That provocative possibility has long been whispered in legal and political circles ever since Sen. Hillary Clinton became a viable candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. Now a respected conservative law professor has openly predicted a future President Clinton would name her husband to the high court if a vacancy occurred.

Pepperdine Law School's Douglas Kmiec said, "The former president would be intrigued by court service and many would cheer him on."

Kmiec worked in the Reagan and Bush 41 White Houses as a top lawyer, but said he has no personal or political "disdain" for Bill Clinton.

CNN talked with several political and legal analysts of both ideological stripes, and while several laughed at the possibility, none would rule it out completely. And all those who spoke did so on background only.

There is precedent for such a nomination: William Howard Taft, who called his time as chief justice, from 1921 to 1930, the most rewarding of his career. He was president from 1909 to 1913.

As one Democratic political analyst said, "You may recall recent trial balloons that Mr. Clinton was perhaps interested in becoming U.N. secretary-general. If he is grasping for a similarly large stage to fill his ambitions and ego, what better place than the nation's highest court, where could serve for life if he wanted?"

But a conservative lawyer who argues regularly before the high court noted Chief Justice John Roberts is fully entrenched in his position, and that might be the only high court spot Clinton would want. He also might not enjoy the relative self-imposed anonymity the justices rely on to do their jobs free of political and public pressures.

"Court arguments are not televised, and most justices shy away from publicity as a matter of respect for the court's integrity," said this lawyer. "Could Justice Clinton follow their example?"

Politics, however, may trump family ties. Perhaps three justices or more could retire in the next four to eight years, among them some of the more liberal members of the bench. The new president might face competing pressures to name a woman, a minority — especially a Hispanic or an Asian-American — and a younger judge or lawyer to fill any vacancies, three qualifications a white male in his 60s like Clinton would not have.

"This particular idea has zero chance of coming true," said Thomas Goldstein, a top appellate attorney who writes on his popular Web site, scotusblog.com.

The more immediate effect of such talk might be more practical: it could help motivate conservative voters in an election year to ensure no Clinton ever reaches the White House or the Supreme Court anytime soon.

The West Palm Beach, Fla., law firm of Rosenthal & Levy is suing a former associate and his new law firm, claiming he is trying to steal clients.

Rosenthal & Levy filed the suit in Palm Beach Circuit Court against former associate Andrew Frisch and the Orlando, Fla.-based firm Morgan & Morgan, which Frisch joined in November. Frisch works in Morgan's Davie, Fla., office.

West Palm Beach attorney G. Michael Keenan, who is representing Rosenthal & Levy, said Dec. 26 that the other side has initiated settlement discussions, and he said the case may be settled out of court.

The suit seeks an injunction to prohibit Frisch from soliciting clients from Rosenthal & Levy, which specializes in personal injury, workers compensation and other employment-related cases.

The eight-count complaint filed Dec. 14 seeks damages for lost profits and asks for punitive damages. The suit alleges breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, unfair competition, misappropriation of trade secrets, civil conspiracy and other counts.

Reached by telephone Dec. 17, Frisch denied doing anything wrong. He said he "followed in every way" the Florida Bar's packet of ethical guidelines for attorneys who switch firms "to a T" when he left in November.

Frisch said he had not heard about the Rosenthal & Levy suit against him until he received the call seeking comment.

Frisch was a Rosenthal & Levy employee from April 21, 2006, to Nov. 21, 2007, according to the suit. Before leaving, the suit claimed, "Frisch contacted clients of Rosenthal and began the process of soliciting Rosenthal's clients to follow him to his new place of employment."

Frisch sent letters notifying Rosenthal & Levy clients he was changing firms and solicited them to switch their business to his new firm -- all without the knowledge of Rosenthal & Levy and in violation of Bar rules, the suit claimed.

The Florida Bar rules for lawyers switching firms state, "Absent a specific agreement otherwise, a lawyer who is leaving a law firm shall not unilaterally contact those clients of the law firm for purposes of notifying them about the anticipated departure or to solicit representation of the clients unless the lawyer has approached an authorized representative of the law firm and attempted to negotiate a joint communication to the clients concerning the lawyer leaving the firm and bona fide negotiations have been successful."

The suit claimed Frisch did not draft a joint letter with Rosenthal & Levy, and Rosenthal & Levy was not aware Frisch was contacting clients in hopes of luring their business to his new firm.

The alleged solicitation continued after Frisch joined Morgan & Morgan, targeting cases "in which either liability could be easily proven and/or damages were significant," the complaint said.

Frisch went after "the most desirous of Rosenthal's employment and labor clients in an attempt to have those clients transfer their cases to Frisch and Morgan," the suit said.

The suit said Frisch's "illegal" and "unethical" actions "confused Rosenthal's clients and left them with the impression that Rosenthal either did not wish to continue representing the clients or that Rosenthal did not have the expertise to continue said representation."

Solicitation letters sent by Frisch on his new firm's letterhead "caused Rosenthal's clients confusion, anxiety and frustration" as well as "fear that their cases will be abandoned, that Rosenthal had closed its offices and that it would cost the clients more money to have their cases prosecuted," the suit said.

Frisch's primary motivation "was for financial profit and gain," the suit said.

Morgan & Morgan had no prior business dealings with the clients of Rosenthal & Levy prior to Frisch's mailing, the suit said.

"We are in the process" of determining if Frisch's letters got any clients to switch their business to Morgan & Morgan, Keenan said. He claimed the client list and their addresses were proprietary information of Rosenthal & Levy.

"Policyholders have every right to expect fair and honest treatment from their insurers," McCollum says. "We will continue to aggressively demand accountability and transparency from the insurance industry in Florida."

Travelers allegedly conspired with Marsh & McLennan and other brokers to create the illusion of a competitive bidding process by submitting fake bids even though the brokers had already determined which insurer would receive a particular policyholder's business, according the Florida officials.

Travelers paid "contingent commissions" to these brokers, and these commissions were not disclosed to policyholders, officials say.

The Florida Attorney General's Office, Department of Financial Services and Office of Insurance Regulation will receive a combined $1.1 million of the settlement. The money will fund a reimbursement pool for affected public entity policyholders and repay the state agencies' costs of investigation.

In addition to the financial settlement, Travelers has agreed to a consent decree and final judgment that will provide comprehensive injunctive relief, including a requirement to disclose compensation that Travelers pays to insurance brokers.

Travelers also will be required to disclose to all customers and prospective policyholders the ranges and averages of payments it made to insurance brokers on specific lines of insurance.

The consent decree and final judgment will be filed in Leon County Circuit Court this week.

Travelers has cooperated with the multistate task force and will provide assistance to the states as they continue their investigation of insurance brokers and other insurers. The company has already reimbursed a nationwide group of policyholders for overcharges and has adopted significant business reforms that govern its bidding and underwriting practices.

In addition to Florida, the following states following seven states and the District of Columbia participated in the investigation and settlement: Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon, Texas, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

David Barron, 29, filed an appeal on behalf of two Kentucky death row inmates, arguing that the three-drug cocktail used in lethal injections across the country can cause excruciating pain, and thus amounts to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution.

After three years of long hours on Barron's part, the Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in the case on Jan. 7.

"I can't believe I've got a case before the Supreme Court and I'm not even 30 years old," Barron said.

This is the first time in more than a century that the high court will address the legality of a method of execution. Thirty-six states use lethal injection, and executions across the U.S. have come to a halt in the meantime.

Barron, an assistant public defender, arrived in Kentucky in 2004, just over a year out of law school, to represent some of the worst of the worst — death row inmates. He was admitted to the Kentucky bar in July of that year, and filed his lethal-injection challenge the following September, employing a strategy he had tested out in other jurisdictions.

He was paired with John Palombi, a fellow public defender with at least a decade of experience.

The challenge was brought on behalf of convicted cop killer Ralph Baze and Thomas Clyde Bowling, who was found guilty of killing a couple. Barron lost the cruel-and-unusual argument at a trial and at the Kentucky Supreme Court. But he kept pushing the case, hoping to keep his clients alive a bit longer.

He beat long odds: The Supreme Court gets as many as 7,000 petitions a year but agrees to hear only 100 to 150 cases.

Lethal injections have come under legal attack around the country in recent years, with experts and others arguing that it is not the humane, painless method of execution it was supposed to be.

Legal experts said the Kentucky case apparently got the attention of the high court because it arrived fully developed — it went through a full-blown trial with more than 20 witnesses, who argued both sides of the question of whether inmates suffer extreme pain while immobilized, unable to cry out.

Death penalty proponent Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, said the case gives the Supreme Court "a clear shot at the merits of the injection question."

"The trial court took extensive testimony, building a substantial record. That makes a better case for review than one decided summarily in the trial court," Scheidegger said.

The challenge is the ninth case the Kentucky's public defenders have gotten before the high court in the past three decades. Among the others was the landmark 1986 ruling Batson v. Kentucky, in which the Supreme Court found it unconstitutional to dismiss a juror because of his race.

Barron works in the public defender's capital post-conviction unit, a corps of 10 attorneys who handle appeals for Kentucky's 38 death row inmates.

The unit's chief is the only one who has ever argued a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. In fact, for this case, the public defender's office is bringing in Donald Verrilli, a Washington lawyer who frequently appears before the high court, to argue the challenge.

Such a move is not uncommon. Only those who are admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court can argue before the justices.

The shaggy-haired Barron — a Billerica, Mass., native who received a law degree from Brooklyn Law School in 2003 — can be found in his office at nearly all hours. His office is about the size of a walk-in closet and is so cluttered that Barron must move boxes and books for visitors to sit down.

Barron is a hardcore Boston Red Sox fan, papering his office door with pictures and headlines. He draws professional hope from the way the Red Sox finally won the World Series after 86 years of futility.

"There's something to be said about representing the people who society casts aside," Barron said. "They are the ones often left to fend for themselves."

Public defenders work one of the lowest rungs of the legal profession, one that is often not very highly regarded by other lawyers. Many young lawyers right out of law school often get their start as public defenders, and often race from case to case with barely enough time to read the file, much less do the in-depth investigation attorneys in private practice can do.

Public defenders have traditionally received little funding, particularly in the South. Kentucky has one of the lowest-funded offices in the country.

The starting pay for most Kentucky's public defenders is about $38,000 a year.

Kentucky spends about $33.5 million in 2005 (the last year for which numbers were available) on a population of 4.1 million. That's about $8.14 per person for public defense — 23rd among the 30 state-run public defender offices nationally. Oregon leads the nation at $23.75 spent per person.

"It's an uphill battle," said Ernie Lewis, head of the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy. "We can't provide an O.J. defense."

A legal battle is shaping up in California involving a Chinese startup that makes equipment used to produce semiconductors.

Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment (AMEC), of Shanghai, was sued in California by Applied Materials, which claims the company misappropriated its trade secrets. But lawyers for the Chinese company asked the judge to dismiss the suit, arguing the U.S. court has no jurisdiction over AMEC's activities.

AMEC's motion for dismissal will be heard by Judge James Ware of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, on Feb. 11.

Applied's lawsuit, filed in October and amended last month, claims AMEC used its trade secrets to develop etch and CVD (Chemical Vapor Deposit) tools that are used to make chips. AMEC's tools will compete against similar products from Applied, which cost millions of dollars each. Applied is seeking an injunction from the court to prevent the misappropriation of its trade secrets and wants punitive damages as well as a declaration that it owns patent applications recently filed by AMEC.

Applied identified four former employees in the suit, including AMEC founders Gerald Yin and Aihua Chen.

Applied's amended complaint describes Yin, who left Applied in 2004 to start AMEC, as a former corporate vice president and chief technology officer who "managed the etch product group and had broad access to Applied confidential information and trade secrets concerning its etch tools." In addition, the complaint says Chen at one point served as general manager of Applied's CVD product group and had access to proprietary technology related to those tools.

To bolster its case against AMEC, Applied noted that the former employees identified in the lawsuit signed agreements that give Applied all rights to inventions made during their employment, and prevent them from using Applied's confidential information for anyone else's benefit. Under the agreement, any patents filed by the former employees within one year of leaving Applied are "presumed to have been conceived or made during their employment with Applied and would belong to Applied."

As a result, Applied's complaint lays claim to two AMEC patent applications filed in China on August 5, 2005, that name Yin and other former Applied employees as inventors. These patents should belong to Applied as the patent applications were made "one year and three days after Yin left applied" and therefore must be based on information that Yin disclosed to AMEC during the one year period, the complaint said.

AMEC subsequently filed patent claims in Japan and the U.S. based on the Chinese patent applications. Applied's complaint also claims these patent applications as its own, noting Applied filed its own patent applications covering the same technologies.

In response, AMEC's motion to dismiss argues that the U.S. court has no jurisdiction over the Chinese company.

"In this case, there is no jurisdiction over AMEC Inc., because the allegations of the (amended complaint) relate exclusively to actions that took place in China. None of Applied's claims arises out of allegations concerning contact with California," the motion said, adding any legal action by Applied against AMEC should be heard in a Chinese court instead.