It is not necessarily unlawful for an employer to adopt policies that put older workers at a disadvantage. Such policies pass muster under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act as long as they are based on “reasonable factors other than age.”

The question in a Supreme Court argument on Wednesday was whether the employer has to prove that such “reasonable factors” exist, or whether it is up to the employee who has brought a lawsuit to show that they do not.

The burden of proof makes a substantial difference in any lawsuit, although statutes rarely specify which side bears it. For federal laws against race and sex discrimination in the workplace, the Supreme Court has filled the gap by developing fairly elaborate procedures that plaintiffs and defendants must follow. But for age discrimination, the rules have remained murky, leaving the lower courts in confusion over how to handle this rapidly growing category of workplace discrimination claims.

The argument the justices heard on Wednesday was in a case brought by two dozen workers at a federal research laboratory in upstate New York. Carrying out a reduction in force, the employer, Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, which is owned by the Lockheed Martin Corporation, terminated 31 employees after using a set of guidelines to evaluate workers’ skills and amenability to retraining. All but one dismissed employee was over 40, the age at which the protections of the federal age discrimination law begin to apply.

Most of the affected employees joined a lawsuit arguing that there was no justification for using an evaluation system that had such a starkly disparate impact on older workers, and that the procedure consequently violated the federal law. The plaintiffs won in a jury trial. But the judgment was overturned by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in Manhattan, which held that plaintiffs in such a case had the burden of showing that the policy they were challenging was unreasonable.

States began moving forward with plans for executions this week after the Supreme Court declined last Wednesday to review the appeals of death row inmates who had challenged lethal-injection methods in nearly a dozen states.

The court had issued orders staying several executions last year and earlier this year while it weighed whether Kentucky's lethal-injection procedure constituted cruel and unusual punishment. States had postponed at least 14 scheduled executions pending the high court's decision, creating a de facto moratorium on capital punishment, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment.

In a 7 to 2 vote last week, the justices said the three-drug cocktail used by Kentucky, which is similar to the one employed by the federal government and 34 other states, does not carry so great a risk of pain that it violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

With three executions already scheduled for this summer, Virginia could be the first state to carry out the punishment after the resolution of the Kentucky case. The state has scheduled a May 27 execution date for Kevin Green, who killed a couple in Brunswick County; June 10 for Percy L. Walton, who killed three neighbors in Danville; and July 24 for Edward Nathaniel Bell, who shot a police officer in Winchester.

"I actually expect to see a spate of scheduled executions," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.

Dieter said that despite its approval of Kentucky's lethal-injection procedure, the Supreme Court left room for lawyers to contest other states' procedures. "That sets the stage for a state-by-state resolution of this conflict," he said.

Attorneys contesting lethal injections have focused on training and procedures as ways to challenge them.

In numerous cases before federal and state courts, attorneys have argued that people who deliver anesthesia do not know how to insert a needle properly into a vein. They have contended that lighting has been poor during some executions, limiting the ability to see mistakes. And they have argued that some technicians hired to conduct medical procedures are not qualified.

Nearly a year after an Australian law firm went public, many in the legal profession are still tittering over whether any American players would follow suit.

By necessity, law firms are fairly tight-lipped about much of the work they do. That would have to change if any were to become a publicly traded company, what with the disclosure requirements and the probing questions of shareholders.

In the midst of earnings season, Above the Law’s David Lat pens a mostly tongue-in-cheek piece for The New York Observer speculating on what a quarterly earnings report by an American firm would look like. (A hint: It wouldn’t say much.)

Mr. Lat, a former corporate lawyer himself, gently jabs the pampered-partners culture of Big Law, which may take a hit as corporate profits slide. Niceties like $160,000 starting salaries for first-year associates, 18 weeks of paid parental leave and Friday Swedish massages, he imagines, would go out the window.

And how would the firm describe secrecy-shrouded practices like mergers and acquisitions work or criminal defense? Perhaps thusly:

The M&A department spent a significant amount of time on several potential transactions for a client in the energy sector that were never consummated. Unfortunately, the firm was unable to bill for most of this time …

The firm cannot provide additional details about this representation, due to client confidentiality rules.

As a point of comparison, consider the semiannual disclosures of Slater & Gordon, the personal injuries firm that now resides on the Australian stock exchange. Its recent annual report (PDF) resembles virtually any other public firm’s, with general income statements and descriptions of its business.

Which is not to say that public law firms would ever fully open their kimonos, much as representatives of another industry tend to play their cards close to the vest. Alternative asset managers — including private equity firm Blackstone Group, buyout- and hedge-fund manager Fortress Investment Group and hedge fund Och-Ziff Capital Management — have been criticized by some analysts and investors as presenting opaque looks into their businesses.

The unanimous decision comes in a case from Portsmouth, Va., where city detectives seized crack cocaine from a motorist after arresting him for a traffic ticket offense.

David Lee Moore was pulled over for driving on a suspended license. The violation is a minor crime in Virginia and calls for police to issue a court summons and let the driver go.

Instead, city detectives arrested Moore and prosecutors say that drugs taken from him in a subsequent search can be used against him as evidence.

"We reaffirm against a novel challenge what we have signaled for half a century," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote.

Scalia said that when officers have probable cause to believe a person has committed a crime in their presence, the Fourth Amendment permits them to make an arrest and to search the suspect in order to safeguard evidence and ensure their own safety.

Moore was convicted on a drug charge and sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison.

The Virginia Supreme Court ruled that police should have released Moore and could not lawfully conduct a search.

State law, said the Virginia Supreme Court, restricted officers to issuing a ticket in exchange for a promise to appear later in court. Virginia courts dismissed the indictment against Moore.

Moore argued that the Fourth Amendment permits a search only following a lawful state arrest.

In a concurring opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she finds more support for Moore's position in previous court cases than the rest of the court does. But she said she agrees that the arrest and search of Moore was constitutional, even though it violated Virginia law.

The Bush administration and attorneys general from 18 states lined up in support of Virginia prosecutors.

The federal government said Moore's case had the potential to greatly increase the class of unconstitutional arrests, resulting in evidence seized during searches being excluded with increasing frequency.

Looking to state laws to provide the basis for searches would introduce uncertainty into the legal system, the 18 states said in court papers.