Littler Mendelson, P.C., the nation's largest employment and labor law firm, today announced a merger with Cleveland-based Duvin, Cahn & Hutton, the largest standalone labor and employment focused firm. The firms are joining forces to meet the Ohio business community's significant growth and ensuing legal counsel needs.

Littler Mendelson (Littler) and Duvin, Cahn & Hutton (Duvin) share similar roots, beginning as traditional labor relations firms; the combination of the two labor and employment powerhouses is expected to have a positive impact with the employers they advise across a variety of industries and state borders.

The addition of Duvin's 46 attorneys specializing in a variety of employment law practice areas grows Littler to more than 590 attorneys and 39 offices across the country. This union continues Littler's explosive growth and further solidifies its leadership position as the largest law firm in the United States exclusively devoted to representing management in employment, employee benefits, and labor law matters. While Littler has had a strong Midwest presence - with offices in Chicago, Columbus, Minneapolis and Indianapolis - the addition of operations in Cleveland will enable the firm to better serve existing clients. Likewise, Duvin expects this merger to enhance significantly its ability to deliver exceptional service to all clients.

"We are pleased to welcome Duvin, Cahn & Hutton's deeply experienced and well-respected attorneys as they share our dedication to the exclusive practice of labor and employment law," said Marko Mrkonich, president of Littler Mendelson. "The addition of the Duvin group will augment our expertise and the firm's depth, while providing Duvin's existing clientele of major U.S. corporations and other employers with expanded access to counsel across the nation. In particular, the new group will bring Littler considerable employment litigation experience, as well as attorney proficiency across the entire spectrum of workplace issues."

Robert Duvin, founder of Duvin, Cahn & Hutton, his staff and Littler's attorneys and professionals will reside in Duvin's current Cleveland office.

Duvin added, "The attorneys at Duvin, Cahn & Hutton have long served clients and corporations beyond the Cleveland and Ohio markets. However, the opportunity to join with a national firm of Littler's caliber was very appealing. The union is an ideal move for both parties, and we're excited to begin the New Year together as the national leader in our field."

About Duvin, Cahn & Hutton

Duvin, Cahn & Hutton, a 47 member law firm located in Cleveland, Ohio, is widely recognized as one of the nation's preeminent labor and employment law firms. The Firm represents employers around the country as well as many of Northeast Ohio's public entities in all areas of labor relations and employment law, and in complex litigation.

About Littler Mendelson

With nearly 550 attorneys and 38 offices in major metropolitan areas nationwide, Littler Mendelson is the largest law firm in the United States devoted exclusively to representing management in employment, employee benefits and labor law matters. The firm's client base ranges from Fortune 500 companies to small-business owners. Established in 1942, the firm has litigated, mediated and negotiated some of the most influential cases and labor contracts in the nation's history. For more information, visit www.littler.com.

This is an update concerning the Halliburton Securities Litigation. Truth in Corporate Justice LLC (“TCJ”) is Special Counsel to the AMS Fund, Inc. on Securities Matters. It speaks only on behalf of itself or for its client, the Lead Plaintiff, when authorized.

Oakland, CA (PRWeb) January 4, 2007 -- Truth in Corporate Justice LLC (“TCJ”) (www.worldwidetree.org) issues this press release to advise shareholders and the concerned public that the Archdiocese of Milwaukee Supporting Fund, Inc. (“AMS Fund”), Lead Plaintiff in the Halliburton Securities Litigation matter, is seeking to substitute lead counsel. This case is entitled: Archdiocese of Milwaukee Supporting Fund, Inc., et al. v. Halliburton Company, et al. (Master Docket No. 3:02-CV-1152-M), a consolidated class action pending in the Northern District of Texas before U.S. District Judge Barbara M.G. Lynn.

On December 27, 2006, AMS Fund filed its Reply Brief on its Motion to Substitute Counsel. The brief cites numerous reasons for AMS Fund’s request to remove the firms of Scott + Scott and Lerach, Coughlin, Stoia, Geller, Rudman & Robbins as lead counsel in this matter. Truth in Corporate Justice LLC’s founder, Neil Rothstein (a former Scott + Scott partner), Special Counsel to the AMS Fund, stated that this is an unfortunate but necessary change that was unexpected at the time Mr. Lerach’s firm first intervened in this case.

Some of the most important reasons for the change in counsel request, as stated in the Reply Brief filed on December 27, 2006, are the failure of lead counsel to keep AMS Fund fully informed about the status of the case in violation of Pre-trial Order Number Two. Next, according to the Reply Brief, there exists a potentially negative impact on the litigation as a result of the proliferation of media attention surrounding William S. Lerach, which could possibly shift the focus from the merits of the case and turn it into a convoluted battle between Lerach and the government. The conflict: an attorney under federal investigation is representing a lead plaintiff who has brought a lawsuit against a sitting vice president’s former company where he was Chief Executive Officer. The Vice President is not a defendant in this action. The Reply Brief also states that the Department of Justice’s ongoing criminal investigation of Lerach and his former firm, Milberg, Weiss, Bershad, Hynes & Lerach, which has led to the indictment of two of Lerach’s former partners and his predecessor firm, has brought to light facts not disclosed to the Court or Lead Plaintiff.

The AMS Fund is requesting the court to substitute the firm of Boies, Schiller & Flexner as lead counsel. The Court has not yet ruled on the motion. Neil Rothstein, founder of TCJ, says that it is unfortunate that another change in counsel is necessary at this time; however, the amount of information that the current lead counsel hid from the Lead Plaintiff clearly does not comport with what is in the best interest of the client or the class. “While the Lead Plaintiff sought to have this transition occur with the dignities of those involved remaining intact, the realities amount to far more than the loss of dignity,” stated Rothstein. “This is not about guilt or innocence; it is about the appearance of impropriety, conflicts of interest, and ethical behavior.”

To read more about this situation, please visit www.halliburtonsecuritieslitigation.com

 
Philip J. Berg, Esq. Seeking the “Truth of 9/11” 
Calls on World Community
To Arrest and Try Bush & Cheney for
Global Crimes of 9/11

Philip J. Berg, Esquire, [Berg is a former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania; former candidate for Governor and U.S. Senate; an attorney with offices in Montgomery County, PA and an active practice in Philadelphia, PA, who prior hereto has filed a RICO lawsuit against Bush and others for the events of 9/11 and plans to re-file shortly] announced today that he was issuing a call for world leaders to arrest and try Bush and Cheney for the global crimes of 9/11/01.

Philip J. Berg, Esquire stated in a letter to the nations throughout the world:

“It is time for the nations of the world to come forth and take the leadership because of the failure of the United States Government and the States where crimes were committed on 09/11/01, where no thorough investigation and indictments occurred, to investigate, arrest and prosecute the people responsible for the murders on 9/11/01, specifically including George W. Bush and Richard Cheney. “

Berg continued there is overwhelming evidence that:

“Bush and his cronies made 9/11 happen or let it happen.  And, if they let it happen, then they made it happen.  Either way, they are responsible; and more important, they have completely and unequivocally covered-it-up!”

Berg’s letter went on to say:

“The trial and execution of Saddam Hussein marks the "end of a difficult year for the Iraqi people and for our troops" according to President Bush.

Now, it is time for world leaders to take the lesson learned from Iraq and issue a warrant for the arrest of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney; arrest them; take them to a neutral country; try them for the murder of over 2,800 people from more than 80 countries on 9/11/01 and, when found guilty, sentence them appropriately.  Jurisdiction would be proper in any of the more than 80 countries whose citizens were murdered on 9/11.

Despite a near-complete corporate media embargo on the wealth of evidence indicating that the 9/11 attacks were caused or knowingly permitted to happen by top figures in the Administration and the military, 84 % of the U.S. public, according to an October 2006 CBS/NY Times poll, is unconvinced by the "Official Story," and agrees that the President and others caused or allowed the attacks to happen.

That an event such as 9/11 was desired by powerful Administration figures, including Cheney and Jeb Bush, the President's brother, is a matter of record, as the Project for the New American Century's [PNAC] blueprint for worldwide U.S. dominance entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses," stated that the program they advocated could win popular support only with the help of a "catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor" which ( we are supposed to believe to be coincidence ) came to pass just 8 months after many of the co-signers of the PNAC document assumed high positions in the new Bush Administration in January 2001.

As President John F. Kennedy stated, "Things do not just happen; they are made to happen."  There has never been an investigation of 9/11 that had not concluded, before it even began, that the Official Story convicting Osama bin Laden and absolving the Administration and the military of complicity of anything worse than "intelligence failures," which thereby made the outcome a foregone conclusion.

It is time that the men who had the motive, means and the opportunity to commit the terrible crimes of 9/11, and who have profited by it politically as well as financially, be exposed for their role and held to account.

The world has suffered since the horrific acts of Bush and his cronies on 9/11, that being the events of 9/11 and the aftermath, the illegal act of war against Afghanistan and Iraq that has caused the death and injury of hundreds of thousands, including thousands of U.S. troops; the destruction of property and the enormous costs involved.

Saddam was tried, found guilty and sentenced to death after being convicted of murder in the killings of 148 Shiite Muslims from an Iraqi town where assassins tried to kill him in 1982.  This number of killings that Saddam Hussein was found guilty of is far less than Bush and his cronies caused to die on 9/11.

The 148 Iraqi deaths for which Saddam was tried pales in number to the 750,000 dead at the hands of George W. Bush as a result of this illegal invasion of that country which includes babies, sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, elderly grandmothers and grandfathers, killed without remorse by George W. Bush and his war profiteering supporters.

Bush continues the war in Iraq to keep the world’s attention there and not on the atrocities caused by him on 9/11, including the possibility of Bush sending up to 40,000 more troops to Iraq, even though a majority of the American people are against this increase.

The world must act now because our own government has failed us.  We cannot relent until real justice is reached.  Only by exposing the truth of 9/11 and revealing how it was used as the “trigger event” to justify the neocon’s imperial policy can we put these events in proper prospective.”
                                      

Karim Koubriti, a Moroccan national, was convicted in 2003 of document fraud and conspiracy to aid terrorists after he and three others were accused of establishing a terrorist "sleeper cell" in Detroit. The convictions were later overturned after the US Department of Justice agreed that federal prosecutors were not forthcoming with evidence which would have benefited Koubriti and his co-defendants. Today a federal judge has ruled that Koubriti can sue a county in Detroit for alleged abuse while he was in jail.

Koubriti has alleged that he was unnecessarily strip searched, denied exercise, and isolated for 23 hours a day during his three years in the Wayne County, Michigan jail. US District Judge Bernard Friedman rejected the county's bid to dismiss Koubriti's lawsuit last week but no trial date has yet been scheduled. Meanwhile, the US government is working to retry Koubriti on insurance fraud charges.

President Bush will deliver a much-anticipated address to the nation Wednesday night on his new strategy for the war in Iraq. Media reports say the president is expected to announce an increase of as many as 20,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. New Democratic leaders in Congress have already criticized the idea of a surge in forces, saying they do not believe that adding combat troops will contribute to success.

Also Monday, White House officials say President Bush will nominate U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad to be Washington's representative to the United Nations. White House spokesman Tony Snow says U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Ryan Crocker will replace Khalilzad in Iraq. Snow says an official announcement is expected from the State Department later today.

If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Khalilzad would replace John Bolton. Before taking the position in Iraq, Khalilzad served as Ambassador to Afghanistan from November 2003 to June 2005. During that time, he also served as the special presidential envoy to Afghanistan. A report today in The New York Times says Mr. Bush's new Iraq strategy will set a series of goals for the Iraqi government to meet.

The newspaper says the U.S. "benchmarks" will call for Iraqi leaders to draw more Sunni Muslims into the political process and ease restrictions on members of the formerly ruling Baath Party.

Texas-based SCCI Health Services Corporation (SCCI) and its subsidiary, SCCI Hospital Ventures Inc., have paid the United States $7.5 million to settle allegations that the companies violated the Stark self-referral statute and the False Claims Act, the Justice Department announced today. SCCI, which was purchased by Triumph Hospital in 2005, operates long term acute care facilities across the United States.

The government complaint alleged that from November 1996 through at least 1999, SCCI entered into prohibited financial relationships with three physicians and paid these physicians illegal payments in violation of the Stark statute. The government further alleged that from November 1996 through at least 1999, SCCI either submitted or caused false claims to be submitted to the Medicare program, as a result of these prohibited financial relationships, in violation of the False Claims Act.

The Justice Department is committed to investigating cases that threaten the integrity of the Medicare program, especially when providers fail to abide by federal laws prohibiting the referral of Medicare patients in exchange for a fee, said Assistant Attorney General Peter D. Keisler.

The settlement resolves a civil case filed on behalf of the government on April 1, 1999 by former employees and an independent contractor who worked for SCCI Houston. Daryl Kaczymarczyk, Patricia Rocha, Michelle Pate, Michael Brigle and Theresa Taylor filed the case under the qui tam or whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act, which authorize private parties to file lawsuits on behalf of the United States. On Oct. 2, 2002, the government intervened in the Stark Act claims as to the three physicians. The United States filed its complaint in the case on March 10, 2003. Of the total settlement amount, $1 million resolves additional allegations as to which the government did not intervene. As a result of the settlement, the five whistleblowers shared $1.7 million.

The Justice Department and the United States Attorney's Office are committed to preventing and punishing improper financial relationships between physicians and hospitals. Such relationships have great potential to adversely impact the physician's judgment and result in Medicare funds being spent on unnecessary and expensive hospital stays, said Donald J. DeGabrielle Jr., United States Attorney for the Southern District of Texas.

The case was handled by the Justice Department's Civil Division and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Texas, with the assistance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.