Free Republic

Rove Deposed? READ Federalist 47! The Democrats continue to mutate the design of our Constitution, first by asking for more subpoena powers (S. 836) and now are acting as a law enforcement body. Federalist 47 specifically cites such moves as the “very definition of tyranny.” From Federalist 47:“One of the principal objections inculcated by the more respectable adversaries to the Constitution, is its supposed violation of the political maxim, that the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments ought to be separate and distinct. In the structure of the federal government, no regard, it is said, seems to have been paid to...

As Gov. Sarah Palin blasted the media Saturday in a tough Facebook post, her attorney delivered a strong warning to news outlets that they should not report any stories that allege the Alaska governor is leaving office because she is under any kind of federal investigation. CNN has not reported these allegations were in any way connected to the governor's decision to leave office early. "To the extent several websites, most notably liberal Alaska blogger Shannyn Moore, are now claiming as 'fact' that Governor Palin resigned because she is 'under federal investigation' for embezzlement or other criminal wrongdoing, we will...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 4, 2009 On July 3rd, 2009, Governor Sarah Palin announced her intent to resign her gubernatorial duties and transfer the powers of Governor to Lt. Governor Sean Parnell. Almost immediately afterwards, several unscrupulous people have asserted false and defamatory allegations that the “real” reasons for Governor Palin’s resignation stem from an alleged criminal investigation pertaining to the construction of the Wasilla Sports Complex. This canard was first floated by Democrat operatives in September 2008 during the national campaign and followed up by sympathetic Democratic writers.1. It was easily rebutted then as one of many fabrications about...

Nearly 150 prominent attorneys, of all political stripes have banded together to support one of their own who went to Washington, D.C., to serve as a government watchdog, only to be unceremoniously dismissed by the Obama Administration earlier this month.

In his memoir, former CIA Director George J. Tenet described the agency's first course of action in a crisis. "Despite what Hollywood might have you believe," Tenet wrote, "you don't call in the tough guys; you call in the lawyers." For more than three decades, that almost always has meant making a call to John A. Rizzo. The acting general counsel at the CIA, Rizzo has guided generations of agency leaders on the legal contours of clandestine operations and the often-ensuing investigations. At CIA headquarters, he is known for his eye-watering wardrobe -- with ties, cuff links and suspenders colored...

Movie star Alec Baldwin has been given the opportunity to launch his political career in Ohio by a local law firm keen to back a bid to make him the state's next Governor. The Cooler star has often spoken about his political aspirations and now he has gone public with his plans to retire from acting in 2012, a group of leading Ohio businessmen want him to consider running for office there. He tells Playboy magazine, "A law firm in a liberal Democratic bastion in Ohio state politics sent me a binder with a cover letter that read: "Mr. Baldwin,...

I pick doctors over lawyers any day. Not that I don’t value the law, or its role in our lives. And not that I’m prejudiced against its practitioners. But in a pinch it’s far more important to have a doctor than a lawyer. So I’m on the doctors’ side. In this whole “tort reform” thing, the doctors are right and the lawyers are wrong. Basically, you’ve got life-saving angels on one side and blood-sucking leeches on the other. It’s not that hard a call. There is discussion in Washington, and in many state capitals, about protecting doctors and the practice...

First off, the biggest ass-kissing media refers to Michelle Obama as a 'distinguished attorney" despite the fact that Michelle Obama has been"inactive" since 1993.

President Obama says he will not place caps malpractice awards: "Now, I recognize that it will be hard to make some of these changes if doctors feel like they're constantly looking over their shoulders for fear of lawsuits. I recognize that. (Applause.) Don't get too excited yet. Now, I understand some doctors may feel the need to order more tests and treatments to avoid being legally vulnerable. That's a real issue. (Applause.) Now, just hold on to your horses here, guys. (Laughter.) I want to be honest with you. I'm not advocating caps on malpractice awards -- (boos from some...

White House appoints executive pay czarGlenn Somerville and Karey Wutkowski, Reuters Published: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration Wednesday named Kenneth Feinberg, the lawyer who oversaw the government's compensation fund for victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, as its pay czar to police compensation of top earners at companies receiving "exceptional" government aid. The administration also urged new laws to give ordinary shareholders more say on how executive salaries are set. The pay packets of top executives, which sometimes are equal to several hundred times the pay of average employees, ignited a storm of controversy after...

The Obama administration on Wednesday reversed a Bush administration rule that immigrants rights groups had criticized as unfair. Attorney General Eric Holder said he is vacating an order, issued by predecessor Michael Mukasey, which said that immigrants facing deportation do not have an automatic right to an effective lawyer. Holder said he is also instructing the Justice Department to begin working on a new rule. Charles Kuck, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, called the move "the beginning of the restoration of due process in the immigration system." Kuck said that Holder's decision "recognizes we can't treat immigrants any...

Consumer groups and trial lawyers are crying foul over the Obama administration’s bankruptcy plans for General Motors and Chrysler. Those plans would extinguish all ongoing auto accident claims that blame a death or serious injury on a defective GM or Chrysler vehicle.

Susan B. Jordan, a prominent attorney known for her work defending women charged with violent crimes, and who is credited with the creation of the battered spouse defense, was killed Friday in a plane crash in Utah. She was 67. Jordan, who split her time between homes in Berkeley and Ukiah in Mendocino County, formerly had a law office in Berkeley, and since 1972 had run a law practice in Ukiah. Jordan had been a licensed pilot since 1981, but longtime friend and professional colleague Ann Moorman said she was not flying the plane when it went down. Health care...

Many of Americans are not aware of basic bankruptcy law. GM can file in any court district in which it has an office. However, some districts are special. NJ, NY, MI, and DE are areas where there is NO CAP on lawyer fees. If the current administration is serious about saving the tax payers money, they will force GM to file in a place where the lawyers are capped My personal bet is NY

DAYTON, OH—A federal grand jury here has indicted Marc Norman Greenberg, 32, Centerville, alleging that he transmitted obscene images in interstate commerce between February and April 2009. Gregory G. Lockhart, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio; Keith L. Bennett, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau ofInvestigation (FBI), announced the indictment returned yesterday. The indictment alleges that Greenberg used computers at his home and office to engage in graphic sexual conversations and to transmit obscene images. Greenberg sent these images to individuals whom Greenberg believed were underage females, but were actually law enforcement officers conducting undercover investigations. The...

Two top attorneys who argued Bush v. Gore on opposite sides have now joined forces to strike down Prop 8 in federal court, filing for a preliminary injunction against same-sex marriage ban until the case is resolved, which would immediately reinstate the right for all Californians to marry. Theodore B. Olson and David will officially announce their case tomorrow morning in downtown, according to the American Foundation for Equal Rights. Olson, a former U.S. Solicitor General represented President Bush, against Al Gore, who was represented by Boies. The pair is representing two gay men and two gay women who were...

Prominent Arkansas plaintiffs securities lawyer Gene Cauley is expected to plead guilty for failing to pay clients $9.3 million in settlement funds he was supposed to be holding as their escrow agent. Cauley will plead guilty to wire fraud and criminal contempt for failing to safely hold the money, the Wall Street Journal Law Blog reports. The blog says the expected plea was revealed in an Arkansas Supreme Court filing. Cauley’s lawyer, John Wesley Hall, told the Law Blog his client is expected to file the guilty plea in June. Hall said the missing money “could be in all kinds...

A judge said Friday that she's referring a Los Angeles lawyer to federal prosecutors and the State Bar over his involvement in lawsuits that she found were part of a massive fraud by purported Nicaraguan banana workers against U.S. food giant Dole. Superior Court Judge Victoria Chaney said that attorney Juan Dominguez, an attorney for the plaintiffs in the lawsuits against Dole, would be subject to charges of perjury, obstruction of justice, defrauding a court, conspiring to extort a United States company and possibly federal racketeering violations. She also ordered Dominguez to appear in her courtroom on June 15 for...

The Atlanta-based firm Kilpatrick Stockton LLP says attorney Mark Levy, who served as deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice between 1993 and 1995, died Thursday. An attorney who served in the Clinton administration was found dead Thursday in an apparent suicide at his Washington law office. The death comes after the chief financial officer of mortgage giant Freddie Mac killed himself last week. David Kellermann was found dead April 22 in the basement of his northern Virginia home.

Washington - An attorney who served in the Clinton administration was found dead Thursday in an apparent suicide at his Washington law office. Kilpatrick Stockton LLP, an Atlanta-based firm, confirmed in a statement that attorney Mark Levy had died. "Mark Levy was well known and highly respected for his successful appearances before the Supreme Court of the United States," said Bill Dorris, the firm's co-managing partner. Levy was a deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice between 1993 and 1995 and served five years in the Solicitor General's office.

An attorney who served in the Clinton administration was found dead Thursday in an apparent suicide at his Washington law office. Kilpatrick Stockton, an Atlanta firm, confirmed in a statement that attorney Mark Levy had died. "Mark Levy was well known and highly respected for his successful appearances before the Supreme Court of the United States," said Bill Dorris, the firm's co-managing partner. Levy was a deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice between 1993 and 1995 and served five years in the Solicitor General's office. D.C. Police spokeswoman Helen Andrews said officers were called to an office...

A Cuban national who was ordered deported, but was released from custody because he could not be removed to Cuba, is expected to make his initial appearance in Los Angeles this afternoon on charges related to a scheme in which he allegedly assumed the identity of an attorney and charged aliens to represent them in the very immigration court where he had been ordered deported. Raul Ernest Alonso-Prieto, 60, was turned over to federal authorities in Fresno two weeks ago after he was indicted on March 19. The 22-count indictment charges Alonso-Prieto with five counts of wire fraud, two counts...

As American taxpayers shell out hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out U.S. companies, a federal court in New York recently paved the way for significantly increasing some of these firms' financial burdens. Relying on the Alien Tort Statute of 1789, the court ruled this month that certain companies that did business with apartheid South Africa -- including distressed firms such as General Motors and Ford -- can be held liable for South Africa's human rights violations during that period. The Alien Tort Statute was designed to allow diplomatically sensitive tort cases to be brought in federal court in...

Lehman Bros. has already set a record as the largest company ever to file for bankruptcy. Now, it’s on course to set a record as the most lucrative for lawyers, especially Harvey Miller and his merry band of lawyers at Weil Gotshal. In the largest quarterly fee request ever made by lawyers representing a bankrupt debtor, Weil earlier this week asked Robert Peck, a federal bankruptcy judge in New York, to sign off on a $55.1 million payment for its work representing Lehman. . . . The pace of the work during a bankruptcy is typically most intense during the...

A man accused of illegally posing as a lawyer in at least 10 states is back in court as a defendant. Prosecutors want to present evidence of his criminal past but the judge says he may not allow it. Howard O. Kieffer, 54, of Duluth, Minn., is charged in North Dakota with one count of mail fraud and one count of false statements in impersonating a lawyer. Authorities say he worked on federal cases in a number of states, but North Dakota is the first state to prosecute him. Kieffer faces up to 25 years in prison and a $500,000...

WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline)-Bad economic times for the nation's trial bar has plaintiffs' attorneys pursuing mass torts to get the most bang out of their buck. Legal observers attest to a noticeable uptick in marketing by plaintiffs' attorneys seeking clients for lawsuits against deep-pocket sectors like the pharmaceutical industry and manufacturing.

THE seizure of the Maersk Alabama and her American crew of 21 by pirates on Tuesday may finally be the wake-up call we need to deal with the ongoing piracy threat in the waters off Somalia. To their everlasting credit, the Americans on board saved the Obama administration from its version of Jimmy Carter's Iran hostage crisis by turning the tables on their captors and taking back their ship. Can we hope that the US government will finally be as decisive -- and truly act against this growing threat to world trade? The pirates prey at the Horn of Africa,...

Harold Koh, President Obama's pick to become one of the State Department's top lawyers, has ignited fury among critics who say his legal views are a threat to American democracy. March 31, 2009 President Obama's nominee to be the State Department's legal adviser has ignited a fury among conservative critics who say his views are a threat to American democracy -- an accusation the White House on Tuesday called "outrageous" and "completely baseless." Former Clinton administration official Harold Koh, who has been dean of the Yale Law School since 2004, once wrote that the U.S. was part of an "axis...

A day after word broke of a friend of the daughter of Vice President Joseph Biden attempting to hawk a video claiming to show Ashley Biden snorting cocaine, the friend was blown off by his lawyer. Thomas Dunlap, a lawyer who had been representing man trying to hawk a video which purported to show the younger Biden at a party in Deleware, told The Post today he is no longer representing that person. "I can't comment. I can't make any comment on anything about it," Dunlap said when asked what led to the legal split. Dunlap reportedly told RadarOnline.com that...

Even as the Obama administration has dropped the term ''enemy combatant'' in reshaping its war-on-terror policy, the Pentagon is inviting lawyers to apply for jobs defending its detention of 200-plus captives at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

In an attempt to win sanctions against a former top Bush administration official over brutal interrogations of prisoners at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, a lawyers group deployed a strategy Monday that worked against Presidents Nixon and Clinton. Former Defense Department General Counsel William J. Haynes II is the first of several former policy makers the National Lawyers Guild wants reprimanded, suspended or disbarred for their roles in detainee abuse, said Carlos Villarreal, executive director of the San Francisco Bay Area guild chapter that filed a complaint against Haynes with the California Bar Assn. Haynes, now an attorney with Chevron Corp....

In a time of massive Ponzi schemes and widespread financial turmoil, it is important for people to feel they can speak up when they believe that something improper is being done.  The protection of free speech was given a big boost this past week with a $545,000 settlement, which wrapped-up over three-and-a-half years of court cases. During that time, Elizabeth Enney lost both parents, survived a fifth heart surgery and paid more than $300,000 to defend herself against two libel lawsuits ultimately found to have been without any basis in law or fact.  The lawsuits were described by Enney’s lawyer,...

LONDON: Breaking up is hard to do. But lawyers, counselors, astrologists and lifestyle coaches at Britain's first divorce fair this weekend will aim to make the process easier. The fair, cheerily named the "Starting Over Show", takes place Sunday at a cozy hotel in the seaside resort town of Brighton. There will be live music, book signings and play areas for kids. Organizer Suzy Miller said the event would aim to focus on the positive, starting with a warming cup of tea and a chunk of homemade cake. "There are wedding fairs everywhere telling you how to tie the knot,...

When a jury found Richard Allen Davis guilty of the murder of Petaluma's 12-year-old Polly Klaas in 1996, Davis puckered his lips and extended a middle finger to TV cameras. Later, Davis was sentenced to death, and outraged California voters passed a three-strikes sentencing law. From death row now, Davis still is puckering up and extending his finger at the public - and the public is paying for it. It's 2009, yet it was only this month that Davis' first appeal was argued before the California Supreme Court. "Who would think it would take almost as long for this guy...

Just what makes a good lawyer? In trying to answer that question, professors at the University of California, Berkeley, have come up with a test that they say is better at predicting success in the field than the widely used Law School Admission Test. The LSAT, as the half-day exam is known, does not claim to predict much beyond a student’s performance in law school. But critics contend that it does not evaluate how good a lawyer someone will be and tests for the wrong things. They also say it keeps many black and Hispanic students — who tend to...

Knowing the end of this article, it is only appropriate to begin it with these words from Thomas Jefferson. "The great object of my fear is the Federal Judiciary. That body, like gravity, ever acting with noiseless foot and unalarming advance, gaining ground step by step and holding what it gains, is engulfing insidiously the special governments into the jaws of that which feeds them." --Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1821. and these more recently from the Supreme court ... the harsh truth is that... we may well be on our way to a society, overrun by hordes of lawyers,...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A coalition of lawyers called for a new international forum on Monday to handle legal issues spurred by the purported $50 billion fraud of once-respected Wall Street trader Bernard Madoff. Known as the Madoff Case Global Alliance of Law Firms, the group is pushing for the creation of an International Financial Court to handle Madoff-related and other complex financial services litigation. The group, made up of law firms involved in Madoff-related civil litigation, said they hoped the idea would be discussed by leaders of the Group of 20 developed and emerging market nations at a summit...

With apologies to the many fine folks at law that visit these pages, and those of my colleagues on the web that ply the law, today I am going to act the vulgar Shakespearian and advocate to "first kill all the lawyers." Well, if not kill them exactly, then at least put many of them out of work -- not that I am any expert on Shakespeare, he says to a chorus of "you betchas." Still, the thought comes to mind because of a recent story in the Boston Globe that waxes pathetic over the many Bean Town lawyers that...

A Buffalo, N.Y.-area financial institution that loans money to law firms to finance litigation was within its rights when it decided not to gamble on an attorney who used money he borrowed to play poker, a federal judge has ruled. Western District of New York Judge Richard J. Arcara ruled in Counsel Financial Services v. Melkersen Law, 08- cv-0156A(Sr), that Counsel Financial Services could call in just under $250,000 in outstanding principal on attorney Michael J. Melkersen's loan, plus $22,420 in outstanding interest and $3,923 in late payments. Melkersen argued that neither his card-playing, nor other personal uses of the...

"I can't get a job anywhere." I've been getting a lot of e-mails that start like that. This one was from Ellie Trope of Mid-City in Los Angeles, near La Brea, who lost her job more than a year ago. She wrote me after reading my column two weeks ago about the endless mob scene at the employment office in Van Nuys. Trope, 43, is an attorney with 15 years of experience, and she said lawyers are losing their jobs in droves. When people in banking and the mortgage industry were getting the heave-ho, it came as no surprise. In...

SAN DIEGO -- A mistrial was declared Monday when a home-invasion robbery suspect smeared human feces on his attorney's face then threw more at the jury. Weusi McGowan, 37, was upset because San Diego Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Fraser refused to remove Deputy Alternate Public Defender Jeffrey Martin from the case, prosecutor Christopher Lawson said. At the mid-morning break, McGowan produced a plastic baggie filled with fecal matter and spread it on Martin's hair and face, then flung the excrement toward the jury box, hitting the briefcase of juror No. 9 but missing the juror himself

Anchorage Daily News JUNEAU — New state gift disclosures show it cost Liberty Legal Institute and the two law firms working with it $185,000 to represent six Alaska legislators in an unsuccessful lawsuit to halt their colleagues' "troopergate" investigation into whether Gov. Sarah Palin acted improperly in firing the state's public safety director. The legislators listed a $25,000 gift of services from the Texas-based Liberty Legal Institute. Liberty is the legal arm of the Free Market Foundation, which is associated with evangelical leader James Dobson's Focus on the Family, and lists its guiding principles as limited government and promotion of...

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - Whatever you say can and will be used against you in court; it's something every cop knows and every attorney should know. Apparently one local lawyer forgot the axiom, when Albuquerque Police arrested him for drunk driving this week. Albuquerque attorney John Wayne Higgins usually defends drunk drivers. On Wednesday night he had the right to remain silent; instead he acted as his own attorney and tried to defend himself. Police said that Higgins struck a curb near 12th and Mountain, and witnesses watched him walk across the street where police found him. Higgins' entire arrest was...

It is a tragic story, but it's one we are growing accustomed to with the devaluation of the lives of children. Allegedly, sometime around mid-June of 2008, a Florida woman's two year old toddler went missing. Besides the obvious fact, the only problem was this child's mother failed to tell authorities her child was gone and she didn't know where little Caylee Anthony was. About a month later, Cindy Anthony, the grandmother of the missing toddler, finally made a police report, stating the child hadn't been seen for over four weeks. Casey Anthony, the mother of the missing two year...

First layoffs, then lawsuits. More workers are being let go as corporate layoffs that began in earnest last year have accelerated in recent weeks. And more often, people are looking around and complaining that they have been unfairly or improperly dismissed. Former employees of Lehman Brothers, for example, say they were not given the required 60 days’ pay before their jobs vanished, while Dell is being sued over allegations of age and sex discrimination against workers, in what lawyers say are growing choruses. Before filing many types of discrimination lawsuits, disgruntled employees must file a claim with the government. The...

Executive Orders have consequences. Now the terrorists' American lawyers want the charges dropped. The judge, however, is hanging tough. After the Executive Order came down from the White House, one of the terrorist's attorney's move for a delay in the proceedings. The judge denied the motion. More . . .

Washington lawyer Norman L. Eisen made his name in politics as a regular Democratic contributor and co-founder of Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, a liberal-leaning watchdog group that, among other things, sued then-President George W. Bush over missing White House e-mails.

JURIST Contributing Editor Jordan Paust of the University of Houston Law Center says that President Barack Obama should follow up his executive order banning torture and inhumane interrogation by fulfilling treaty-based and customary international legal obligations to either initiate prosecution of or to extradite all persons - including high US officials - reasonably accused of having previously authorized, ordered, abetted, or perpetrated torture and other war crimes and/or crimes against humanity.... On January 22, 2009, President Barack Obama signed an Executive Order onEnsuring Lawful Interrogations, mandating that all U.S. interrogations of persons comply, at a minimum, with the requirements...

I missed Clintonite moldy oldie-turned-Obama economic adviser Robert Reich’s testimony a few weeks ago on how the government should spend federal stimulus money. The Berkeley professor engaged in academic fantasy land talk about getting all the cash out to workers as quickly as possible — a pipe dream debunked by the CBO report I mentioned in my column yesterday. Even more noteworthy, however, were the comments Reich made about which workers deserve the stimulus bucks most. Reich’s proposal exposes the lie that the Obama administration is actually interested in revitalizing basic infrastructure for the good of the economy. No, what...

Corruption Chronicles Only half of the members in the U.S. Senate committee that screens among the most important presidential cabinet nominees—Secretary of Homeland Security—bothered to show up for confirmation hearings this week and only two Republicans participated. Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee senators evidently had more important things to do than assure the right candidate will head the crucial agency that keeps the nation safe from foreign threats. Only nine of the panel’s 17 members found the time to ask Barack Obama’s Homeland Security Secretary pick—Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano—questions, making the so-called confirmation hearing somewhat laughable. This is embarrassing...