Source: ABA Journal Top Stories A Pennsylvania appeals court has revived a bankruptcy trustee’s $500 million lawsuit against K&L Gates, finding that an Allegheny County trial court dismissed the malpractice case in error. The law firm had argued that it could not be sued by the trustee on behalf of Le-Nature’s Inc., because K&L Gates [...]

Source: WSJ.com: Law Blog – WSJ.com A disagreement between the Justice Department and former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal is getting prickly. Read the rest of the story…

Source: ABA Journal Top Stories Only five years ago, a labor contractor near Hastings, Fla., was criminally convicted and sentenced to a 30-year prison term for a scheme that authorities said involved luring homeless workers to a secluded farming community where they were kept deep in debt and paid with drugs and alcohol. But similar [...]

Source: WSJ.com: Law Blog – WSJ.com Investigators at the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department are poking around J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.’s $2 billion-plus trading loss. But should investigators even bother? Read the rest of the story…

Source: ABA Journal Top Stories A suit filed on Monday by Common Cause claims the Senate filibuster is anti-democratic and unconstitutional. “The principle of majority rule was so basic to the concept of a democratically elected legislative body that it did not need to be expressly stated in the Constitution,” the suit (PDF) says. Other [...]

Source: Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog When the Wisconsin Supreme Court declined in February to grant the Civil Gideon petition and its proposed requirement that legal counsel be appointed for impoverished civil litigants, it instead noted a familiar fallback solution: pro bono initiatives. When Congress decided in 2011 to drastically cut funding for the [...]

Source: WSJ.com: Law Blog – WSJ.com Some semi-cheerful news out on the legal biz front—demand for legal services rose in the first quarter of 2012, according to a new report from Citi Private Bank. Read the rest of the story…

Source: China Law Blog Just back from Los Angeles, where I met with countless people in the movie industry and discussed with nearly all of them how Chinese entertainment companies are and will be buying into Western entertainment companies, and vice-versa. In just the past week, we are hearing of Wanda (China) looking to buy [...]

Source: ABA Journal Top Stories Even the prosecutor’s office and the sentencing judge who put Clarence Aaron behind bars for three life terms, due to his role in a cocaine deal, were in favor of an immediate commutation of his sentence, back when President George W. Bush was in office. But Aaron, a first-time offender [...]

Source: WSJ.com: Law Blog – WSJ.com The diminishing of Dewey & LeBoeuf continues, with a fleet of about 50 of the firm’s European lawyers moving over to Greenberg Traurig. Read the rest of the story…

Source: WSJ.com: Law Blog – WSJ.com Curious what happens to a client whose law firm is on the brink of collapse? Just ask paper makerNewPage Corp., which saw a hearing on a key issue in its Chapter 11 case pushed back because of the “extraordinary difficulties” its lawyers at Dewey & LeBoeuf have faced in [...]

Source: ABA Journal Top Stories Confidential information discussed by a lawyer with his clients, the New Hampshire Local Government Center, at a public meeting of the center are privileged, the state’s top court has ruled, because no member of the public was present to hear them. Ruling Friday on a claim by the Professional Fire [...]

Source: ABA Journal Top Stories A lawyer who graduated from Harvard Law School in 2009 claims the school falsely accused her of plagiarism after she handed in a draft of a law review article that was incomplete because her laptop had been hit with a computer virus. The suit by Megon Walker says one law [...]

Source: Federal Employment Law Articles The Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) has issued a new set of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 (MHPAEA). This law generally requires private group health benefit plans that provide mental health and/or [...]

Source: Federal Employment Law Articles Does Facebook cause smart people to act dumb? Stories of poor judgment via Facebook continue to make the news and continue to amaze me. But there seems to be no end in sight to the incidents of social-media stupidity. A recent story from Missouri may qualify for this category. Read [...]

Source: Federal Employment Law Articles I had the pleasure of attending an event last week at which humorist Dave Barry was the keynote speaker. As you may be able to deduce from my lunatic-like grin, I am a big fan of Mr. Barry’s. I was very excited about hearing him speak and had been looking [...]

Source: China Law Blog Just got back from Los Angeles, where I met with long-time China hands, Sage Brennan and Renee Hartmann.  Since returning to the United States, Sage and Renee have formed China Luxury Advisors, a consultancy focused on helping luxury goods companies market to Chinese consumers both within and outside China. These days [...]

Source: WSJ.com: Law Blog – WSJ.com The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana has filed suit on behalf of the Center for Inquiry, a secular group, saying it is a constitutional violation for marriages performed by non-religious groups not be recognized by state law. Read the rest of the story…

Source: Federal Employment Law Articles Legislation, both state and federal, prohibiting employers from requesting an employee’s or applicant’s password continues to make progress. In Particular, the pending bills in California and New Jersey passed to the next level of their respective legislatures yesterday. Read the rest of the story…

Source: Federal Employment Law Articles I was off enjoying the Florida sunshine last weekend while learning the latest techniques in pettifoggery and obfuscation (kidding!), but I hope I’ll be making up for it today with a good case answering the musical question: “What does an employer do when it finds out that its employee on [...]

Source: Federal Employment Law Articles The Seventh Circuit recently weighed in on whether pharmaceutical sales representatives are exempt under the FLSA in Susan Schaeffer-LaRose v. Eli Lilly & Company. Read the rest of the story…

Source: California Employment Law Articles Under a new California law, by January 1, 2013, for any employee whose wages involve commissions, all commission agreements with employees must be in writing, specifically setting forth the method by which commissions are computed and paid. Read the rest of the story…

Source: ABA Journal Top Stories Home? Schooling? Philadelphia lawyer Kelly Phillips Erb has already disclosed to her blawg’s readers that she has substantial student loan debt . This week at Taxgirl, she wonders why the government severely limits what student loan interest can be deducted from one’s personal income tax. “There are practically no restrictions [...]

Source: WSJ.com: Law Blog – WSJ.com U.S. taxes are a such drag that prodigiously wealthy people are renouncing their citizenship to escape Uncle Sam’s grasp. Read the rest of the story…

Source: ABA Journal Top Stories Upholding a trial judge’s power to compel a witness to testify, the Nebraska Supreme Court on Friday said a Kansas woman who says she was raped at age 7 can be jailed for 90 days if she refuses to cooperate with the prosecution of the case. However, the court noted [...]

Source: ABA Journal Top Stories A trader working for JP Morgan Chase & Co. known as the “London Whale” is being publicly blamed for what the bank’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, describes as a potential $2 billion loss due to what news reports are calling a bet on corporate bonds. Dimon, who had last month called [...]

Source: China Law Blog Unless you have a perfect mastery of Chinese language, symbolism, and social nuances (and who even has that of their own country, anyway?), consider picking up a copy of Anne-Laure Monfret’s Saving Face in China, a practical book aimed at aiding you in making a decent impression on your Chinese business [...]

Source: WSJ.com: Law Blog – WSJ.com The Telephone Consumer Protection Act forbids advertisers, bill collectors and the like from calling your mobile phone, without your consent, using an automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice. Read the rest of the story…

Source: Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog The editors of the blog asked several law school faculty to write about the people who have been the most formative figures in their careers as legal educators. This fourth submission in the series is by Professor Chad M. Oldfather. The path I took to law school was [...]

Source: Federal Employment Law Articles If loyalty is defined as being faithful to a cause, ideal, custom, institution or product, then there seems to be a certain amount of infidelity in the workplace these days. Read the rest of the story…