Even though the media was extremely interested over the case, the Denver Police spokesman, Sonny Jackson, was not forthcoming with any more information than that the drummer had been taken into custody on Tuesday morning. He is scheduled to appear before the court on Wednesday.

Fisher is an integral part of the hugely popular band OneRepublic, led by composer Ryan Tedder. The group has huge hits like the songs “Apologize” and “Stop and Stare.” “Apologize” sold more than 4.3 million digital downloads only in the United States and later went platinum in other countries. It also broke the airplay records in U.K.

Eddie grew up in Mission Viejo, California and recently shifted to Denver, Colorado. Eddie Fisher is the third drummer of the group OneRepublic and joined the band in 2005. Eddie is also credited with writing the hit song “Stop and Stare.”

The first album of One Republic was released in 2007 and named “Dreaming Out Loud.” It was followed in 2009 by the album “Waking Up.”

Eddie, 38, has drummed on many tracks for the band and credited with exceptional drumming on tracks like “Save You” and “If I Can’t Have You,” and “Please Don’t Stop the Rain.”

• No Related Post

The death of man who from the time of his arrest to the death-row kept crying “I am innocent” is heart-breaking. For Reverend Carroll Pickett, DeLuna was the thirty-third person he eased through his last day. Pickett oversaw sixty-two more executions, in total ninety-five, but it was DeLuna’s case that led him to seek psychiatric help. For you could see truth in the man’s eyes crying innocence, the truth that the state system of Texas steadfastly refused to recognize.

DeLuna told the law enforcement that Carlos Hernandez was the actual killer, but the prosecutor said that the killer named by DeLuna was a “phantom.” Evidence uncovered through the years show that Hernandez was not only real, but he was well-known to the police, let off time and again over serious crimes and both the police and the prosecutors were aware of the crimes and history of Hernandez, but they chose to execute Carlos DeLuna in his place. Crying “I didn’t do it, but I know who did” did not help DeLuna, because the state of Texas clearly did not want the real criminal in the net as shown in the following facts. DeLuna was charged with the murder of a woman whom he did not even know and killed in prison.

The real killer, Carlos Gonzales Hernandez Jr. spent most of his 45 years on earth committing crimes for which he was never punished or barely punished if at all. In 1971 he was convicted of ‘negligent homicide’ for killing the boyfriend of his sister. Hernandez’s sentence was suspended and he did not spend any time in jail. In 1972, Hernandez was sentenced for twenty years each for three armed hold-ups, amounting to sixty years. Texas decided to parole him after five years, because obviously, someone needed him outside. Immediately after, in 1979, Hernandez was arrested for killing Dahlia Sauceda in front of her two-year old daughter and carving an “X” on her naked back. Prosecutor Kenneth Botary released him and went after another man who was eventually acquitted. Hernandez was once again arrested in 1986 for the killing, but by that time, conveniently, the prosecutor had ‘misplaced’ key evidence and the charges were dropped. Then in 1989, Hernandez assaulted Dina Ybanez with a seven inch knife. The court gave him a ten-year sentence. Texas paroled him in one and a half years.

So, Hernandez killed Wanda Lopez in 1983, and the law enforcement and the prosecution went after ‘childlike’ Carlos DeLuna, had him sentenced for execution, and killed him in 1989 by injecting poison. What struck Reverend Pickett was DeLuna was not concerned with death but whether the injection would hurt.

This is the first time in its 45-year history that the Columbia Human Rights Law Review has devoted an entire issue, Issue 3 of Volume 43 to a single topic, the wrongful execution of DeLuna, and the hours of video recordings, evidence, and documents presented by the team of professor Liebman.

After a sixteen year hiatus, Texas resumed executions in 1982. Since then, there have been 482 executions in Texas, four times more than any other state in the USA.

• No Related Post

The first law school to introduce a solo incubator program for new graduates is the City University of New York School of Law, which begun such a program in 2007. New York’s lead was followed by the University Of Missouri Kansas City School Of Law and the University Of Maryland Francis King Carey School Of Law. The Pace Law School has joined the list recently before Thomas Jefferson School of Law decided to adopt the strategy.

The concept of the solo incubator includes a post graduation program through which affordable office space and mentoring from the university faculty would be available to graduates to help them learn how to run solo practices. Thomas Jefferson School of Law would start accepting applications for the solo incubator program in July and expects to start off with about eight initial participants. The aspirants would spend between one to one-and-a-half years in the incubator before setting up their own practices. The candidates would also be helped by MBA students from the San Diego State University who would be researching the solo practitioner market and help in identifying target niche markets with opportunities and help to set up fee structures.

Thomas Jefferson professor Luz Herrera told the media that the competition to solo practitioners is not from law firms but from do-it-yourself providers like LegalZoom. New York School of Law’s Fred Rooney, who developed the first such solo incubator programs, would be helping the faculty at Thomas Jefferson to make the program a success.

Rooney told the media “As more solo incubators are conceptualized by law a school, each one is going to be unique … I think the Thomas Jefferson model is going to emphasize cross-border matters.”

The preliminary plans for helping those who want to become solo practitioners include taking suggestions from local bar associations and practicing attorneys about improving the law school curriculum. Practicing attorneys may also be invited to lecture on topics including professional practice tips like “how to market yourself” and “how to maintain good relationships with opposing counsel.”

• No Related Post

Last week, when the agency said it would seize control of three Dewey pension plans covering 1,776 future and current retirees, it came to light that the plans were underfunded by close to $80 million. According to the lawsuit, Dewey is quietly winding down outside bankruptcy proceedings and keeping stakeholders guessing.

Last week, when the pension authorities phoned Dewey, the firm told the agency that “two or three transactions” would be completed between Friday and Monday that could generate between $7.2 million and $9.7 million. The lawsuit did not specify the deals indicated, but the only transaction that took place within that time is the takeover of Dewey’s Poland office by Greenberg Traurig, with the deal being done in cooperation with the pension authorities.

On Tuesday, the attorneys from Dewey’s Italian offices had announced that they would be launching a separate law firm, Grimaldi Studio Legale, and would be hiring Vittorio Grimaldi a high profile mergers lawyer. The new Italian firm would have 130 lawyers in Rome, Milan and Brussels.

Another 11 private equity and real estate lawyers from Dewey’s New York office have announced that they would be joining Schulte Roth & Zabel. This elite group of equity and real estate lawyers includes attorneys Sanford Morhouse, (former co-chair of Dewey Ballantine).

The lawsuit by the pension authorities and their assumption that Dewey is trying to wind down outside bankruptcy seem to be true as associates and other staff had been kept guessing till the last moment. Though Dewey has announced recently on May 10 that this Tuesday would be the last day for most associates and last Friday for legal staff, the law firm is yet to appoint a dissolution committee. Strangely, there has been no vote to dissolve the firm. So, it seems a clear and organized attempt to liquidate without intervention from the courts and avoid the steep costs of a bankruptcy filing.

According to analysts, despite all its maneuvering, Dewey may be forced into involuntary bankruptcy. Involuntary bankruptcies can be caused when creditors fear loss of their collateral and seek freezing of assets by a court. Last year, that is what happened with another law firm Howrey, which tried to liquidate without court intervention, but was stopped in its tracks when creditors filed a bankruptcy petition. Ultimately Howrey had to convert the case into a voluntary filing for bankruptcy.

• No Related Post

Richard Schulze, the founder and chairman of Best Buy, is the latest to be removed from the company that also cost CEO Brian Dunn his job earlier this year. It was announced on Monday by the company that Hatim Tyabji will become the chairman of the board beginning on June 21. Tyabji is serving as the chairman of the company’s audit committee right now.

Dunn left Best Buy on April 10 after a report concluded that he violated company policy. The report said Dunn did so by “by engaging in an extremely close personal relationship with a female employee that negatively impacted the work environment.”

Dunn left Best Buy with a severance package worth close to $6,639,311. Dunn was with the company for 28 years and became CEO in 2009. He resigned in April when the company’s board of directors began an investigation into his behavior. According to Best Buy, Schulze, “acted inappropriately when he failed to bring the matter to the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors in December 2011, when the allegations were first raised with him.”

The results of the investigation into Dunn were revealed on Saturday by Best Buy regarding his relationship with a 29-year-old female employee. The report stated that Dunn had an inappropriate relationship with the female that disrupted the workplace. Multiple employees saw the two meet privately in his office and in conference rooms on multiple occasions. The report also states the following:

“During one four-day and one five-day trip abroad during 2011, the CEO contacted the female employee by cell phone at least 224 times, including 33 phone calls, 149 text messages, and 42 picture or video messages. In one instance, several photographs were discovered on the CEO’s personal cell phone that contained messages expressing affection, one of which included the female employee’s initials.”

The report also found that Dunn loaned the employee $600 of his personal money as well as giving her tickets to seven sporting events and concerts. The report did not mention the misuse of company funds or aircraft. The report did find that the relationship “negatively impacted the work environment” and “demonstrated extremely poor judgment and a lack of professionalism.”

Both the female employee and Dunn denied that their relationship was improper or romantic but the report claimed otherwise. The report mentions that the woman discussed her relationship with her co-workers multiple times. The report also says that Schulze became aware of the relationship in December of 2011 but failed to disclose the problem to the company’s audit committee. The issues did not come to light with the board of directors until March of 2012.

• No Related Post

A group of about 50 lawyers from the Europe office of Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP are joining the firm of Greenberg Traurig. Greenberg was one of the firms considering a merger with Dewey or another type of transaction, which was something that never came to fruition. According to a statement from Greenberg, the Dewey office in Warsaw, Poland will now be known as Greenberg Traurig Grzesiak.

The name added to the firm’s name comes from Jaroslaw Grzesiak, who was the former managing partner from the Warsaw office at Dewey. The senior partner will be Lejb Fogelman. In a statement from Grzesiak, he said that multiple firms tried to win the lawyers from Dewey’s office in Poland. Greenberg also acquired partners in London and New York. This includes Frank R. Adams, who is from the executive committee of Dewey and was the former chair of Dewey’s corporate finance practice.

“This approach requires real discipline in an increasingly undisciplined world, as we focus on the careful selection of individuals and teams in a sensible manner,” Richard A. Rosenbaum said. Rosenbaum is the chief executive for Greenberg Traurig.

“This team has been successful in Poland for two decades, is integral to the Warsaw business and legal communities, and is exactly such an opportunity in one of the most important and successful European markets, where entrepreneurship in the private sector is highly valued and supported with policies that focus on growth.”

• Third Member of Dewey Management Team Jumps Ship
• Rumors of Dewey Closure Swirling
• Greenberg Traurig Could ‘Cherry Pick’ Attorneys from Dewey
• Former Nixon Peabody Employee Indicted
• Florida-based Greenberg Traurig Named Corporate and Finance Law Firm of the Year

In the wake of decreasing application numbers at law schools, George Washington University Law School has reduced its enrollment intentionally. Paul Schiff Berman, the school’s dean, said that the school is not planning to cut a set number of J.D. candidates from this fall’s incoming class but wants to reduce enrollment to under 450. The school also wants to continue to reduce enrollment in the following years. The school enrolled 474 J.D. students in the fall of 2011.

In April, the University of California Hastings College of Law announced its plans to lower enrollment by 20 percent over the next three years. During the 2011 school year, Creighton University School of Law, Albany Law School and Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center all dropped their enrollment numbers.

When Berman became the school’s top administrator in May of 2011, he planned then to start lowering the school’s enrollment. During the current admission cycle, the school saw a 15 percent decline in applications. The dip in applications follows a national trend that has been reported by the Law School Admissions Council. Berman claims that the information provided by the Law School Admissions Council helped aid him in his decision to lower enrollment.

U.S. News & World Report ranks law schools by using incoming students’ Law School Admission Test scores and grade-point averages of undergraduate students. Berman said that concerns over a lower ranking were not a factor in the decision because cutting enrollment does not necessarily increase a school’s ranking. Berman said there is more concern over admitting students to the school who will struggle academically.

“We are focused on maintaining the quality and standards of our class,” Berman said. “We want to make sure everyone we enroll we think will succeed in law school and be leaders in the profession.”

Berman said that the school will lose some tuition revenue but will attempt to make up for the loss with an increase in fundraising and with the installation of some new programs for non-lawyers. In the fall, the law school and the business school will offer a joint degree in law and business of government contracts. The school wants to create a similar program for non-lawyers when it comes to intellectual property. Berman said that reducing the class size will offer smaller classes, a decreased student-to-faculty ratio and a more intimate experience at the school.

“I think almost any school that can afford to do it will cut down the class size,” he said.

• Paul Hastings Hires IP Team from Skadden
• Berenato White & Stavish Brings on IP Pros
• Littler Expands Employment Practice with Faegre Lawyers
• SEC Still Hunting to Fill Legal Positions
• Former AG Barr Joins Kirkland & Ellis

A $1 million countersuit has been filed by former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn against the hotel maid who accused him of sexually assaulting her. The accusation cost him his job and any chance he had for being elected as the president of France. Strauss-Kahn was arrested by New York police one year ago when Nafissatou Diallo, the hotel maid, accused him of forcible oral sex and attempted rape in his suite at the Sofitel Hotel in Manhattan. The charges against Strauss-Kahn were dropped when prosecutors lost faith in the credibility of Diallo.

Strauss-Kahn filed the countersuit on Monday, which was the anniversary of the incident. The allegations against Strauss-Kahn were denied when he said the sexual incident with Diallo was consensual. Diallo sued Strauss-Kahn in state Supreme Court in the Bronx. In the countersuit, Strauss-Kahn denies wrongdoing in the case and has accused Diallo of “knowingly and intentionally making a false report to law enforcement authorities.”

“Soon after she entered the room, Ms. Diallo and Mr. Strauss-Kahn engaged in mutually consensual acts,” the claim states. “No violence, force or coercion attended their sexual encounter, and Ms. Diallo suffered no injuries whatsoever.”

Strauss-Kahn seeks damages for his arrest, which included a stint at Rikers Island and house arrest in Tribeca along with damages for losing his job and harm to his reputation. The suit is asking for $1 million in damages and an unknown amount of punitive damages. The suit was filed only two weeks after Strauss-Kahn’s request to have Diallo’s lawsuit thrown out because of diplomatic immunity. The motion by Strauss-Kahn for dismissal was rejected by Bronx Supreme Court Justice Douglas McKeon.

Douglas Wigdor, a lawyer for Diallo, described the countersuit as ‘a desperate ploy.’ “One year to the day of his brutal sexual assault of Ms. Diallo, this is yet another example that personifies Strauss Kahn’s misogynistic attitude,” Wigdor said in a statement.

One of the lawyers for Strauss-Kahn, William W. Taylor III, said in a released statement that “(i)it should come as no surprise that Mr. Strauss-Kahn is asserting claims against Ms. Diallo for her false allegations against him.”

“She is directly responsible for his being arrested, imprisoned, and subjected to extraordinary pain, anguish and expense. Her conduct is not without consequence for her and he is not required to simply endure what she did and her effort to profit for herself without fighting back,” Taylor said in the statement.

• Judge Denies Strauss-Kahn Motion to Dismiss Lawsuit
• Hollande defeats Sarkozy; World Market Nosedives
• French Terrorist Shot Dead
• Death Toll in Syria Rising
• President Sarkozy says France has “Too many foreigners,” and Plans Changes

Kim Kardashian decided to done a short wig this past Sunday, making her look much like her mother, Kris Jenner, who is 56. In one of the pictures, Kim is kissing new boyfriend Kanye West but it really looks like Kris Jenner kissing the rap star. Kim was wearing the wig for a sexy photo shoot for Vogue Italia. On the other hand, Kim, who is 31, looked nothing like her mother from the head down. Kim was sporting a very low-cut, S&M bustier in the photos.

West, 34, decided to visit his beau at the photo shoot and the two were caught kissing on camera for the first time. Surely West had to enjoy seeing his girlfriend wearing what she was wearing. The relationship between the couples seems to be heating up pretty quickly and this is evidenced by the fact that West has been working on a new rap. The new rap might suggest that the two could marry in the near future.

“Now she back in the club in a tight dress with dreams of someday wearing a white dress,” he says in a new rap. “Even though I met you in the club in a tight dress/At first sight I could picture you in a white dress.”

• Kim Kardashian and Lindsay Lohan to Attend White House Correspondents’ Dinner
• Kim Kardashian Asks to be Removed from Lawsuit
• Kim Kardashian and Kanye West Dating in Her Next Curtsy for the Spotlight
• Kardashian to Press Charges Against Assaulter
• Kardashian Gets Flour Bombed

One of the stars of the television show ‘Swamp People,’ Mitchell Guist, passed away on a boat in Louisiana swamp country, per a local sheriff. Guist was 48 at the time of his death, which was caused when he fell while on the boat. The boat was on the Intracoastal Waterway close to Pierre Part. Mike Waguespack, the Assumption Parish Sheriff, confirmed the death of Guist. The show airs on the History Channel and it follows the lives of alligator hunters working in the Atchafalaya swamp country of Louisiana.

“We are extremely saddened to report that our friend and beloved member of the “Swamp People” family, Mitchell Guist, has passed away,” The History Channel said Monday. “Mitchell passed on the swamp, doing what he loved. We appreciate your respect for the Guist family’s privacy and hope you join us in sending our thoughts and prayers to his brother, Glenn, and the rest of the Guist family.”

Guist passed away after being taken to the Teche Regional Medical Center after falling while he was on the waterway close to 9 a.m. on Monday, according to Waguespack. The boat returned to a landing in St. Martin after he suffered his fall in order to be transported to a hospital. Waguespack said that it appears Guist had a seizure but the exact cause of death and the fall have not been released. Locals tried everything in their power to revive Guist with CPR, according to 911 calls, which were released to the public earlier today. Witnesses to the incident asked for a helicopter or ambulances to be sent to the landing area in order to transport Guist to the hospital.

“You say he’s in cardiac arrest?” the 911 dispatcher asked.

“Yes sir, we’re blowing and pumping the guy’s chest right now … It looks like he may have had a heart attack,” the caller said.

• No Related Post

The remains found in a creek close to Dallas have been identified by authorities as those of a 10-year-old boy who allegedly was starved to death by his dad and stepmom. It was announced by Dallas police that the department confirmed the identification of the remains with the Dallas County medical examiner. The medical examiner linked the remains with DNA tests to Johnathan Ramsey. The remains were found back on April 21 in Ellis County, just south of Dallas.

There was no comment issued by the medical examiner because the remains of the boy were found in another county. Starla Swanson, the stepmom of Johnathan’s mom, did say that the remains were identified as Johnathan. Aaron and Elizabeth Ramsey, the dad and stepmom of Johnathan, are still in jail on charges of felony injury to a child. Both the dad and the stepmom are being held in jail on $500,000 bail.

Police were told by Aaron Ramsey that he limited the meals for Johnathan to bread, water and some milk every now and then for a handful of months. Police records also indicate that Johnathan was confined to his room in his home in Dallas. Johnathan’s mom, Judy Williams, said that her and other relatives did not see the boy for quite a few months. Williams resides in New Mexico and has custody of the couple’s other son. The grandfather of the boy, Edward Ramsey, called police early in 2012 asking for them to search for the boy because he had not seen Johnathan in a year. Police said that Aaron and Elizabeth Ramsey first said Johnathan went to live with his mother but then they confessed to starving him to death.

Aaron Ramsey said that he placed his son on ‘military rations’ because Johnathan started misbehaving early in 2011. Ramsey claims Johnathan punched his stepmom in the stomach when she was pregnant, which caused a miscarriage. According to police records, Ramsey then hit Johnathan in the chest and locked him in his bedroom.

• Texas Tornadoes Damage 650 Homes
• Team of Weil Attorneys Help Wrongfully Imprisoned Man Win Increased Compensation
• K&L Gates Adds Partners to Dallas and Spokane Offices
• Baker Botts Announces 13 New Partners
• Polsinelli Shughart Adds Two Attorneys to Growing Dallas Office

Monday began a new chapter in the reelection campaign of President Barack Obama as his team released a series of documentary-style videos regarding Mitt Romney’s time as the CEO of Bain Capital. The team also released a website that paints Romney as a corporate takeover artist who destroys jobs. A two-minute video and a six-minute video were released by the Obama team that interviews former employees of GST Steel. GST Steel was a company acquired by Bain Capital in 1993. The GST plant in Kansas City closed in 2001, which cost 750 employees their jobs.

The website launched by the Obama team focuses on the jobs lost at GST and jobs lost at two other companies acquired by Bain Capital, Dade International and Stage Stores. Dade International was a medical equipment company and Stage Stores was a chain of department stores in small towns across the country. Both companies went bankrupt after being acquired by Bain Capital.

The two-minute video will air in Ohio, Iowa, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Virginia. The video that is six minutes can only be seen online and both are embedded in this post. GST is described by the Obama campaign on the website as follows:

“Kansas City’s GST Steel was a successful company that had been making steel rods for 103 years when Mitt Romney and his partners took control in 1993. They cut corners and extracted profit from the business at every turn, placing it deeply in debt. When the company eventually declared bankruptcy, workers were denied their full pensions and health insurance, and the federal government was forced to step in and bail out the pension fund.”

A spokesman for Romney, Ryan Williams, issued the following comment about GST: “Bain Capital invested in many businesses. While not every business was successful, the firm had an excellent overall track record and created jobs with well-known companies like Staples, Dominos Pizza and Sports Authority.”

• The War of the Dogs Heats up between Obama and Romney
• Romney Issues Comparison between Obama and Kim Kardashian
• Occupy Wall Street Protests Intensify at Campaign Headquarters; Many Arrested
• Obama Uses Strategy from GOP for Campaign
• Romney Apologizes for Teen Bullying

“I raised her as my own, and I knew it was wrong.”

Pettway snatched the child after years of miscarriages. “Ann Pettway preyed on me,” said Joy White, whose child was taken. Joy had brought the child in to the emergency room to be treated for fever, but when she went home to rest and returned, the child was missing.

The revelation that she had been kidnapped came from Carlina White herself who said she always had a suspicion she didn’t quite belong in her family. As Ann had tried many times unsuccessfully to forge a birth certificate, this also gave a strong indication to Carlina that something was amiss. When she identified herself in one of the pictures on the missing children website, she looked up her birth mother and was reunited in 2011.

Ann turned herself into the FBI in January of 2011, according to FBI spokesman William Reiner.

Pettway faces a maximum of life in prison. The 51-year-old is more likely to face somewhere between 10 and 12 1/2 years in prison. The judge will sentence in her July.

• Kidnapping and Murder Suspect Adam Mayes Found Dead
• A Texas Boy, Kidnapped as an Infant, to Reunite 8 Years Later with Mom

On May 8, Thomas Schlender, 74 was found shot dead on Interstate 55 at around 1:30 a.m.

On may 12, Lori Ann Carsweel, 48 was also found dead just outsider her car on the shoulder of the Mississippi State Highway at around 2:15 a.m.

“There are similarities between the two incidents, mainly the fact they happened along a Mississippi highway,” said the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation Director LT. Col. Larry Waggoner. “The concern is that someone is posing as a law enforcement officer and that is how these vehicles end up on the side of the road.”

Other than the similarity of their deaths, there is no known link between the two victims.

Matt and Tracey Anderson, Schlender’s daughter and son-in-law, are seeking to end the mystery:

“We know that the details are not going to be pretty. We know that this is a violent end to a very kind man’s life,” said Matt.

“It’s hard to imagine your father in that situation,” said Tracey.

Authorities are recommending Mississippi residents call 911 if they feel suspicious about being pulled over in order to check the legitimacy of the cop, and also to not let themselves be pulled over except in a busy well lit part of the road.

• Kidnapping and Murder Suspect Adam Mayes Found Dead
• Marine Charged with the Murder of another Marine’s Wife
• Law Student’s Murderer Gets Life in Prison
• “O.J. Is Innocent and I Can Prove It” Boasts the Title of a New Book Which Claims to Identify the True Killer
• Suspect Arrested for Brutal Murder of 5 in San Francisco

Swopes’ teenage son, who was 14 at the time of the incident, was suffering from Crohn’s disease. According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, Crohn’s disease is an autoimmune disorder in which the body’s immune system destroys healthy tissue. Instead of taking his son to the hospital and ensuring that he was given appropriate medical care, Swopes tried to sew it himself, owing to which, the wound got infected which saw him in hospital for almost a month.

Swopes was charged with aggravated battery and had he not accepted a plea deal, could have ended up spending between two and five years in Prison.

Assistant State’s Attorney Danielle Pascucci told the Lake County News-Sun that Swopes accepting the plea is not a direct admission of guilt, but an admission that there is enough proof to convict.

• No Related Post

She has had an eventful past. Her father had her beloved show horse killed to claim insurance money. A former boyfriend used her as his muse, his source of inspiration for the “cocaine-addled, sexually voracious” story-teller of one of his novels. She loved the limelight, wanted to be a star and went to Hollywood, returning a decade letter dejected and despondent, with only a few bit parts to show for her efforts.

She however claims that she is a truth-seeker. “For as long as I can remember, I had a relentless desire for truth,” she had said on her personal website.

In 2006, she met John Edwards in the bar of a New York hotel. There was instant connection between them, Rielle recollects. Barely a few hours later she was spending the night with him in his room.

That was the beginning of a cascade of lies and deception.

It all began with lies to conceal their relationship. Her acquiescing silence, as she watched Edwards sympathetic public posturing of love for his cancer stricken wife, Elizabeth, and their renewed exchange of wedding vows, adding more strength to his image of a family man.

The lying continued, pregnant with his child she agreed to shield him and prevent his presidential ambitions from crashing to the ground, by allowing his faithful right-hand man claim paternity. Then she calmly listened to Edwards, denying that he could be the father, saying that it was impossible for him to be the father.

She later told Oprah, during her show, that it was a mistake on her part to allow Andrew Young, Edwards trusted and loyal right-hand man to claim paternity. I did it, she said, because I felt his wife would oppose it.

No one knows whether Edwards is telling the truth that he had no idea that the $1 million, he received from his wealthy well-wishers was being used to hide Hunter and keep her away from the media. However, prosecutors say, that not only did he know it, but that he organized the cover-up.

Prosecutors have rested their case, without having asked 48-year old Hunter to testify. Both the defendants and the prosecutors believe that that she erratic and unpredictable and harmful to their respective cases.

Hunter was named Lisa Jo Druck at birth. Her father was a well-known lawyer. She led a privileged life in Florida. She has said that both her parents cheated in their marriage.

She was fond of horses and was especially fond of her show horse, ‘Henry the Hawk”’ which her father had purchased for $150,000. He later had it electrocuted to claim insurance money.

She took her current name in 1994 when she was in Hollywood.

In her early 20’s she met writer Jay McInerney, best known for his novel “Bright Lights, Big City,” in New York. She dated him for many months and he modeled the sexually aggressive narrator of his 1988 novel “Story of My Life” on her.

Edwards despite opposition from his aides, arranged for her to make behind-the-scenes documentaries from the campaign trail. This it is alleged was to allow her to travel with him.

Suspicious aides, reported to his wife and Hunter lost her job. But they kept on meeting surreptitiously and she became pregnant with his child in 2007. Today, Hunter lives in Charlotte with her daughter, now 4. She has spoken little about her relationship with Edwards since his wife’s death.

“Being a person who’s committed to truth and living a life where you’re not hiding, it’s almost like a cosmic joke to fall in love with someone who’s living a big lie,” she said.

• No Related Post

During a hearing last week before U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles in Greensboro, N.C. the attorney said, “Yes, Mr. Edwards is making 18,267 false and exculpatory statements. No one is going to deny that Mr. Edwards lied and lied and lied and lied.”

However, Edward who once was John Kerry’s running mate and later sought to be the Democrats’ presidential candidate, had lied for the right reasons, argues Lowell. The Senator lied mainly to prevent more pain and anguish to his ailing wife, who was suffering from metastatic breast cancer that ultimately claimed her life.

Prosecutors do not share Lowell’s views and say that John Edwards lied, in an attempt to save his political career, for a verification of his recklessness would have ruined it.

The defense has said that the prosecutors are trying to criminalize an issue that was a matter best left to Edwards’ ‘family and to God,’ Politico reported. Defense attorney Allison Van Laningham in her opening statement said, that Edwards may have committed many sins, but that he did not commit any crime.

In a highly publicized trial Edwards, is charged with six counts of felony, four involving his supposedly, acceptance of $933,000 in illegal campaign contributions. He is also charged with conspiracy and making false statements.

The government asserts that Edwards intentionally used the donation money, to pay for the expenses of his mistress Rielle Hunter and to hide their extramarital affair and to ensure that the voters did not get to know about the daughter they had conceived.

Prosecutors have alleged that, “The charges against John Edwards in this case flow from his knowing and willful violation of the federal campaign finance laws during his campaign for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president.”

However, Edwards defense team insists that money was not for campaign use, but were personal gifts that his well-wishers, Rachel “Bunny” Mellon, a 101-year-old Virginia banking heiress, and the late Fred Baron, a Texas lawyer, had given him. The money was meant to be used for the purpose for which it had been used.

Senator Edwards wife separated from him in January 2010 and died in December of the same year.

• No Related Post

A report in the Tampa Bay Times, says that there is a thriving underground slave trade in which drug-addicted workers, were held captive and forced to work, without any financial remuneration. The report says that in exchange for their work they were given alcohol and drugs.

Times reporter Ben Montgomery, has written how farm workers told him of how their addiction had confined them to a life of servitude at the farm. The newspaper says that despite many testimonials from workers, who have given evidence of their exploitation, Florida law-enforcing authorities have been unable to stop this practice.

The exposé came in the wake of a lawsuit filed on behalf of LeRoy Smith in April, who has claimed in his suit that he was enticed into the job whilst he was playing a game of chess at a Jacksonville park on May 1, 2010.

He alleged that labor contractors, exploited his drug addiction, betting that he would work for nothing to feed his habits. However, Smith says, that what he experienced was “Slavery. Abuse. Overwork. Deplorable, unsanitary conditions. Drugs.’

The suit, filed by Florida Legal Services and Farmworker Justice, on behalf of Smith and Dennis Nash, both former workers at the Bulls-Hit Farm, alleges that the men were tricked into their jobs and that they were victims of labor trafficking during their employment period, between 2009 and 2010.

They have alleged that the firm’s labor contractor, Ronald Uzzle, with the intention of building a low-cost work force, targeted men from homeless shelters in the area and took advantage of their drug dependencies.

LeRoy Smith describes how he was lured into working for the farm, saying that he was taken to a filled to capacity labor camp, where workers lived in filthy conditions. There they were sold “crack, marijuana, alcohol, and the services of prostitutes.” Money was made available to these workers on credit at interest rates of 100 per cent.

The lawsuit further elucidates the modus operandi of the contractors, saying that the accumulated debts were cleared from worker salaries. The vicious cycle of debt, ensured that they could never leave their workplaces and they continued working, mortally afraid of their employers.

Smith told the newspaper, ‘The only reason there’s no shackles is because now they make the people submit to the cocaine. That’s what they use to basically control the people.”

Smith agreed that since their addiction habits were being fulfilled, and they had steady and easy access to drugs and alcohol, many workers were content to spend their lives there. Some, he said, had been there for a decade.

Smith says that during the time he was there, he mowed, scrubbed toilets and cleaned shower stalls, but never received any paycheck. He ran up debts of $210. “I had no idea where we were,” he said. “All there were was potato fields and asphalt roads. … You’re just stuck there. This is where you reside until the season is over or until you get out.”

Smith is not the only one who has spoken out.  Bennie Cooks, a 57-year-old Army veteran, told the Times, that after being recruited in the farm from a homeless shelter, it took him more than a year and a half to escape the menacing environment.

Cooks said, ‘They’d intimidate people. If you owed them money, then one guy’d say, “You owe me money. You can’t leave.” He’d threaten you.”

There have been other men who have come forward to lend credence to Smith’s story. The farm has earlier also, been accused of being in infringement of labor laws and had been sued in 2004 for a similar state of affairs.

Even though the owner Thomas R. Lee could not be contacted, Raymond Uzzle said that no drugs were sold, nor were workers kept enslaved. They are free to go as and when they like, he said.

He also denied selling drugs to the workers. He told the Times reporter, ‘There’s no drugs sold on this camp. I’m not going to tell you people don’t do drugs, but if people want to do drugs, they do it. I can’t stop them.’

• No Related Post

A woman named Jane Svoboda offered a very graphic and homophobic rant against the ‘Fairness Ordinance,’ which could be added to the non-discrimination law of Lincoln, Nebraska. A video embedded in this post shows the rant from Svoboda, which has gone viral in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. Svoboda gives her opinions on the topics of Hillary Clinton, HIV/AIDS, gay sex and Judas Iscariot.

“P-E-N-I-S goes into the anus to rupture intestines,” Svoboda notes. “The more a man does this, the more likely he’ll be a fatality or a homicider.”

Svoboda stated that “a huge percent of gay men in school grounds molest boys, partly because they don’t have AIDS yet.” She went on to say that “Hillary Clinton’s roommate four years in college was a gay woman. To avoid going gay like Clinton did, college students need single rooms and single gender dorms…A college woman is seduced with illegal Rohypnol to go gay.”

Svoboda then brings up Judas and his betrayal of Jesus from biblical times. “Jesus was kissed by Judas, a homo, who tried to sabotage Jesus’ kind ideas. Do you choose Jesus, a celibate, or Judas, a homo? You have to choose!”

It has been reported that Svoboda has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and lives in an assisted-living facility in Lincoln. The vote by the city council is scheduled to be held today.

“Dynamic cities have three things: technology, talent and tolerance,” former Lincoln Sen. David Landis said. “Those cities are magnets for creative people to come and live. The fairness amendment is consistent with the most leading-edge data on what is good for a city.”

• Law firm filming ad in city hall upsets council

On Monday it was announced by JPMorgan Chase that its chief investment officer, Ina Drew, is going to retire. This could be the first of many departures from the company since the bank announced that it lost $2 billion in trading recently. The firm’s losses are going to be investigated by one of its top executives, Mike Cavanagh. Jamie Dimon, the JPMorgan chief executive, has apologized multiple times over the past couple of days for mistakes made by the firm. Dimon also mentioned the departure of Drew.

“Ina Drew has been a great partner over her many years with our firm,” Dimon said. “Despite our recent losses in the CIO, Ina’s vast contributions to our company should not be overshadowed by these events.”

The replacement for Drew will be a current JPMorgan senior executive, Matt Zames. Zames is the head of the Treasury Department’s Borrowing Advisory Committee. Dimon said that JPMorgan ‘made a terrible, egregious mistake.’ A candidate for the Senate in Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren, has called for Dimon to step down from the board of directors for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

“We need to stop the cycle of bankers taking on risky activities, getting bailed out by the taxpayers, then using their army of lobbyists to water down regulations,” Warren said.

Despite the loss, JPMorgan is still slated to make around $4 billion this quarter, so it did not hurt the bank too much. Dimon admitted on Sunday that the mistakes made by JPMorgan would probably increase the efforts to regulate the biggest banks in the country closer.

“This is a very unfortunate and inopportune time to have this kind of mistake,” Dimon said.

The massive losses were announced by JPMorgan on Thursday during a conference call that was very apologetic on the part of the bank. Dimon claims that a lack of collaboration between the government and business has hurt the business atmosphere of the country.

“It’s true to say we haven’t had true, common collaboration,” he said. “To me, it’s not Democrat or Republican. Democrats were so tough on Republicans that you’re seeing a little bit of that giveback at this point.” Dimon also urged the two parties to “put their knives down and get back to work for the American public.”

On NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ Sunday, Senator Carl Levin from Michigan, said the following:

“This was not a risk-reducing activity that they engaged in. This increased their risk. So we’ve got to be very, very careful that the regulators here are not undermined by this huge effort to weaken the rule by putting in a huge loophole.”

• Picard Dealt Blow by Federal Judge in Suit Against JPMorgan
• Update: Morgan & Finnegan’s Bouncing Severance Checks
• Freshfields to Represent Xtrata; Linklaters to Represent Banks

According to a recent report, John Travolta and one of the masseurs who accused him of sexual assault have agreed to fight the lawsuit against Travolta out of court behind closed doors. The civil complaint will be handled in front of a private judge.

“Both sides will agree to keep all transcripts sealed, as well as all witness statements, depositions,” an unnamed source said. “The lawsuit will be heard by a private judge, who will decide how much money if any the accuser will receive.”

The masseur was giving Travolta a massage in his hotel room in Atlanta on January 28 when the massage became freaky. The masseur has not been identified yet but has been referred to as John Doe No. 2 in the case. The masseur claims that Travolta had an erection and grabbed the hand of the massage therapist and tried to place it on Travolta’s scrotum. This complaint was added to an original one, which was filed regarding a similar issue that supposedly took place on January 16 in Beverly Hills.

Travolta has shown evidence, which includes restaurant receipts and photographs that he was in New York on January 16. The complaint from Beverly Hills was subsequently dropped. A man from Chile claims that Travolta said he would pay him $12,000 for a massage and sex on a Royal Caribbean cruise back in 2009. The masseur claims he declined the offer and has yet to file a lawsuit against Travolta.

• Second Unidentified Man Accuses Travolta of Sexual Assault

Steven Davis was in charge of LeBoeuf & Lamb prior to its merger in 2007 with Dewey Ballantine. During this time he had to deal with an attack on his leadership. The corporate department co-chairs of LeBoeuf, Alexander Dye and John Schwolsky, were attempting to replace Davis after he said the firm should merge with another firm. The two lawyers were confronted by Davis when he sent them internal emails they wrote, which forced them out of their positions of management.

In early 2012, the demoted lawyers took a team of 12 people from Dewey. This was one of the first defections from the firm that caused a snowball effect on Dewey. When interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, Dewey partner Martin Bienenstock said the following: “The loss of the practice wasn’t that big a deal,” Bienenstock said, “but it was an optical and emotional hit, and it was magnified in the press. It led to some other groups deciding to leave, and that’s really what triggered the formation of the office of the chair and everything we’ve done.”

Bienenstock became a member of a four-person management team to lead the firm this year when the District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan began an investigation into Davis. Davis claims he has not done anything wrong. Davis revealed that he is gay in 2001 after a marriage of 24 years. Davis has been involved in a relationship with a man for 10 years.

The pay range for partners at Dewey ranged from $300,000 to $10 million per year. A partner who worked a case made $300,000 and a partner who was a rainmaker made $10 million per year. According to a story from DealBook, Davis “was the driving force behind a series of moves that sowed the seeds of the firm’s demise. He pushed the star-crossed merger in 2007 that created Dewey & LeBoeuf, a behemoth with 1,400 lawyers. He also charted a rapid expansion fueled in part by heavy borrowing, overextended the firm by handing out lavish pay guarantees and oversaw a corrosive partnership culture of haves and have-nots.”

• Former Dewey Chair Claims He is Owed $61 Million
• Vice Chairman at Howrey Departs for Dewey & LeBoeuf
• Dewey Announces 7 New Partners
• Dewey Introduces a New Vacation Policy
• Recession Causing Fewer to Make Partner

A funeral in Egypt turned from sadness to shock and then to cheers when the deceased person being buried woke up during the funeral services. The person, 28-year-old Hamdi Hafez al-Nubi, had been declared deceased after suffering a heart attack while at work. He worked as a waiter and is from Naga al-Simmanm, which is near Luxor. The body was being prepped for burial when a doctor went to sign the death certificate. That doctor found that the body was still warm.

The family of al-Nubi was prepared to bury their relative and had even washed his body, which is part of Islamic tradition. They were ready to bury him on Friday. When the doctor discovered the body was still warm, the doctor then checked the vital signs and found that al-Nubi was still breathing. The doctor then revived al-Nubi and the man’s mother, who had fainted when she learned that her son was still alive. The mourners in attendance changed the funeral to a celebration, calling it al-Nubi’s resurrection.

This is not the first time someone has come back from the dead recently. In April, a woman from China rose from her casket just six days following a fall that people thought killed her. The woman is 95-years-old. The woman, Li Xiufeng, was discovered motionless and not breathing in bed by one of her neighbor’s just two weeks after she tripped and suffered an injury to her head at home. She lives in Beiliu, Guangxi Province.

The neighbor attempted to wake up Xiufeng but could not. The neighbor feared that the woman was dead. While friends and relatives paid their respects, Xiufeng was kept in a casket that was not sealed in her home, according to Chinese custom. Just one day prior to the funeral, the casket was found empty by neighbors and found Xiufeng cooking in her kitchen after waking up from ‘the dead.’

• No Related Post

Tamron Hall, from MSNBC, shot down her guest, Tim Carney, this past Friday during a heated exchange that caused her to trend on Twitter almost instantaneously. Carney was asked by Hall about the reaction from Mitt Romney when asked by a reporter about marijuana last week. Romney, before he answered the reporter’s question, took a shot at the media that claimed they were too concerned about his past and how he bullied classmates while in high school.

“What you’re doing here is a typical media trick,” Carney charged. “You hype up a story and justify the second-day coverage of the story.”

The response from Carney lit a firestorm in Hall that led her to explode. Hall responded to Carney telling him that he did not have to “answer a single question” that she posed or “accept the invitation to come on” the show and talk. Carney attempted to jump into the rant and talk but Hall said, “You’re kind of in my house.” Hall then continued to go after Carney for close to a minute.

“You’re not gonna come on and insult me, you’re not gonna come on and insult the network when you knew what we were gonna talk about,” she said. “Done.” After her final sentence, Hall switched to another guest on the show.

After the show, Carney responded to the incident via Twitter. Carney posted the following about the incident:

“The question I was sent for the Romney bullying segment was “Does the story matter?” So I was answering it, not dodging.”

• Lawyer for George Zimmerman is a No-Show on MSNBC Program

President Barack Obama is attempting to become only the second Democratic president to win reelection since Franklin Roosevelt. Obama is using a strategy that has been employed by the Republic party for close to 40 years now. We are hitting the middle of May and Obama has already used almost every aspect of the Republican party strategy in his campaign for reelection.

Obama announced last week that he supports same-sex marriage, which helped to flip the culture war on its side after four decades. Obama is hoping that the country’s views on same-sex marriage have changed and there is some data to support his thinking. Obama hopes that he is able to push the GOP into a corner that they might not be able to back out of it by making this announcement. Also, during a week in which the news about the economy was not too good, the same-sex announcement dominated newscasts.

Obama has also used the one-year anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death to his advantage. Obama has the advantage with defense and foreign policy, of which Mitt Romney has no experience, and Obama will surely press these issues to his advantage.

The republican party has painted the democratic party as a group of people who are out of touch with culture and not in the mainstream of the country. This has been going on for close to a generation now. Well, Obama and his supporters have turned the tide of tradition on Romney. They are painting Romney as an authoritarian who is wealthy and is an isolated traditionalist.

One of the wedge issues in this year’s campaign will be that of immigration. In the past, one of the hot wedge issues was that of welfare. The Obama administration recently filed a lawsuit against the controversial and anti-immigrant Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The reason for the lawsuit by the administration is to put him in his place and hopefully force Republicans to defend Arpaio.

Obama views himself as a figure of transformation in the realm of sociology, individual rights and demographics. Obama is trying to restore the economic hope of the country, much like President Ronald Reagan did during his time in the White House.

Obama likes to brandish his image on ESPN and other outlets, making him appear to be just like everyone else. Obama is a fan of his Chicago professional sports teams and is an excellent athlete in his own right. Last week, following a fundraiser, Obama took to the courts and played a game of basketball with George Clooney, Tobey Maguire and his presidential staff.

• Obama and Arizona Governor Caught in Heated Conversation on Tarmac
• ABA’s Loan Relief Proposal for Law Graduates Rejected by Congress
• Anti-Choice Groups Fear An Obama Administration
• Obama Campaign Releases Two Videos Attacking Mitt Romney as CEO of Bain Capital
• Bristol Palin Slams Obama’s Same-Sex Marriage Decision

A former partner from Jackson Lewis, Michael J. Lotito, has joined the firm of Littler Mendelson, P.C., according to a press release from Littler. Littler is the country’s largest law firm that specializes in employment and labor law. Lotito will be a shareholder in the firm’s San Francisco office. Lotito has over 35 years of experience in labor relations and employment law across the country. Lotito will also be part of the Littler Legislative and Regulatory Practice in Washington, D.C. Lotito has stood in front of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and given testimonies. In 2011, Lotito testified regarding the need to reduce the election period for the National Labor Relations Board. That testimony took place in front of the U.S. House Education and the Workforce Committee.

“We are extremely pleased to welcome someone of Michael’s stature to the firm,” said Marko Mrkonich, president and managing director of Littler. “He serves as lead counsel for some of the nation’s largest corporations and is a key player in the legislative and regulatory arena. His unparalleled legal skill and leadership, combined with his experience in the policy area, will be an invaluable asset to our firm as we expand our presence nationally and internationally.”

“This is a tremendous opportunity and I am eager to begin this next step in my career,” Lotito said. “As the largest labor and employment specialty firm, the strength of Littler’s Legislative and Regulatory Practice, commitment to global management relations, and innovative approaches to advancing legal technology solutions are just some of the many factors that attracted me to the firm. I look forward to advocating for legislation that is in the interest of Littler’s sophisticated client base while helping to further develop the firm’s global presence. In addition, I am eager to tap into Littler’s vast resources, including its outstanding Knowledge Management department, to further serve our clients effectively.”

Ilyse Schuman, a shareholder for the Legislative and Regulatory Practice for Littler in D.C., said the following about Lotito:

“We are delighted about Michael’s arrival to the firm. He is one of the top attorneys in his field and brings tremendous knowledge and insight on labor and employment policy. His deep understanding of the regulatory environment and how it impacts employers from Washington to the workplace is truly impressive.”

Lotito has spoken in front of a multitude of groups ranging from Boards of Directors to supervisors to trade association members to company executives. Lotito has also trained thousands of supervisors and managers during his career.

• Attorney for Jerry Sandusky Requests Trial Postponement
• Senator Scott Brown Demands Answers from Elizabeth Warren
• Senate Approves Jacqueline H. Nguyen for 9th Circuit Court
• Utah Mom Helps Daughter Send Nude Photos
• Arizona Gunman Kills Four Then Self

“We’re landing completely without a cushion,” said Conn, a document specialist and 12 year veteran of Dewey. “As an employee, what I need now is what the law provides. I’m pay check to pay check, like so many other people I get one more pay check, and then what? I won’t make rent next week.”

But Dewey wasn’t exactly forthcoming over the situation. “For two to three months we’ve been wondering who do we listen to?” she said. “Do we get our truth from blogs, from newspapers, or do we get our truth from internal communications, which were all sunshiny and optimistic. You can’t really make a decision on your figure with conflicts like that. You don’t really know.”

Maybe it’s all all a little clearer now. Dewey gave notice on May 4 that employees could lose their jobs at any time — and many have. In fact, some of the non-legal staff who were fired are joining a suit that address the federal injunction that companies follow the Worker Adjustment and Restraining Notification Act (WARN) laws. They’ve pretty much been cut without severance.

The mood of the Dewey has been described as “funereal.”

“People have been thrown under the bus” said one staff member. “It’s very sad.”  Staff are “bursting into tears,” she also noted.

With collection agencies collecting up office equipment, Dewey has all the earmarks of a slow motion train wreck.

• Dewey’s 70 Partner Exodus Now Includes Their Dubai Office
• Bienenstock to Make GM Into “Futuristic” Automaker
• Automakers Retain Counsel to Mull Bankruptcy Options [Update]
• Helping Hand for Drowning Dewey
• Greenberg Traurig Could ‘Cherry Pick’ Attorneys from Dewey

“By the false allegation of plagiarism resulting in unfair branding of plaintiff as a cheat and as academically dishonest, defendants have destroyed everything plaintiff has worked so hard to achieve and what she desires, and the plaintiff is left daily with that shame, no job, alone with only the knowledge that unless she has relief from the court, she will never obtain what she has worked so hard to achieve and what she deserves,” said the complaint. It also read:

“However, in the early spring of 2009, that future was destroyed by the wrongful actions of defendants including the Law School, acting through its Associate Dean and Dean of Students Ellen Cosgrove, Administrative Board Chairperson and Dane Professor of Law Lloyd Weinreb, third-year law students Bradley Hamburger and Lindsay Kitzinger, and others not named herein,” according to the complaint. “In violation of plaintiff’s rights, these defendants acted together to falsely charge plaintiff with plagiarizing portions of a draft law article she had been writing for publication in the Law School’s ‘Journal of Law and Technology’ (‘JOLT’), one of the law journals operated at the Law School to publish scholarly work by students and other contributors. Plaintiff had worked on the draft. When it was nearing completion, the draft was badly damaged because the laptop computer on which she had saved the draft suffered a virus. Harvard disconnected her computer from the Harvard Network in order to quarantine the virus from spreading throughout the Law School computer system. The draft was severely damaged. It could thereafter be salvaged only in a fragmented and incomplete state, missing many of the portions that plaintiff had written.

“Because her article was supposed to have been turned in to the JOLT editors just after her draft was damaged, plaintiff gave a copy of what she could salvage of the draft to JOLT, but informed JOLT Editors-in-Chief defendants Hamburger and Kitzinger and various members of the JOLT editorial board that the draft was not finished, that it needed extensive work because her computer had malfunctioned causing her to lose portions of the draft, and that it was therefore not ready for final submission. Ignoring plaintiff’s explanation that the draft was not finished, defendants Kitzinger and Hamburger refused plaintiff’s repeated requests to do further work on the draft, most specifically to allow her to substantively revise, shorten and proofread the draft, to rewrite sections of the draft, and to make the proper source credits in the draft article. Instead, they treated the draft as finished and finally submitted even though it was clearly fragmented and incomplete. Defendants Hamburger and Kitzinger claimed to the Law School’s Administrative Board (which handled disciplinary matters) that plaintiff had plagiarized by not giving proper credit to various sources for the text used in her draft. They noted some incomplete source attributions, but failed to disclose that plaintiff had stated her intentions to add those sources and had given the full-text sources to JOLT just after she turned in her incomplete draft. Hamburger and Kitzinger thus treated as final and plagiarized an incomplete draft that had some missing sources because of a computer virus.”

Her story is that a computer virus ruined her work, and the board took her draft, used it unfairly, making her work look like plagiarism. It’s a nasty outfit considering she was writing the article for volunteer and sheerly for the love of technology, which related to her major as an undergrad.

After losing her prospect of $160,000 at Goodwin Proctor, and another “national firm” where she worked for 3 months before her bad record caught up with her, she feels she has no choice.

“Exasperation is the reason she’s doing this now,” said her lawyer, John Markham II. “She has tried to put this behind her, but she has come to realize that as long as this is on her record, she will never have the legal career she believed she would.”

• ‘The Best Colleges’ Website Educates Would-Be Law Students with “The Law School Bubble”
• Senator Scott Brown Demands Answers from Elizabeth Warren
• One Employee Listed as Native American on Harvard Law School Directory
• April Job Numbers Released
• Obama Entered Fight for Diversity at Harvard Law

Askew quoted his favorite philosopher Lily Tomlin, saying, “The problem with the rat race is that, even if you win, you’re still a rat.” The commencement speaker told the new graduates, “The call of professionalism is not a call to the rat race but to the unselfish service to clients, to community, to society.”

One wonders why the college could not be so ‘unselfish’ as to provide free education to law students instead of saddling them with huge debts. The calls to help the nation and join public service were clearly to veer the subject away from the lack of jobs and gaps in employment data.

The present class of 2012 has few other options and has already donated 24,557 recorded hours of free legal service since 2009 and worked 11,264 hours in externship programs.

The grand news carried by the postandcourier.com also carries a remarkably astute observation of a commenter who identified himself as Chris Marley:

“Congratulations. Ladies and gentlemen you are screwed. If you are volunteering at Legal Aid for 6 years while working at Starbucks or delivering pizzas, your chances of landing a long-term legal job are going to be poor. A very small percentage of grads, more from top law schools and a few from the bottom tier law schools will land long-term permanent jobs. Today, the numbers of long-term high paying legal jobs are so small relative to the number of job seekers, and the jobs are so unstable because there are so many job seekers while every year more young fresh-faced legal commodities are pumped into the system by the nation’s law schools. Consequently, the odds of working as an indentured lawyer and netting more than a janitor in the public sector, on a long term basis after you take into account paying your student loans to obtain your law license, are very small. You have bought your lottery ticket. Now, good luck and let the drawing begin.”

• No Related Post

Daniel Roper, 18, would begin a business and administration apprenticeship, while Paul Morris, 18, will work in Information Technology. Cartwright King joins a quickly growing group of white-collar firms taking on apprentices in U.K.

Daniel, who has finished his A-levels at the Redhill Academy, told the Nottingham Post, “I’ve looked at 30 to 40 apprenticeships since I turned 16, but when this came up I was delighted as I had an interest in law. It is going to allow me to learn on the job and get paid at the same time so it will be ideal.” He will start working from June 18.

Paul, who would be leaving Kimberley School in June, would be helping out on projects and responding to IT needs of the staff. Paul told the Nottingham Post, “I am really looking forward to getting started and being fully trained up …I’m so happy I’ve got this role, and hopefully a job at the end of the apprenticeship.

Rupert Hawke, the finance director of Cartwright King said, “We are growing all of the time and believe apprentices are a great way of bringing in new people as we can mould them to the standards we expect.

“Traditionally, apprenticeships are seen as beneficial to the construction firms, but we hope they will be equally useful in the office.”

It’s a nice way for law firms to gain highly loyal and firm culture-oriented employees.

• No Related Post

Sarkozy would be formally stepping down on Tuesday after handing over the reins of France to Socialist President-elect Francois Hollande. Sarkozy has indicated that he would retire from an active political career and would resume law practice.

Sarkozy owns a part in the law firm of Cabinet Arnaud Claude & Asoocies, which he founded with two associates in 1987. The firm presently employs around 20 lawyers and represents insurance companies, banks, real estate-developers, carmakers and local authorities and public bodies. However, loyalty of the clientele may be uncertain with Sarkozy losing his position as the President of France.

An ongoing probe into allegations that France’s richest woman Liliane Bettencourt gave illegal campaign donations to Sarkozy in his 2007 campaign continues to plague him though Mr. Sarkozy has repeatedly denied the allegations.

Sarkozy’s presidential judicial immunity would be officially ending on 16 June and he might have to appear before judges in relation with campaign-funding investigations. A judge is trying to establish whether Sarkozy’s campaign in 2007 received about 800,000 euros in brown envelopes from Liliane.

In another investigation, named the ‘Karachi Affair,’ judges are investigating whether kickbacks from French arms sales to Pakistan made its way to Sarkozy’s presidential campaigns. In another turn of events, the website Mediapart published a document that said Muammar Gaddafi, the former Libyan leader had agreed to fund Sarkozy’s election campaign. Sarkozy has sued Mediapart, but a judicial investigation has been opened on the issue.

• No Related Post

Peggy Mast, a lead sponsor of the bill made it clear to the media that the goal was to ensure that on American soil it was lex loci or law of the land that prevailed and not laws of foreign origin. Mast said that there were records that government agencies had taken into account Sharia and other legal systems in decision-making. Commonly, such decisions involved cases held widely under ‘family law’ and involved divorce, property division, inheritance, child custody etcetera where women were treated unfairly.

Mast, a Republican said, “I want people of other cultures, when they come to the United States, to know the freedoms that they have in regard to women’s and children’s rights.”

This is this writer’s opinion that the learned lawmaker seems singularly uneducated. Though my religion is neither Yehudi nor Islam, any person with interest in law would study the different important systems of law prevailing in the world. Islam is the only religion on earth where it is prohibited for any person to give away his property by ‘will’ while leaving his wife and children destitute. Such an act, if committed can be challenged under Sharia and the will made void. In fact, if the Sharia is studied deeply it would be seen that out of the earnings and property of a person, one-third is to go towards zakat or donations to the needy, one-third is meant for the family, and the remaining one-third is for the person to use as he pleases.

Though Sharia provides protection for the family of a person who may be influenced by third parties while sick of mind, the American law provides no such protection. If a person gives his property by ‘will’ to third persons outside the family, he can leave his wife and children destitute under American law and there is no vaunted ‘protection of women’ as claimed my Peggy Mast.

Needless to say, that flaws remain in every system of law and its interpretation, as it does in the Sharia, but the simple fact that at least in 50 cases, learned courts took the Sharia into account should prove its importance in those cases, as held by those courts. It is presumptuous for Mast to think that all of those courts erred in considering the Sharia in particular applications of family law. The passing of this law would also pave the way to block more human provisions in different legal systems of closed communities like Jews, as rabbinic laws are not of U.S. soil.

This is the reason why another Republican, Owens said “It’s based on fear, it’s based on intolerance and it is not based on understanding of the Constitution.”

Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations reported that roughly 20 states have considered such laws. A report earlier this year by the Brookings Institution found that roughly one third of Americans believed American Muslims want to establish Sharia law in the United States, and the same report also found that 88 percent of Americans acknowledged knowing little about Islamic beliefs.

• No Related Post

Under the new law, teachers can be disciplined and speakers can be fined up to $500 for either promoting or condoning “gateway sexual activities.” While school district employees would be exempted from prosecution under the law, sexual education instructors can be sued by parents.

The president of the Family Action Council of Tennessee, David Fowler clarified to the media that despite controversy, the law does not ban kissing or holding hands from discussion in sex education classes. However the law prohibits ‘touching’ of ‘gateway body parts’ that include genitals, buttocks, breasts and the inner thigh.

State Rep. Jon Lundberg said on NBC station WCYB-TV on Thursday that Tennessee has the seventh-highest teen birth rate in the nation and it has the 11th-highest HIV infection rate in the nation. He said abstinence is thus necessary, and “The shift is that the main core needs to be an abstinence-based approach. Not, ‘hey, I know everybody’s having sex so when you have sex do this, do this … do this,’ That’s not it.”

The bill passed the Senate 28-1 and cleared the House 68-23. However, Planned Parenthood of Middle and East Tennessee and state teachers’ union are up in arms and studying the law to find points that can be criticized. They are worrying that discussion of sexual behavior could be interpreted as condoning it.

Fowler told the media that the new law became necessary when the lawmakers learned of incidents where teachers were instructing about alternate sexual practices to have sexual gratification without pregnancy. Fowler also mentioned a Planned-Parenthood organized program at a Knoxville school where students were directed to a web site listing methods of oral sex and anal sex. Something, that most Tennessean parents would find difficult to approve when initiated from the premises of schools.

• No Related Post

After the invasion of Iraq, the United States hired contractors from CACI and L-3 for helping to conduct investigations and conduct translation work. In 2004, photographs showing bestial torture of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib by Americans leaked out and quickly spread across the internet. While military personnel exposed in the torture have been punished, no action was taken against employees of the contractors who participated in the torture.

In 2008, some Iraqis filed lawsuits against CACI and L-3, accusing their employees of sexual abuse of prisoners, of administering electric shocks, conducting mock executions and inflicting physical damage. The district courts in Virginia and Maryland rejected the attempts of the companies to have the lawsuits dismissed. Then the companies filed an interim appeal to the 4th Circuit holding up the lower court proceedings. They referred to a 2009 ruling by a federal appeals court in Washington D.C. which dismissed a similar suit, and the dismissal was later upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In September, a three-judge panel of the 4th circuit accepted the arguments of the companies and found that the companies enjoyed immunity as government contractors and that the claims of the plaintiffs were pre-empted by U.S. national security and federal laws.

However, a larger panel of the 4th Circuit agreed to reconsider the appeal and the majority concluded that the companies did not qualify for any immediate appeal and needed to substantiate their claims through proper discovery of evidence in the lower courts.

Writing for the 12-2 panel, Judge Robert King held that allowing the early appeal would “undermine efficient judicial administration and encroach upon the prerogatives of district court judges, who play a special role in managing ongoing litigation.”

However dissenting judge, J. Harvie Wilkinson opined that the ruling of the majority “inflicts significant damage on the separation of powers, allowing civil tort suits to invade theaters of armed conflict.”

The case is Al Shimari et al v. CACI International Inc et al, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, No. 09-1335.

• No Related Post

The court remarked, “As a general matter, courts are prohibited from inquiring into the propriety of actions taken by a director on behalf of the corporation.”

In the instant matter, Robert and Champa Weinreb sued the boards along with several individual board members after years of altercation over renovations to their apartment. The plaintiffs held that the board had blocked their plans of renovation unreasonably, and extensive renovations were required to make the apartment properly habitable.

However, the court held that the terms of the lease required the consent of the cooperative corporation and not the consent of its individual directors. Therefore, the claims could be aimed at the board, but not at the individual board members as many of them may not be there when the case is decided and relief, if any, is granted.

The lawyer on behalf of the individual board members, Steven Sladkus, said that the ruling would prevent plaintiffs from unfairly targeting individual board members.

Sladkus said, “This ruling helps continue the trend of the courts of New York State in making it more and more difficult to name board members ad defendants in lawsuits … from a legal point of view, if the corporation loses the case, the court can order the corporation to sign the forms. Then the corporation, by whoever is running it, would sign the forms. There’s no need to name them.”

The case is Weinreb v. 37 Apts. Corp., Appellate Division, First Department, No. 7004.

• No Related Post