A grand jury is expected to hear testimony this week about the role of three Lexington lawyers in the now-infamous Kentucky fen-phen settlement (Feb. 14, etc.). “Frank Bentley IV, a lawyer representing [Cincinnati’s Stanley] Chesley, said he is not a target of the criminal investigation.” (Andrew Wolfson, “Grand jury to look at diet-drug attorneys”, Louisville Courier-Journal, Mar. 15). Last month one of the lawyers caught up in the scandal, William Gallion, said “that he did nothing wrong and that a lawsuit filed against him and others in the case is simply the result of ‘a cottage industry of lawyers who attack class-action settlements.'” (Andrew Wolfson, “Attorney denies wrongdoing”, Courier-Journal, Feb. 11).
Author Archive
Update: Neuborne fee fracas
A federal judge in Brooklyn has recommended that the NYU lawprof be given about $3 million, or $1 million less than what he asked, for representing Holocaust-assets claimants. Some clients say they understood Neuborne to have said he was working pro bono (Jones/WSJ law blog, Mar. 16; Tom Perrotta, “$3 Million Fee Suggested for Neuborne for Work on Holocaust Survivor Issues”, New York Law Journal, Mar. 16). Earlier: Oct. 6, etc.
“Sperm donor kids win estate”
Most memorable detail: the kids used “tweezers to pluck his eyebrows for DNA testing as he lay dead in a hospital morgue.” The fact pattern in this Australian case was not exactly typical, however: the donor had had a previous romantic relationship with the children’s mother, who subsequently used his donations to conceive three times without informing her lawful husband that the kids were not his. (Janet Fife-Yeomans, AAP/PerthNow, Mar. 16).
New York Times loves Dickie Scruggs
When the Gray Lady keeps running extravagantly positive profiles of a trial lawyer, maybe it’s time to take a closer look. I do that in a post just up at Point of Law.
Update: Some people got it and make it pay…
…which may not necessarily mean that some people can’t even give it away:
A federal judge ruled Friday that a former escort service owner cannot sell phone records and other documents that could be used to publicly identify thousands of her clients…. [Deborah Jeane] Palfrey’s civil attorney, Montgomery Blair Sibley, said Friday he does not believe the judge’s order bars him from distributing copies of the phone records for free. In any event, Sibley said it’s a moot point because he has already given copies of the records to an undisclosed news organization.
(“Judge Blocks Former D.C. Madame From Selling Client List”, AP/FoxNews.com, Mar. 16; SF Chronicle; WTOP). Background: Mar. 13.
Worst new idea of the day
Title says it all: “Let presidential candidates sue one another for libel”. Oh, great, then White House races will start depending on who’s more skilled at manipulating the judicial process (although now that you mention it Bush v. Gore has already gone far to advance that proposition). (Joseph H. Cooper, Christian Science Monitor, Mar. 16).
Great moments in public employee tenure
“Early in his career, officials found that Lieutenant [William] White had planted white powder on a suspect in a drug arrest, which cost him his job — though he won it back with the help of the police union.” White, who has headed the narcotics squad in the New Haven, Ct. police force, is now at the center of a widening corruption scandal. (Jennifer Medina, “For Connecticut Officer Charged With Theft, a Career of Ups and Downs”, New York Times, Mar. 15; “Bail set at $2 million for New Haven officer caught in sting”, AP/WTNH, Mar. 14; Mary E. O’Leary, “Ortiz: More arrests likely” (bail bonds angle), New Haven Register, Mar. 15).
“I want my doctor to use defensive medicine”
Stores for selling banned products
Paternalists aren’t going to like this idea: “let anything the government would have banned be sold only at special ‘would have banned’ stores, whose customers pass a test showing they understand that regulators disapprove. The reason we don’t allow such stores seems obvious: we expect people would shop there.” (Robin Hanson, Overcoming Bias, Mar. 2)(via Cowen at Rev. Marge).
Paul Minor retrial, cont’d
In recent developments at the Mississippi judicial-bribery retrial, Richard (“Dickie”) Scruggs, a longstanding associate of attorney Paul Minor’s, “testified without accepting the U.S. Justice Department’s offer of immunity from prosecution”. Scruggs had not taken the stand during the first trial. (Anita Lee, “Scruggs takes stand”, Biloxi Sun-Herald, Mar. 14). Earlier, attorney Leonard Radlauer testified that he’d served as a go-between in a scheme in which Minor furnished $118,000 to pay off a debt owed by Judge John Whitfield of Gulfport. (“Scruggs likely to testify today”, Mar. 13). According to the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, summarizing his testimony,
Radlauer said he later came to the realization after receiving what he considered a fraudulent promissory note from Whitfield that Minor’s reason for wanting him to make the payment wasn’t above-board.
“It wasn’t to keep it out of the paper,” Radlauer said. “I thought it was a pretty shady thing. … It was backdating.”
(Jimmie E. Gates, “Witness: Loan antics ‘shady'”, Jackson Clarion-Ledger, Mar. 13; also Gates, Clarion-Ledger, Mar. 9, Mar. 10, Mar. 12; Lee, Sun-Herald, Mar. 12). As prosecutors wrapped up their case, U.S. District Court Judge Henry T. Wingate on Thursday refused a defense motion to dismiss the charges. (Lee, Sun-Herald, Mar. 15 first and second story). Prosecutors have said that Minor, one of the state’s most prominent plaintiff’s lawyers, slipped the money to judges in exchange for favorable rulings. Earlier: Feb. 26, Mar. 8, Mar. 9, etc.