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Archive for February, 2010
Driving 2010 Revenues through Rainmakers First
Sunday, February 28th, 2010Law Firm Website Design News
Saturday, February 27th, 2010
Law Promo is a specialized web design and internet marketing agency that has been providing the legal community with website services since 2004. In that time, we have helped over two hundred and sixty clients to establish themselves online and expand their businesses through internet marketing. Our website designers are award winners, our search engine optimization techniques are top of the line, and our customer service is second to none.
We will use the knowledge and expertise we have developed to work with you on what type of website is right for your firm. Our web design experts have cutting edge skills in design and technology, including ways to increase optimization on search engines. Expect the finished product to be an original, creative design that will make you stand apart from your competition.
Credibility and professionalism is important to you and we will be sure your site reflects that by keeping it organized and up-to-date. We also offer a content management system so that you can keep information on your site current, no matter what time it is.
We can also help with other attorney marketing strategies, including branding and brochure creation. We have partnerships with a number of legal news sites and have connections with major public relation representatives to broaden your media presence.
The Law Office of Nicholas C. Minshew
The Law Office of Nicholas C. Minshew concentrates its practice in the areas of Divorce and Family Law, Immigration Law, and Adoption Law.
Law Offices of Mary Lee Wegner
Mary Lee Wegner is an employment lawyer with more than 21 years of experience litigating employment cases and advising employers and employees about their respective workplace obligations.
Yusufov Law Firm PLLC
Yusufov Law Firm PLLC specializes in Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 Arizona bankruptcy.
Goddard, Scuteri & Delaney
Goddard, Scuteri & Delaney are experts in personal injury litigation and insurance defense as well as business and real estate litigation and estate litigation.
The Law Office of Wilton A. Person
The Law Office of Wilton A. Person represents a wide array of small businesses owners in Chicago, Illinois.
The Law Offices of Steven M. Simrin
The Law Offices of Steven M. Simrin provides legal services in the areas of tax representation, probate (wills and trusts), and conservatorships.
The Law Office of Andrew Quinn
The Law Office of Andrew Quinn focuses its practice in the areas of business, real estate, and equine matters.
Law Office Of Alan Doorasamy Sr.
Mr. Doorasamy provides legal services in the areas of Immigration, Criminal Law, Gambling Law, and International Business Law.
Law Office of Patricia Williams Prewitt
Ms. Prewitt has worked on litigation matters involving natural gas trading, derivatives and other energy matters.
We will use the knowledge and expertise we have developed to work with you on what type of website is right for your firm. Our web design experts have cutting edge skills in design and technology, including ways to increase optimization on search engines. Expect the finished product to be an original, creative design that will make you stand apart from your competition.
Credibility and professionalism is important to you and we will be sure your site reflects that by keeping it organized and up-to-date. We also offer a content management system so that you can keep information on your site current, no matter what time it is.
We can also help with other attorney marketing strategies, including branding and brochure creation. We have partnerships with a number of legal news sites and have connections with major public relation representatives to broaden your media presence.
The Law Office of Nicholas C. Minshew
The Law Office of Nicholas C. Minshew concentrates its practice in the areas of Divorce and Family Law, Immigration Law, and Adoption Law.
Law Offices of Mary Lee Wegner
Mary Lee Wegner is an employment lawyer with more than 21 years of experience litigating employment cases and advising employers and employees about their respective workplace obligations.
Yusufov Law Firm PLLC
Yusufov Law Firm PLLC specializes in Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 Arizona bankruptcy.
Goddard, Scuteri & Delaney
Goddard, Scuteri & Delaney are experts in personal injury litigation and insurance defense as well as business and real estate litigation and estate litigation.
The Law Office of Wilton A. Person
The Law Office of Wilton A. Person represents a wide array of small businesses owners in Chicago, Illinois.
The Law Offices of Steven M. Simrin
The Law Offices of Steven M. Simrin provides legal services in the areas of tax representation, probate (wills and trusts), and conservatorships.
The Law Office of Andrew Quinn
The Law Office of Andrew Quinn focuses its practice in the areas of business, real estate, and equine matters.
Law Office Of Alan Doorasamy Sr.
Mr. Doorasamy provides legal services in the areas of Immigration, Criminal Law, Gambling Law, and International Business Law.
Law Office of Patricia Williams Prewitt
Ms. Prewitt has worked on litigation matters involving natural gas trading, derivatives and other energy matters.
Is Non-Party Witness Entitled to Attorney at Deposition? (Appellate Court Says No)
Friday, February 26th, 2010
The idea that a witness testifying at a deposition would not be entitled to have an attorney is somewhat startling. But that is, in fact, what the Appellate Division, Fourth Department held earlier this month in Thompson v. Mather, when they firmly established that "counsel for a nonparty witness does not have a right to object during or otherwise to participate in a
pre-trial deposition."
The issue arose during a medical malpractice case involving obstetrical and gynecological treatment and the prescription of oral contraceptives. Plaintiff claimed they were contraindicated. The patient suffered an acute myocardial infarction.
Plaintiff wanted to video the testimony of the treating cardiologists, who were not defendants. The doctors showed up with lawyers provided by their own medical malpractice insurers, who then proceeded to obstruct the questioning. The deposition was abandoned and motion practice ensued.
The lower court, in one of the most bizarre rulings I've ever heard of, suggested that these doctors who had never been sued should be released from liability before unrestricted testimony was to take place! The court suggested that plaintiff and defendants are to
But first they addressed the issue of having counsel at the deposition, and came down firmly against it. Why? Because CPLR 3113 (c) provides that the examination and cross-examination of deposition witnesses "shall proceed as permitted in the trial of actions in open court." The parties can object later, but the witness isn't a party. If this was a trial, the witness would not have a lawyer in the well of the courtroom to object.
And then they kicked the lower court judge but good with respect to that nonsense about providing a release to a witness before testimony could ensue:
And that question was answered by one of the attorneys involved: No. But certainly something to look for if the situation should arise elsewhere, as may well happen with this ruling if such non-party depositions become more common.
pre-trial deposition."
The issue arose during a medical malpractice case involving obstetrical and gynecological treatment and the prescription of oral contraceptives. Plaintiff claimed they were contraindicated. The patient suffered an acute myocardial infarction.
Plaintiff wanted to video the testimony of the treating cardiologists, who were not defendants. The doctors showed up with lawyers provided by their own medical malpractice insurers, who then proceeded to obstruct the questioning. The deposition was abandoned and motion practice ensued.
The lower court, in one of the most bizarre rulings I've ever heard of, suggested that these doctors who had never been sued should be released from liability before unrestricted testimony was to take place! The court suggested that plaintiff and defendants are to
"consider providing general releases to the [physicians] . . . with respect to their initial treatment of [plaintiff]" and that, if such releases are provided, plaintiff will "be entitled to have a videotaped deposition of [the physicians] during which deposition the attorneys for the [physicians] shall not be permitted to speak. . . ."Holy mackerel. In reversing the lower court, the Appellate Division called that "repugnant."
But first they addressed the issue of having counsel at the deposition, and came down firmly against it. Why? Because CPLR 3113 (c) provides that the examination and cross-examination of deposition witnesses "shall proceed as permitted in the trial of actions in open court." The parties can object later, but the witness isn't a party. If this was a trial, the witness would not have a lawyer in the well of the courtroom to object.
And then they kicked the lower court judge but good with respect to that nonsense about providing a release to a witness before testimony could ensue:
...we note that the practice of conditioning the videotaping of depositions of witnesses to be presented at trial upon the provision of general releases is repugnant to the fundamental nonparty obligation of every citizen to participate in our civil trial courts and to provide truthful trial testimony when called to the witness stand. Contrary to nonparty respondents' contention, the fact that the statute of limitations has not expired with respect to a nonparty treating physician witness for the care that he or she provided to a plaintiff provides no basis for such a condition.The unanswered question that I have, given that the lawyers for the cardiologists were provided by their medical malpractice insurance carrier. Is it the same carrier as the defendants?
And that question was answered by one of the attorneys involved: No. But certainly something to look for if the situation should arise elsewhere, as may well happen with this ruling if such non-party depositions become more common.
Linkworthy (Return to personal injury law edition)
Thursday, February 25th, 2010
Clock is tickin', so much I wanted to write about but didn't have the time for...
Here's some reasons not to make any representation as to what a case is worth when you take it in: Settle it Now, Negotiation Blog;
Sometimes the mistake gets made, but the damages aren't there: New mom given wrong baby to nurse, wants settlement from hospital;
Baseball mascot flings hot dog. Said doggie hits fan in the eye. Did the fan assume the risk of having a mascot fling a hot dog at him during a game? And would John Hochfelder have taken the case?
Let me guess, the new client is overseas and they want you to collect an easy $400,000 or so for them, right? And you get a nice big piece? Uh huh. Law Firms Swindled Out of $500K in E-Mail Scam and a personal experience with the scammer;
How's this for a quote regarding the Toyota scandal: "Yet for all the demonizing of trial lawyers, the reality is that product-liability litigation has become an ever more important means of keeping consumers safe." It appeared on the WSJ OP-Ed page;
A post at Concurring Opinions on medical liability uses this graphic at left. But the image looks Photoshopped to me as the instrument seems too small to actually hold. Want to see what a retained surgical instrument really looks like?Bob Dylan is dead. You didn't know? Ann Althouse finds out due to a computer program that ambulance chases. When I wrote Attorney Solicitation 2.0 back in 2007, I never thought of that one;
TortsProf is still chugging along with the Personal Injury Law round-ups;
Blawg Review #252 is frightening;
My three posts on Justice Scalia's letter to my brother regarding secession have had 40,000 page views as it roared around the web with thousands of forum comments, tweets and blog postings, finding a home at NYT, WSJ, WaPo, NBC, CBS and The Hollywood Reporter, among others. And if Eugene Volokh hadn't put up this post, the letter would still be in a drawer as a fun, family curiosity. But no one has tackled my suggestion that Scalia flat out blew it on whether the court could ever hear such a case.
I'm going to bed, hope there aren't too many typos and blown links.
Linkworthy (Return to personal injury law edition)
Thursday, February 25th, 2010Clock is tickin', so much I wanted to write about but didn't have the time for...
Here's some reasons not to make any representation as to what a case is worth when you take it in: Settle it Now, Negotiation Blog;
Sometimes the mistake gets made, but the damages aren't there: New mom given wrong baby to nurse, wants settlement from hospital;
Baseball mascot flings hot dog. Said doggie hits fan in the eye. Did the fan assume the risk of having a mascot fling a hot dog at him during a game? And would John Hochfelder have taken the case?
Let me guess, the new client is overseas and they want you to collect an easy $400,000 or so for them, right? And you get a nice big piece? Uh huh. Law Firms Swindled Out of $500K in E-Mail Scam and a personal experience with the scammer;
How's this for a quote regarding the Toyota scandal: "Yet for all the demonizing of trial lawyers, the reality is that product-liability litigation has become an ever more important means of keeping consumers safe." It appeared on the WSJ OP-Ed page;
A post at Concurring Opinions on medical liability uses this graphic at left. But the image looks Photoshopped to me as the instrument seems too small to actually hold. Want to see what a retained surgical instrument really looks like?Bob Dylan is dead. You didn't know? Ann Althouse finds out due to a computer program that ambulance chases. When I wrote Attorney Solicitation 2.0 back in 2007, I never thought of that one;
TortsProf is still chugging along with the Personal Injury Law round-ups;
Blawg Review #252 is frightening;
My three posts on Justice Scalia's letter to my brother regarding secession have had 40,000 page views as it roared around the web with thousands of forum comments, tweets and blog postings, finding a home at NYT, WSJ, WaPo, NBC, CBS and The Hollywood Reporter, among others. And if Eugene Volokh hadn't put up this post, the letter would still be in a drawer as a fun, family curiosity. But no one has tackled my suggestion that Scalia flat out blew it on whether the court could ever hear such a case.
I'm going to bed, hope there aren't too many typos and blown links.
Florida’s “mini-Madoff” Nadel admits huge fraud
Thursday, February 25th, 2010Arthur Nadel, a former Florida fund manager dubbed a "mini-Madoff" for running a decade-long investment fraud of nearly $400 million, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to criminal charges.
Nadel, 77, disappeared for two weeks before his arrest in January 2009. He had left a letter for his wife imploring her to use a trust fund for her benefit and "sell the Subaru if you need money," a reference to their motor vehicle.
The FBI arrested Sarasota, Florida-based Nadel in his home state, but the case was moved to New York because he traded through a brokerage in the city, Shoreline Trading, an affiliate of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Nadel, who looked frail in court and remained seated throughout the proceeding, pleaded guilty to an indictment of 15 charges, including securities fraud, mail fraud and wire fraud before Manhattan federal court Judge John Koeltl.
Supreme Court weighs free speech against aid to terrorists
Thursday, February 25th, 2010The Supreme Court on Tuesday explored the tension between Americans' right to free speech and a federal law that prohibits aid to terrorist groups, and hardly anyone seemed clear about the lines of demarcation.
The case stems from a challenge to an antiterrorism act by American advocates who say they want to support only the peaceful efforts of groups that the State Department has deemed to be terrorist organizations.
"This is a difficult case for me," allowed Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, whose vote often is the one that decides closely divided cases.
Georgetown law professor David D. Cole, who represents the Humanitarian Law Project, said his clients do not want to provide material support to the groups, but only to help them pursue peaceful ways to end conflict. "The government has spent a decade arguing that our clients cannot advocate for peace, cannot inform about international human rights," Cole told the court.
The project wants to support the lawful activities of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, a militant group in Turkey known as the PKK, and a Sri Lankan group known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Both are among dozens of organizations on the State Department list, along with better-known groups such as al-Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah.
Solicitor General Elena Kagan countered that, as individuals, Cole's clients can advocate whatever they want. But Congress was within its rights, she said, to determine that it was impossible to separate support of any terrorist group's peaceful activities from its violent goals.
Obama nominates Berkeley prof to appeals court
Thursday, February 25th, 2010A UC Berkeley constitutional law professor and civil rights advocate was nominated Wednesday by President Obama to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
Goodwin Liu, 39, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, learned English in kindergarten and later became an honors graduate at Stanford and a Rhodes Scholar. He has taught at Berkeley since 2003 and was named associate dean of the law school in 2008.
He also worked as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and as a special assistant to the deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Education.
Liu is one of two Asian Americans nominated by Obama to the federal appeals courts, which now have no active Asian American judges. The Ninth Circuit handles federal cases from California and eight other Western states and has three vacancies among its 29 authorized judgeships.
"Goodwin Liu is an outstanding teacher, a brilliant scholar and an exceptional public servant," said the law school's dean, Christopher Edley.
The nomination also won praise from Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and from Tom Campbell, a UC Berkeley business professor and former congressman who is seeking the Republican nomination to run against Boxer.
Campbell said Liu would bring "scholarly distinction and a strong reputation for integrity, fair-mindedness and collegiality to the Ninth Circuit."
But Senate confirmation may not be routine. Some of Liu's positions could draw conservative opposition, which has held up other judicial nominees.
Liu testified in January 2006 against President George W. Bush's nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, saying Alito's judicial opinions were well-reasoned but indicated a tilt in favor of prosecutors and the government. He did not testify against Chief Justice John Roberts but told a reporter before the 2005 confirmation hearing that he thought Roberts would move the court to the right.
Miami Law Firm Joins Class Action Suit Against Yelp
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010To loyal users, Yelp.com is a helpful way to find and share reviews of local businesses, but some business owners claim that the website's business practices represent something closer to an extortion scheme.
Miami-based law firm Beck & Lee has joined with a San Diego firm to file a class action suit against the company, according to Mashable. The plaintiff in the suit, a Long Beach Veternary Hospital claims it contacted Yelp to see if it could delete a bad review. At first the representative refused, but then offered to hide or delete the review for about $300 a month.
The East Bay Express ran a story last year claiming that Yelp was essentially "the business of extortion 2.0."
During interviews with dozens of business owners over a span of several months, six people told this newspaper that Yelp sales representatives promised to move or remove negative reviews if their business would advertise. In another six instances, positive reviews disappeared -- or negative ones appeared -- after owners declined to advertise.
Because they were often asked to advertise soon after receiving negative reviews, many of these business owners believe Yelp employees use such reviews as sales leads. Several, including John, even suspect Yelp employees of writing them. Indeed, Yelp does pay some employees to write reviews of businesses that are solicited for advertising. And in at least one documented instance, a business owner who refused to advertise subsequently received a negative review from a Yelp employee.
Yelp immediately denied any wrong doing and claimed the story was inaccurate.
"While we haven't seen the suit yet, anyone can file one, and since the allegations are false we will dispute them aggressively," a Yelp representative tells Mashable regarding the latest suit.
Oklahoma City hires private law firm for union talks
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010Oklahoma City Council members hired a private law firm Tuesday to lead upcoming contract negotiations with the city’s police and firefighter unions.
The firm, McAfee and Taft, was hired in part because negotiations with the unions have gone poorly in recent years.
"It’s just broken,” Ward 4 Councilman Pete White said of recent negotiations with the public safety unions.
Two of the firm’s labor attorneys will be paid $225 an hour each to lead negotiations with the unions for the next fiscal year, according to a contract council members unanimously approved Tuesday.
City officials hope the arrangement helps improve a damaged relationship with the public safety unions.
"It’s just to put a new face on it,” White said. "The people that do the hardest jobs we have in this city are the police department and fire. For the relationship to be this acrimonious ... is not acceptable.”
City attorneys handled past negotiations and will assist with the upcoming negotiations.
The negotiations figure to be tense because the city will likely ask for concessions from its public safety unions in order to meet next year’s budget, which will be much smaller than this year’s.
