Little more than a week after the disaster, competition among lawyers to represent the families of 29 men killed in the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster has begun.

Massey Energy, the mine's owner, has deep pockets. Lawyers who represent the families could make millions in fees if they can prove company management showed a conscious and deliberate disregard for safety.

Massey has repeatedly denied all such accusations.

At least one well-known local lawyer questioned whether it's proper to seek clients so soon after the tragedy and said he could not bring himself to do it.

Law firms take so-called wrongful death cases for free. Losers earn nothing. Winners typically receive one-third of the amount awarded by the court.

On Tuesday, before all of the miners who died in the blast were buried, Underwood Law Offices, headquartered in Huntington, ran an advertisement in the Charleston newspapers and papers in the coalfields urging families of the miners to call the firm.

A bookkeeper in Wichita has been sentenced to four years and three months in federal prison for embezzling more than $948,000 from a law firm where she worked.

Thirty-four-year-old Vicki J. Olivarez pleaded guilty Monday to two counts of writing checks and forging signatures on the checks while she worked at Pistotnik Law Offices.

In her plea, Olivarez admitted that from 2004 through 2009 she wrote numerous checks on the firm's client trust account and deposited the money into her personal accounts. She used some of the money to make payments on property she owned in Andover.

U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten also ordered Olivarez to forfeit $948,041 including her interest in the Andover property.

Bringing in the tea party movement — known for its high-energy rallies and protests calling for small government, lower taxes and less spending — would be a coup for conservatives, who were not able to stop the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor last year.

This time, "you may have a whole new group of activists involved," said Tom Fitton of the conservative group Judicial Watch.

Obama is considering about 10 candidates for the court and promises to make his choice quickly. His nominee — pending Senate confirmation — would replace Justice John Paul Stevens, who is retiring this summer.

When President Obama nominated Goodwin Liu to be an appeals court judge earlier this year, some on the left cheered. Mr. Obama had previously picked a succession of nominees who they believed were too centrist to counter the conservatives appointed during the Bush administration, they said, but finally he had selected a liberal legal rock star.

But the effort to confirm Mr. Liu, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, whose confirmation hearing is scheduled for Friday, has become the toughest fight over any of Mr. Obama’s appeals court nominees. It could be a harbinger for how a strongly liberal pick to succeed Justice John Paul Stevens would play out.

Asked this week whether Republicans would use a filibuster to block a vote on Mr. Obama’s coming Supreme Court nominee, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, brought up Mr. Liu’s nomination as an example of the kind of candidate who would merit the use of aggressive tactics.

“I promise a fair hearing, and I promise that the nominee will have a chance to explain any criticisms that are raised,” Mr. Sessions said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “But if a nominee is one that is so activist like Goodwin Liu that’s just been nominated — who’s written that, that the Constitution requires welfare and health care to individuals — if it’s somebody like that, clearly outside the mainstream, then I think every power should be utilized to protect the Constitution. We’ll not confirm somebody like that.”

Supporters of Mr. Liu, nominated for the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, argue that critics have exaggerated his writings to portray him as an ideologue. A 2008 Stanford Law Review article by Mr. Liu about welfare rights, which Mr. Sessions referred to, focused on small-scale disputes over Congressionally enacted programs — like “invalidating statutory eligibility requirements” — not creating welfare programs based on judicial fiat.

Still, Mr. Liu has been more open in expressing liberal political views — like support for affirmative action and same-sex marriage — than Mr. Obama’s other appeals court nominees. In that sense, he is arguably the first Obama nominee who is the equivalent of some of the most controversial nominees by Mr. Bush, several of whom Democrats delayed or blocked.

Mr. Liu also earned conservative enmity by criticizing Mr. Bush’s two Supreme Court appointees, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. And a book he co-wrote argues that judges should interpret the Constitution “in light of the concerns, conditions and evolving norms of our society” — an approach some conservatives say enables judges to impose their own political values.

The woman accused of killing four Lake Shore High School teens in a car crash last year pleaded no contest this morning to four counts each of second-degree murder and operating a vehicle while intoxicated, causing death.

Frances Dingle, 48, of Mount Clemens, is scheduled to be sentenced on May 19 in Macomb County Circuit Court. She faces a minimum of 19 to 30 years in prison and a maximum of life. A no contest plea is not an admission of guilt but is treated as such for sentencing purposes.

"The families are somewhat relieved that they don't have to sit in court for the next three weeks and relive that horrific night," Macomb County Prosecutor Eric Smith said.

Authorities say Dingle was driving drunk when she crashed into a car carrying all four teens on March 16, 2009.

Jury selection was set to take place today before Macomb County Circuit Judge Don Miller. Due to the high-profile nature of the case, Frances Dingle's attorney, Mike Dennis, said he worked with prosecutors Friday on a "rather lengthy" jury questionnaire.

Prosecutors say a California man who posed as a military officer and sought donations that he claimed would help wounded veterans has pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges in the scam.

Sixty-year-old James Barbee of Pacific Grove pleaded guilty to felony mail fraud and misdemeanor wearing a military uniform unlawfully in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Monday.

Prosecutors say Barbee admitted to using his organization, the Liberty Spirit Farm Foundation, to solicit donations which he spent on himself. He posed as a Navy commander and a military doctor and claimed the donated money would go to veterans with combat-related post-traumatic stress syndrome.

Prosecutors say Barbee collected more than $94,000 from donors in Missouri and California over the course of a year.