The New York Times reports that former Broadcom CEO Henry Nicholas has been indicted on optionsbackdating related charges and, in a separate indictment, charged with various drug related charges. In the “drug” indictment, Nicholas is accused of purchasing, using and selling illegal drugs, spiking associates’ drinks with drugs, hrinig prostitutes for himself and business associates, [...]
Philadelphia Sheriff Refuses To Enforce The Law
Anyone who has had the experience of trying to get a judgment enforced in Philadelphia, or has had dealings with the Philadelphia County Sheriff’s Office for any reason, cannot possibly be surprised by the following article, which will appear in tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal, detailing Philadelphia Sheriff John Green’s refusal to perform his duty and [...]
Boy Scouts Sue City of Philadelphia
The Boy Scouts of America’s Philadelphia chapter has sued the City of Philadelphia in federal court to block the city’s May 31 deadline for the scouts to open membership to gays and atheists, or vacate their historic 1928 headquarters off Logan Square.The civil rights lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court in Center City, contends that [...]
More Scaliapalooza
Justice Scalia and Bryan Garner gave an interview recently to the ABA Journal in which they discuss their new book, “Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges,” and advocacy, both written and oral. You can view the full transcript of the interview on the ABA Journal’s website via this link. Regardless of whether you [...]
Scalia Takes Questions From VA High School Students
On this weekend’s installment of C-SPAN’s “America and the Courts” Justice Antonin Scalia spoke to and took questions from a group of high school students from Virginia (you can view the program at this link for a limited period of time). I highly recommend that you take a look if you have any interest in the Supreme [...]
Judith Regan Sued By Former Lawyers
I somehow missed this when the story first came out, but Judith Regan, who recently settled her wrongful termination lawsuit against News Corp., has been sued by the lawyers who represented her in connection with that litigation, the Associated Press reports. The two law firms that represented Regan claim that she stiffed them on more [...]
Increased Criminalization of Business Practices No Bonus For Investors
That’s the general thesis of a very interesting article in the Winter 2008 issue of The City Journal. The criminalization of bad business decisions, previously dealt with in civil courts through claims for civil fraud or other liability theories, has been a troubling trend since the spectacular collapse of Enron. If recent reports concerning the [...]
Billable Hours Corrupt the Legal Profession
That is the not terribly surprising message delivered by the new President of the California Bar Association, Jeff Bleich, as reported in a piece recently published on the American Bar Association’s website. as you might recall (or more likely, do not) I wrote some time ago about my belief that the billable hour system ill [...]
More Legal Writing Advice (sort of) from Judge Posner
Courtesy of Howard Bashman at How Appealing, the most recent issue of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals Bar Association’s journal, “Circuit Rider” is available at this link. The issue contains a very interesting piece on legal writing in which the author urges brief writers (and others) to adopt what Judges Posner and Easterbrook – [...]
Diller Beats Malone
Courtesy of the WSJ’s Law Blog earlier this evening came the news that Barry Diller has prevailed in his litigation with John Malone’s Liberty Media concerning Diller’s plan to split internet company IAC into 4 separate pieces. Neither guy is all that likeable, but when two new media kingpins square off in court its always [...]