A Des Moines Register poll shows more than one-third of voters want to remove three Iowa Supreme Court justices who joined a unanimous ruling that legalized gay marriage.

The poll published Sunday found that 37 percent of likely voters intend to vote to remove all three justices and 34 percent say they will vote to retain all the judges. Another 10 percent plan to retain only some justices, 11 percent don't intend on vote on the judges and 8 percent aren't sure how they'll vote.

If Chief Justice Marsha Ternus and justices David Baker and Michael Streit lose retention votes, it will be the first time voters removed an Iowa Supreme Court justice.

Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is apologizing for the 50,000 recorded telephone calls made to Nevada voters in which she supports a ballot measure to change the way state judges are selected.

O'Connor said Wednesday that she did not authorize the use of her recorded statement in the robo calls, which awakened many Nevadans after midnight Monday. The calls were supposed to be made midday.

But O'Connor said that, whatever the time, her voice should not have been used at all.

"I did not authorize the use of my recorded statement as part of automated telephone calls to Nevada residents, and I regret that the statement was used in this way," she said in a statement issued through the Supreme Court.

At the same time, she defended her involvement in the campaign to amend the state constitution to reduce the role of elections in the choice of judges. O'Connor has appeared in a television commercial on behalf of the Question 1 measure that Nevadans will vote on on Tuesday.

Some critics have said O'Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court, should refrain from political activity because she continues to hear cases as a federal judge. On Tuesday, she was in the majority on a panel of federal appeals court judges that struck down a key part of an Arizona law requiring voters to prove they are citizens before registering to vote.

O'Connor, 80, has traveled the country to criticize costly election campaigns for judges. She has said judicial elections erode confidence in an impartial judiciary and feed the perception that justice is for sale.

Since her retirement in 2006, O'Connor has been active on other issues as well, including calling for enhanced civics education for schoolchildren and advocating for Alzheimer's research. Her husband, John, died last year of complications arising from Alzheimer's disease.

The Federal Reserve has decided not to join major banks in asking the US Supreme Court to let the central bank keep secret the details of its emergency lending programs during the financial crisis.

A group representing US and European commercial banks on Tuesday appealed to the Supreme Court asking it not to force the Fed to disclose details of its bailouts, as a federal appeals court in New York had ordered in March.

The group said forcing disclosure could lead markets and customers to worry about banks' health, jeopardizing their business prospects.

The Fed did not explain why it chose not to join the banks' appeal. In a statement, it said it "will await a determination from the courts and will comply fully with any final order. The Federal Reserve remains committed to timely and responsible transparency of its operations."

Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, and News Corp's Fox News Network had sought bailout details under the federal Freedom of Information Act, which requires government agencies to make documents public.

The Supreme Court is expected in coming weeks to consider whether to review the unanimous March ruling by the second US Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ordering the Fed to release details of programs it adopted starting in late 2007 to shore up the financial system.

These programs, along with other measures to support the economy, more than doubled the central bank's balance sheet to well over USD 2 trillion, a process that accelerated after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc's September 2008 collapse.

"The Fed has historically argued that you could have bank runs if you had disclosure, and that it did not want to enable these by having super-timely disclosure of problems," said William Ford, a professor at Middle Tennessee State University and former president of the Federal Reserve bank in Atlanta. "But we're already moving in the direction of full and immediate disclosure, quite aside from the legal battles."

Walker Todd, research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research and a former Fed legal officer in Cleveland and New York, said the banks group  the Clearing House Association LLC  might be more likely to have its appeal heard without the Fed's involvement.

A Mississippi businessman has been awarded $103 million in a lawsuit against the Chicago-based law firm that he accused of defrauding his oil and gas business.

Lavon Evans Jr. filed the lawsuit in Jones County Circuit Court in Mississippi in 2008. It sought $150 million in damages from attorney Joel Held, who worked at the Dallas office of the Baker & Mackenzie law firm.

Held represented one of Evans' companies and manipulated documents and disclosed confidential information to benefit Reed Cagle, Evans' partner in Laredo Energy Holdings LLC, the lawsuit claims, among other things.

Baker & McKenzie told The Hattiesburg American in a statement that it disagrees with the verdict and will appeal.

The legal industry is falling apart. Not in the sense pundits meant when they gave that diagnosis in 2008 as firms were hit with the harsh reality of the recession.

Rather, the industry is moving away from a monolithic provider of legal services -- the law firm -- to a fragmented service platform where the competition isn't just a broadening array of law firms, but legal process outsourcers and other non-law firm legal service providers as well. "Law firms are really being circled by these things," consultancy Adam Smith Esq. partner Janet Stanton said.

Firms have to decide where they want to compete and how, and what fits in their business model, she said.

Not only are LPOs and other firms that are adapting their business models a source of increased competition for law firms, Edge International consultant Jordan Furlong said, but so too are clients who are increasingly bringing more work in-house.

Read here: http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202473909000&Law_Firms_Feel_Pressure_From_New_Breed_of_Competitors

A major law firm has formed a special task force aimed at defending lenders and mortgage loan servicers as legal challenges to questionable foreclosure practices mount.

Global law firm K&L Gates LLP said on Tuesday it has assembled a team to help companies respond to allegations ranging from wrongful foreclosure to inadequate documentation and lack of standing to foreclose.

"Whether it's us or somebody else, I think all the servicers are looking to get outside assistance," said Laurence Platt, a mortgage banking partner in the firm's Washington, D.C., office.

Legal pitfalls have multiplied "in part because there's a 'gotcha' mentality out there," he said.

In recent years, U.S. law firms have created special teams to help clients handle legal issues triggered by the mortgage market meltdown and the financial crisis.

These teams have included legal experts in areas including litigation, class-action lawsuits and financial regulation.

All 50 U.S. states have launched a joint investigation of the mortgage industry, looking into allegations that some banks used shoddy or fraudulent paperwork to evict borrowers from their homes.