Houston trial lawyer Mark Lanier of The Lanier Law Firm has been selected by his peers as one of the Top 10 attorneys in Texas.  Mr. Lanier is recognized in the annual Texas Super Lawyers list published in Texas Monthly magazine.

This is the seventh consecutive year that Mr. Lanier has earned selection to the list of the state's top attorneys, and the second time he has been named among the Top 10 lawyers in Texas.  He has been listed among the Top 100 attorneys in Houston and the Top 100 in Texas since the list was first published in 2003.

The attorneys selected for the Texas Super Lawyers list represent less than 5 percent of all Texas attorneys. Mr. Lanier earned his place among the Top 10 attorneys in the state based on his overall point score in the judging process.

Thomas J. Campbell, managing partner of the law firm Gallop, Johnson & Neuman, L.C., has been appointed by St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley to serve a four-year term on the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Zoological Park and Museum District, one of the largest districts of its kind in the nation.  

Formed in the late 1960s, the District today is the tax-supported funding body for the Saint Louis Zoological Park, the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Saint Louis Science Center, the Missouri Botanical Garden and the Missouri History Museum sub districts. As one of the largest tax-supported cultural districts in the U.S., it is a model for those in many other cities.

The District’s governing body includes eight board members, including four representing St. Louis County appointed by the St. Louis County Executive and four representing the City of St. Louis appointed by the Mayor.  

Campbell also serves on the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association Board of Directors and its Executive Committee. He is active in many other community organizations.

Campbell received his J.D. from Washington University School of Law in St. Louis and B.A. and M.S. degrees in political science from Illinois State University.  He has extensive experience representing clients in matters involving local, state and federal governmental entities and agencies.

Gallop, Johnson & Neuman, L.C., a full service law firm of 80 attorneys, has provided legal services to clients in diverse industries since its founding in 1976 and is one of the largest law firms in St. Louis. The firm serves public corporations; privately-held companies; entrepreneurs and start-up enterprises; individuals and families; trustees and trust beneficiaries; charities; and non-profit entities. The firm is located at 101 South Hanley Road, Suite 1700, in Clayton, Missouri.  

For more information about Gallop, Johnson & Neuman, please contact Lois A. LaDriere at 314.615.6000 or visit the website www.GJN.com.  

The U.N. Yugoslav war crimes tribunal on Monday found a former prosecution spokeswoman guilty of contempt for revealing confidential court decisions made by judges during the trial of Serbia's ex-President Slobodan Milosevic.

The court fined French national Florence Hartmann euro7,000 ($10,200) for disclosures she made in her 2007 book "Peace and Punishment," which she published after leaving her job, and again in a later magazine article.

She revealed that the court had decided in secret not to disclose Serbian military documents that could have linked the government in Belgrade to atrocities such as the Srebrenica massacre committed by Bosnian Serb forces.

The original documents — minutes of Serbia's Supreme Defense Council — are still not public. Serbia had given them to the court for Milosevic's case on the condition they be kept secret.

Some analysts believe the documents might have helped Bosnia in its failed attempts to sue Serbia for genocide. Observers of the war crimes court say it must show it is willing to enforce confidentiality agreements, otherwise states will never lend potentially sensitive documents in future cases.

Reading a summary of the ruling, Judge Bakone Moloto said Monday Hartmann had "knowingly and willfully interfered with administration of justice" by revealing the decisions.

The Rev. Bernice King and Martin Luther King III sued their brother, Dexter King, last year to force him to open the books of their father's estate. The lawsuit claims Dexter King, the estate's administrator, has refused to provide documents concerning the estate's operations. A hearing in the case was set Monday morning.

Dexter King also sued his sister, who administers their mother's estate. He asked a judge to force her to turn over Coretta Scott King's personal papers, including love letters central to a now-defunct $1.4 million book deal.

The Supreme Court on Friday turned down California's request to delay a federal court order related to state prison overcrowding.

The justices refused to extend a deadline beyond Sept. 18 for telling a special three-judge panel how California will reduce its inmate population by 40,000, roughly a quarter, over two years.

The judges called for the reduction so the state can improve medical and mental health care for inmates in its 33 adult prisons. The federal courts have found the care so poor that it violates inmates' constitutional rights.

While rejecting the state's plea for a delay, the court noted that the three-judge panel has agreed not to put a final order into effect until after the justices have had a chance to review its decree.

The special three-judge panel had rejected California's request for a delay earlier this month, sending the matter to the high court.

In addition to its failed request for a delay, the Schwarzenegger administration is appealing to the Supreme Court the panel's inmate-release order. It has been joined by Republican legislators and associations representing prosecutors, sheriffs, police chiefs and chief probation officers.

The administration argues that the federal courts are overreaching in their effort to direct the state's affairs and are violating a federal law that restricts judges' actions in inmates rights cases

The Hamilton Southeastern Schools' board this morning retained a Chicago law firm with ties to the U.S. Department of Education to help the district with its case against the state for more equitable funding.

The board voted 7-0 to hire Franczek Radelet P.C., a firm that describes itself as being among the nation's leading education law firms. One of the firm's founding partners was named general counsel to the Education Department earlier this year.

Terms of the contract with the law firm were not immediately available.

Superintendent Brian Smith said the firm agreed to take on the case because "they feel confident that we have a good challenge." The district claims the state's method for distributing school funds is inequitable, mainly because per-pupil spending does not keep up with HSE's growing enrollment. Smith said filing a lawsuit and winning is the only way to ensure schools get an equitable distribution of funds.

The district argues that among the 346 school corporations in Indiana, HSE will rank 338th in state dollars allocated to educate each student in 2011. They claim the district's funding levels are going down each year as the cost of educating students continues to rise.

HSE's case against the state comes at a time when a $5.2 million budget shortfall over the next two years threatens cuts of about 60 classroom teachers if something is not done to make up for the deficit, officials said.