at St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, N.J., says she had an obligation to pursue the line of questioning because an autopsy showed the baby had a subarachnoid brain hemorrhage, which can be a sign of shaken-baby syndrome.
No way was the Transportation Security Administration about to let a passenger board an airplane armed and dangerous. Even if the passenger happened to be Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Thomas Saylor.
The justice 'fessed up to an incident with the TSA while recently completing a judicial evaluation questionnaire for the Pennsylvania Bar Association. In the portion of the questionnaire asking if the justice has ever been arrested, charged with or convicted of violating any federal, state or local law or regulation, Saylor, 61, copped to a February 2005 incident at Harrisburg International Airport.
"I was assessed a civil penalty by the TSA because I attempted to board an airplane with a one-and-one-half-inch keychain pocketknife," Saylor wrote. "I paid the civil penalty of $750 to conclude the matter."
Despite that brief brush with the law, the bar association recommended retaining Saylor, who was first elected to the high court in 1997.
The first military trial of a terror suspect at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba was a "charade" played out for the public and media to protect U.S. government interests, Australia's leading lawyers' association said Tuesday.
The Law Council of Australia released the scathing report in the case of former kangaroo skinner David Hicks, 31, who is serving a prison sentence in his hometown of Adelaide after pleading guilty at the U.S. naval base on Cuba in March to providing material support to the al-Qaida terrorist network.
Hicks, who was captured by the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance in Afghanistan in December 2001, will be released from prison in December under the plea deal after spending more than five years at Guantanamo Bay.
The council sent leading barrister Lex Lasry to Cuba as an independent observer of the court proceedings, and he found that the trial "was a charade" that was "designed to lay a veneer of due process over a political and pragmatic bargain," according to his report.
In a new twist on attorneys' use of technology and pop culture, a group of lawyers recently put a seven-second video dubbed the Paxil Chipmunk on YouTube to announce a $48 million class action settlement involving the antidepressant. "As long as you're honest about something, why not also be funny," said attorney Brian Wolfman of Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group that launched the YouTube Paxil announcement this month.
