A Conroe man who pleaded guilty to shooting a TCU football player to death last year has been sentenced to life in prison. Kasey Davis was a freshman kicker for the Horned Frogs.

Police say he was gunned down in a car by 42-year-old Jeffrey Clay Lasiter in January 2006 while home for Christmas break. The shooting appeared to be random.

The two men did not know each other. Lasiter pleaded guilty Monday before the start of his trial.

His attorneys had argued that the divorced, unemployed father of two suffers from a mental illness.

The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit Tuesday denied a request by the city government of Washington, DC for an en banc rehearing of the court's March decision invalidating the city's handgun ban. DC Mayor Adrian Fenty expressed disappointment with the decision, saying that "The District's gun control laws have been a critical part of the City's public safety strategy for more than 30 years. I remain deeply committed to combating gun violence and vigorously defending the laws of the District of Columbia." The city now has 90 days to file an appeal with the Supreme Court.

The city petitioned the circuit court for an en banc rehearing last month, after a 2-1 panel vote in Parker v. District of Columbia held that the Second Amendment required the court to overturn a 31-year old ban on handguns in the District of Columbia. A Republican bid to overturn the DC gun ban legislatively passed the US House of Representatives in 2004 but failed to get Senate approval.

On July 1, 2007, Richard Levin will join Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP as a partner to head the Firm's newly established restructuring and insolvency practice. Rich, who served as counsel to a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee from 1975 to 1978, was one of the principal authors of the Bankruptcy Code and the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978. He has significant experience guiding debtor and non-debtor clients through insolvency restructuring or reorganization, structuring and negotiating complex deals involving bankrupt companies and, where necessary, directing litigation in support of the negotiations. Rich joins Cravath from Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, where he was a partner in that firm’s corporate restructuring department.

Since the REAL ID Act passed in May 2005, five states have passed anti-REAL ID legislation that rejects implementation of the Act. Most recently, Washington passed legislation with strong support that dictates that the state not spend any money implementing the REAL ID Act unless privacy and security concerns are addressed. Initially drafted after the Sept. 11 attacks and designed to discourage illegal immigration, the law attempts to make it more difficult for terrorists to fraudulently obtain US driver's licenses and other government IDs by mandating that states require birth certificates or similar documentation and also consult national immigration databases before issuing IDs. The law is also meant to make it more difficult for potential terrorists to board aircraft or enter federal government buildings. After controversy and strenuous opposition from civil libertarians, it finally passed in 2005 as part of an emergency supplemental appropriations defense spending bill. Other state lawmakers have previously expressed concern about possible problems expected to accompany the implementation of the REAL ID Act, fearing that they will not be able to comply with the law's requirements before a May 2008 deadline. In March, Homeland Security responded to these concerns by extending the deadline for compliance by 18 months.

The Morristown law firm McElroy Deutsch Mulvaney & Carpenter has acquired a 49 percent stake in the Hispanic-owned law firm Espinosa & Espinosa, in hopes of fostering greater diversity in New Jersey's legal community.

McElroy Deutsch, the seventh-largest law firm in the state by gross revenue, bought the ownership interest in the small, Weehawken-based firm last month for an undisclosed amount.

McElroy Deutsch, which grossed $76 million in revenue last year, according to the New Jersey Law Journal, will take a portion of Espinosa & Espinosa's profits and has agreed to upgrade the smaller firm's computer system, provide training for its staff and help in recruiting, said Edward B. Deutsch, managing partner of McElroy Deutsch, which employs 230 lawyers. Also, Espinosa & Espinosa can call upon the larger firm's lawyers to help on larger cases. Espinosa & Espinosa specializes in commercial transactions and commercial litigation.

"If substantial litigation comes in that needs 10 lawyers and they can provide five, we can provide the other five," Deutsch said. McElroy Deutsch has offices in Ridgewood and Newark, as well as Philadelphia, Denver and New York City.

Some major law firms, including Day Pitney in Florham Park, have formed loose strategic alliances with small, minority--owned firms to show their support for diversity.

Deutsch said he believes his firm is the first in New Jersey to take an equity stake in a minority-owned firm.

As Espinosa & Espinosa increases its staff in the coming years, "our participation will wane," Deutsch said.

Espinosa & Espinosa has served many small and medium-sized Hispanic--owned business in northern New Jersey since principal Juan Espinosa's Cuban emigre father launched the firm in 1975.

But like most minority-owned firms, Espinosa, with 11 attorneys, is too small on its own to be in the running for big contracts with Fortune 500 companies.

"You have to be big to get big cases," Espinosa said.

Nonetheless, opportunities for minority-owned firms to land big contracts have been on the rise since a document titled "Call to Action: Diversity in the Legal Profession" was circulated in 2004 by Rick Palmore, general counsel for Sara Lee Corp.

The document calls upon U.S. corporate legal departments to boost minority representation on their staffs and to use diversity as a criteria when hiring outside law firms.

More than 100 corporations have signed on.

A racy billboard proclaiming "Life's short. Get a divorce" caused enough of an uproar, city workers stripped it from its downtown perch after a week.

It wasn't so much about the partially clothed man and woman on the law firm's ad. It was the phrase that lawyers Corri Fetman and Kelly Garland chose that drew scores of complaints from neighbors and from other attorneys who said it reflected poorly on their profession.

A city alderman who lives nearby found a technical reason to jettison the sign.

"I called the building inspector and told him to do his job and he did," said Alderman Burton Natarus. "It has nothing to do with content or anything else. They did not have a permit and they were ordered to take it down."

Fetman and Garland say they're upset the sign was removed.

"They ripped our billboard down without due process," Fetman said. "We own that art. I feel violated."

Despite its brief run, the sign apparently was good for business. Since it went up last week, the two women said calls to their law firm have gone up dramatically.