Mel Martinez's career plans after leaving the Senate appear to be bringing him to Tampa.

The Orlando Republican is joining the offices of DLA Piper as a partner in its Washington and Tampa offices, according to Legal Times.

DLA Piper partner Ignacio Sanchez confirmed the news following a partnership vote. Martinez, who left the Senate earlier this month, starts at the firm on Oct. 1, Legal Times reported.

"When he announced he was going to retire and let the governor appoint someone to finish out the term, I immediately talked to him and said, you really ought to consider looking at our firm. I think you would really do well, and we would love to have you," Sanchez said.

The former senator will be banned from lobbying for two years, though Sanchez said he will be able to advise clients on a range of issues.

The Murfreesboro law firm of Kious & Rodgers, PLLC recently announced a change to the firm’s name to recognize the contributions of partners, Jay Barger, Chris Holder and J. D. Kious, to the North Maple Street practice. Kious & Rodgers, PLLC is now Kious, Rodgers, Barger, Holder & Kious, PLLC.

The firm’s founding partners, David W. Kious and John W. Rodgers, started the firm in 1997 with a vision of building the best law firm in Rutherford County. “We believed by delivering high quality legal services at a reasonable price, the firm would grow as its reputation grew, and in time we would need to add partners and associates in response to an increasing and diverse client base,” Rodgers said. “The change in our firm name is a reflection of our firm’s vision for growth and advancement.”

James P. “Jay” Barger joined the firm in 2002, was named a partner in 2006 and is the firm’s family law specialist. G. Christopher Holder joined the firm in 2004 and was named a partner a year ago. He specializes in criminal defense, construction and lien law, and collections. J. D. Kious joined the firm in 2005 and specializes in business law, estate planning and real estate.

“With their assistance, the firm John and I started 12 years ago has been able to fulfill its mission of being a full service law firm for Rutherford County, providing exceptional service through sound legal advice and professional, experienced representation,” David Kious noted. “And by adding Jay, Chris and J.D. to our firm name, we want to recognize their contribution to our firm and make known our comprehensive practice, spanning the full spectrum of today’s legal environment.”

Kious points out that the firm is not looking at restraining its growth anytime soon. “New developments and growth opportunities are on the horizon, and we are poised to take advantage of them.”

The name change is accompanied by a new web site, http://www.murfreesborolawyers.com.

Federal prosecutors say an Illinois man has pleaded guilty in an identity theft ring that ensnared Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke as a victim.

Forty-nine-year-old Leonardo Darnell Zanders of Dolton, Ill., entered the guilty plea on Monday after several witnesses testified at his trial.

According to testimony and court documents, Zanders directed a nationwide fraud scheme to steal from people and financial institutions.

At trial on Monday, co-defendant Darrell Earl Price testified that Zanders gave him checks in the name of Ben and Anna Bernanke, and Price used those checks in the scheme.

ALI-ABA and ACLEA Team Up To Host High-Level Summit on Lawyer Education and Development in the 21st Century

ALI-ABA Continuing Professional Education (ALI-ABA) and the Association for Continuing Legal Education (ACLEA) are hosting a high-level summit on lawyer education and professional development in the 21st century, to be held October 15-17, 2009, at the Fairmont Scottsdale in Scottsdale, Arizona.  

The invitational conference, titled Equipping Our Lawyers: Law School Education, Continuing Legal Education, and Legal Practice in the 21st Century, will call together selected continuing legal education (CLE) professionals, practitioners, bar leaders, judges, law school professors and representatives, mandatory CLE administrators, law firm educators, and other experts on lawyer professional education and development.  Over the course of two-and-a-half days, these 150 thought leaders will debate and discuss critical issues facing law schools, continuing legal education providers, and the legal profession in equipping today's lawyers for practice, and will develop specific goals and recommendations for improvement and change. This will be a milestone summit, with an impact on legal training and the profession for years to come.

The summit will open on October 15 with two panels of experts discussing “The Future of the Legal Profession” and “The Role of Technology in Legal Training and Practice.” These panels will also be webcast live from the summit.  The core of the conference will be six participatory breakout sessions, featuring in-depth discussions of trends, best practices, and goals for law school education, bar admissions, CLE, mandatory CLE, in-house professional development, and generational issues. Recommendations emerging from these sessions will be debated by the conferees as a whole, who will craft consensus recommendations for modernizing and improving lawyer education and professional development to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

A detailed agenda for the summit can be found at www.equippingourlawyers.org.

Media who wish to cover the full conference live on-site or the two plenary sessions on October 15 via live webcast can download a Media Credential package online at www.equippingourlawyers.org.  

The summit’s planning committee includes honorary co-chairs JoAnne A. Epps, Dean, Temple University James E. Beasley School of Law, and Thomas Z. Hayward, Jr., Of Counsel, K&L Gates LLP; executive chair Patrick A. Nester, Director, TexasBarCLE; and reporter and secretary Charles C. Bingaman, Charles C. Bingaman Consulting.

The summit would not be possible without the generous support of its sponsors. Platinum sponsors include the ABA Standing Committee on Continuing Legal Education/ABA-CLE, American Law Institute, Association for Continuing Legal Education, LexisNexis, and West LegalEdcenter. Gold sponsors include Continuing Education of the Bar – California, Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education, Inc., NALP-The Association for Legal Career Professionals™, National Business Institute, Inc., Pennsylvania Bar Institute, Practising Law Institute, and State Bar of Texas. For a complete list of sponsors, go to www.equippingourlawyers.org.  

About ALI-ABA

Located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and founded more than 60 years ago as a joint undertaking of the American Law Institute and the American Bar Association, ALI-ABA provides post-admission education for the legal profession. ALI-ABA is dedicated to keeping the legal community abreast of current developments and providing practitioners with the resources necessary to enhance their practice. ALI-ABA offers a national curriculum of continuing legal education featuring traditional substantive CLE courses, litigation and transactional skills programs, distance learning courses, published books and periodicals, online materials, customized solutions for institutions, and in-house services for lawyers at every stage of their careers. Visit the ALI-ABA website at www.ali-aba.org.

About ACLEA

ACLEA, the Association for Continuing Legal Education, is a dynamic organization devoted to improving the performance of CLE professionals. Established in 1964, ACLEA is an international association. Members are primarily from the United States and Canada, but also hail from Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Africa, and Mexico. Administrators, trainers, managers, educators, publishers, programmers and meeting professionals are all members of ACLEA. This diversity in background and outlook makes ACLEA the best source for information on CLE today. Visit the ACLEA website at www.aclea.org.

New York's top court has upheld Gov. David Paterson's power to appoint a lieutenant governor, reversing a lower court's decision.

The court ruling released Tuesday is a timely victory for Paterson, who is facing calls from national Democratic Party leaders to abandon his bid for governor in 2010.

The ruling makes Richard Ravitch the state's lietenant governor. Paterson appointed him July 8 to help break a monthlong Senate leadership struggle,

Senate Republican leader Dean Skelos then filed a lawsuit challenging Paterson's authority to make the appointment.

The lieutenant governor's post had been empty since Paterson stepped up to replace Eliot Spitzer, who resigned last year amid a prostitution scandal.

A U.S. Appeals Court reinstated on Monday a 2004 lawsuit by eight states and the city of New York against five of the largest U.S. utilities over their carbon dioxide emissions.

The lawsuit was dismissed in October 2005 by U.S. District Court Judge Loretta Preska, who said the issue was a political question for Congress or the President, not the judiciary.

Monday's ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in New York said the judge "erred in dismissing two complaints on the ground that they presented non-justiciable political questions."

The lawsuit against American Electric Power Co Inc, Southern Co, Xcel Energy Inc, Cinergy Corp and the Tennessee Valley Authority public power system, argued that greenhouse gas emissions from their plants were a public nuisance and would cause irreparable harm to property.

The utilities are five of the largest carbon dioxide emitters in the United States. Around 40 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions come from fossil-fueled power plants.