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Former Atlantic City Mayor Due in Court
Headline News |
2007/11/01 11:09
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Three weeks after resigning amid a federal investigation, the former mayor of Atlantic City was due in court Thursday to enter an agreement with the U.S. Attorney's Office, his lawyer said. The lawyer, Ed Jacobs, refused to say if Robert Levy's agreement would be a guilty plea. Levy has not been charged with any crime. "We're going to get it over with in one day of bad publicity," Jacobs said Wednesday. Levy did not return a call seeking comment from The Associated Press. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office would not comment on the scheduled court appearance. Levy was elected in 2005 to preside over a city where the political corruption is almost as famous as the casinos. Four of the last nine mayors have been charged with taking bribes; three men who were on the city council last year are now in prison in another bribery case. Levy disappeared from city life in late September before resurfacing to resign on Oct. 10. He cited ill health and a federal investigation into his Vietnam war record as his reasons for leaving. The Press of Atlantic City reported last fall that the Vietnam veteran's claims that he was a member of the Green Berets were untrue. He apologized, but federal authorities have been looking into whether Levy made that claim to increase his veteran benefit payments. During his absence from city hall, Levy spent time in a substance abuse and mental health treatment center in northern New Jersey. Jacobs described the mayor's time there as "a detox situation." |
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Hub law giant plans to join forces with London firm
Headline News |
2007/10/31 13:57
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Boston legal powerhouse Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge is expanding across the pond. Edwards Angell announced plans yesterday to acquire U.K. law firm Kendall Freeman, adding some 50 London lawyers to its current stable of 550 attorneys, about half of whom work in Boston. “London is the largest legal market by far in Britain and one of the largest anywhere in the world,” Edwards Angell’s Chip DeWitt said. “We think this merger gives us a great platform to add to the number of attorneys we have there.” No cash will change hands as part of the deal, nor are any layoffs planned at Kendall Freeman, which specializes in insurance and reinsurance law. Instead, plans merely call for the British firm to phase in the “Edwards Angell” name over the next 18 months. DeWitt said the deal also opens the door for Edwards Angell to help Kendall Freeman expand beyond insurance law. The U.S. firm specializes in several areas, including private equity, initial public offerings and patent law. “The game plan would be to try to increase the number of attorneys in London,” DeWitt said. Yesterday’s announcement came almost two years to the day after Providence’s Edwards Angell and Boston’s Palmer & Dodge - two old-line New England law firms - merged to create Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge. Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly ranks the combined entity as the state’s sixth-largest firm in terms of how many Bay State attorneys it employs. |
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Police investigate youtube court footage
Headline News |
2007/10/31 09:50
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Film footage apparently showing a man's teenage killers appearing in court has been posted on YouTube. Earlier this month, Glasgow's High Court heard that three of the youths had boasted about the killing of William Smith, 21, in a clip that was reportedly posted on the video-sharing website. Now, what appears to be more film of the youths taken during a hearing at the High Court, has also surfaced on the website. The clip, called "Gorbals" which runs for two minutes and 44 seconds, appears to show the teenagers from behind, sitting in the dock with a judge working in the background. They are made to stand up just before the video ends. It has been posted by a webuser called "chrismccann1888", and has already had more than 120 views. Mr Smith was attacked with wooden sticks and punched and kicked in Glasgow's Gorbals area on December 29 last year. He died several days later in the city's Southern General Hospital. Jason McFadden, 19, George O'Connor, 18, Iain Stevenson, 19 and Alexander Harvey, 18, admitted the culpable homicide of William Smith, 21. They were jailed for eight years. Whoever shot the film faces a potential contempt of court charge, for which the maximum sentence is two years in jail and an unlimited fine. |
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Sexual harassment lawsuit targets ex-Gov. DiFrancesco
Headline News |
2007/10/25 12:13
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A lawyer fired from former New Jersey Gov. Donald DiFrancesco's firm alleged in a whistle-blower and sexual harassment complaint Wednesday that she was dismissed for filing an ethics grievance against a judge who was a pal of the partners. And the suit by Michele D'Onofrio says a comment by DiFrancesco about her breasts -- he denies he said it -- was part of the harassment. The suit, filed in Essex County, says D'Onofrio, a matrimonial lawyer, was dismissed on Sept. 21 as a nonequity partner from 39-lawyer DiFrancesco, Bateman, Coley, Yospin, Kunzman, Davis & Lehrer because she filed an ethics grievance against Richard Sasso, the municipal judge in Warren Township, where D'Onofrio serves as prosecutor. She says her complaints to ethics authorities about Sasso's allegedly unjust behavior and her cooperation in an FBI inquiry about Sasso's handling of a case caused a backlash among her superiors because the judge was a "political ally, friend and crony" of the firm. As for sexual harassment, the suit says D'Onofrio and other women complained about unwelcome sexual comments and touching by DiFrancesco, but no corrective action was taken. D'Onofrio recently underwent reconstructive surgery after a diagnosis of breast cancer in 2006. Before the surgery, DiFrancesco "asked her if she was planning on ‘getting really big boobs,'" the suit says. In a telephone interview after the suit was filed, DiFrancesco said of that allegation, "It's absolutely not true. I can't recall saying those things and I know I would not have said things in those ways." As for the rest of the personal charges against him, "a couple of things were fabricated," he says. "It's not something I like to read, and I'm very unhappy about it and I'm very angry about it," says DiFrancesco, who was acting governor in 2001 at the end of a 25-year career in the state Legislature. The suit names the firm, not individual partners, one of whom is Assemblyman Christopher Bateman, R-Somerset. According to the complaint, DiFrancesco once asked D'Onofrio if she planned to wear a bathing suit to a professional function. In 2002, he asked her to stay a night in his hotel suite in Atlantic City after a League of Municipalities meeting and then go to a Beach Boys concert with him. |
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Law firm lands deal as stadium sponsor
Headline News |
2007/10/24 10:43
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Baker & Daniels on Tuesday joined a growing list of corporate sponsors of Lucas Oil Stadium, marking the venue's third such deal in the past month.
The stadium's upper and lower east club levels will be named for the Indianapolis law firm, said Tom Zupancic, senior vice president of sales and marketing for the Indianapolis Colts.
Baker & Daniels also will get media advertising rights as part of the six-year agreement. The deal is a "shrewd move" by the firm, said Larry DeGaris, director of the academic sports marketing program at the University of Indianapolis.
"I think obviously they see the value in the number of businesses and corporate decision-makers who are going to pass through those turnstiles," DeGaris said. "You need to keep in mind who's going to be sitting in (club-level) seats."
Zupancic declined to discuss how much the deal is worth, but DeGaris estimated the firm could be paying $500,000 to $1.5 million per year, depending on the specifics of the media package. Advertising opportunities include in-stadium spots, game programs and local spots broadcast on the Colts' television show, "Colts Up Close.'' Representatives from the Colts and Baker & Daniels said the deal is a logical step from previous partnerships. As part of the sponsorship, the firm has been named one of the stadium's "founding partners."
"We have been so integrated with this facility and with this team that it was a logical place for us to be," said Jack Swarbrick, a Baker & Daniels partner.
"Literally without the people at Baker & Daniels we wouldn't be here today," Zupancic said.
He pointed out that David Frick, an attorney at the firm, was involved in the 1983 negotiations to bring the Colts to Indianapolis. Frick also serves as chairman of the Indiana Stadium and Convention Building Authority, which is overseeing stadium construction.
Lawyers at the firm also helped orchestrate the new stadium deal and have worked to attract the Super Bowl to Indianapolis, Zupancic said.
A total of 12 founding partnership deals at the stadium are for sale, with naming rights for entrances, seating levels and lounges up for bid. The stadium is set to be completed by mid-August.
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Class-action lawyers rack up rare victory on fees
Headline News |
2007/10/24 10:36
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In a decision closely watched by plaintiffs' lawyers, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected the fees awarded to a class-action firm, but not because the payment was too high.
The court, in an opinion earlier this month, raised the possibility that the law firm, New York's Milberg Weiss, was undercompensated for its representation of shareholders of the now-defunct Chicago-based Internet consulting company MarchFirst Inc.
It's a rare victory for class-action lawyers, who have been vilified for taking excessive cash fees while their clients receive awards of little economic value. Indeed, Congress has twice created laws aimed at addressing abuses in the system.
In this case Milberg Weiss asked for 28 percent, or $5.04 million, of the $18 million settlement it reached with lawyers for the defendants, which included MarchFirst founder and former Chief Executive Robert Bernard. U.S. District Judge John Grady rejected the fee as excessive, considering that the settlement equaled a recovery of 19 cents per share. He reduced the amount to $2.6 million, or 15 percent of the settlement.
In support of his decision the judge cited the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which directs judges to determine attorneys' fees based on the results achieved for the class. Milberg Weiss appealed his 2006 ruling.
The 7th Circuit objected to Grady's method for coming up with the fee percentage, saying the judge did not consider anything besides the amount recovered for the class.
The court "did not factor into its assessment the value that the market would have placed on Counsel's legal services had its fees been arranged at the outset," Judge Ann Claire Williams wrote for the majority.
The ruling is consistent with previous decisions of the appellate court that have directed district courts to consider the market price for legal services.
That should take into account the risk that plaintiffs' lawyers will not be paid if they lose the case. Like other lawyers who work on a contingent-fee basis, class-action practitioners get paid only when litigation concludes successfully. These large-scale cases often require a steep upfront investment of time and money, with no guarantee of any return.
But Grady had dismissed that risk in his calculation, declaring that "this is a common argument in support of large fees in class actions, but it has no relationship to reality."
The appellate court did not make its own calculation of the attorneys' fees, instead sending the case back to the district court for further proceedings. Officials at Milberg Weiss were not available for comment.
Chicago lawyer Joel Chefitz, who represented MarchFirst, said the defense lawyers did not have a stake in the fees awarded to Milberg Weiss and did not support or oppose its original request for 28 percent.
He said he thinks most plaintiffs' lawyers will applaud the 7th Circuit decision because it will make fee awards less subjective. "It's sending a consistent message that we want to replicate a marketplace," Chefitz said. "What it means is that plaintiffs' lawyers will be less subject to the vagaries of which judge they get." |
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