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Pro-Life Law Firm Sues Oakland
Law Firm News |
2007/12/21 09:55
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A pro-life law firm has filed suit against the city of Oakland for approving an expanded bubble zone that would keep abortion protesters and sidewalk counselors further away from abortion businesses. The Life Legal Defense Foundation filed suit on behalf of pro-life advocate Walter B. Hoye II to keep the city from enforcing the law.
The city council approved the 8-foot zone around the entrances to abortion facilities on Tuesday.
The new ordinance makes it unlawful, and punishable by up to one year in jail, to go within that distance of an abortion business unless heading there for an abortion. It applies to protesters as well as sidewalk counselors who help women with alternatives.
LLDF's suit maintains that the ordinance is a content and viewpoint-based restriction of speech and is unconstitutional.
Hoye regularly engages in pro-life counseling and leafleting at the Family Planning Specialists abortion center in Oakland. Two elderly women from his church often join him.
Hoye told the Oakland City Council that "We are not a threat to public safety and these women aren't even capable of harassing clinic clients."
Their activities include handing out leaflets, education about abortion and holding signs with a pro-life message. All of these activities occur on the public sidewalk.
Local attorney Mike Millen, who filed the lawsuit in conjunction with LLDF, talked about it in a statement sent to LifeNews.com.
"Rather than helping women, this ordinance prevents them from receiving valuable information about their developing baby and options which would let that baby live," he said.
Millen added, "It is sad that city leaders are spending time and money on laws that maximize revenue for the abortion industry at the expense of the health of women and babies."
The lawsuit seeks a temporary restraining order blocking the ordinance.
City Attorney John Russo told the San Francisco Chronicle he thinks the lawsuit will fail and claimed it is about stopping harassment, not First Amendment rights.
"They can distribute literature in City Hall Plaza and on just about any street corner," Russo said. "What they cannot do is harass or intimidate women who are exercising their right to choose and right to privacy." |
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Mills & Mills takes up cause of victimized foster kids
Attorneys in the News |
2007/12/21 09:45
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Sometimes the growth of a practice comes in unexpected and even unpleasant forms.
Attorneys Gregory and Byron Mills had a fairly quiet family law practice in the heart of downtown Las Vegas for the last few years, handling a variety of low-profile matters.
But the disappearance last year of one foster child and the death of another launched the brothers into a major new practice area: Fighting for compensation for foster children abused while under the care of the Nevada Child and Family Services Division and left without treatment by the state's foster system.
"The system has to change, and so far the only way we can see to do it is lawsuits. Unfortunately it's the only way," Byron Mills said. "There's no funding to help kids abused in the system, and it's been going on for years. They're not getting the protection and the counseling they deserve after something like that happens. In many cases it's simply been covered up."
Their law firm, Mills & Mills, has five active cases against the state, is working on several more and anticipates a large influx of cases as word gets out about what it is doing. The four-attorney firm has spent many man-hours researching and preparing its first cases, one involving the disappearance of Everlyse Cabrera and the other, the death of a baby boy.
The firm can't afford to do these cases pro bono because of its size and the amount of time the cases will take to prepare. Gregory Mills has already spent months preparing the cases the firm has, and legal legwork could last for years.
If it succeeds in the end, the firm stands to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars from these cases over the next several years. And right now it is the only law firm in town aggressively seeking out abuse victims in the foster care system, preparing advertisements and public information campaigns.
Gregory Mills (who prefers to go by the nickname Gregor)is leading the firm's efforts, representing the biological parents and missing or deceased children. He is seeking restitution as well as additional information about the care that the children received.
Other cases at this point involve children who have been sexually or physically abused at the hands of foster parents or foster siblings and have not received counseling and treatment.
The firm's initial aim is to get the state to pay compensation up front for children abused in the system.
"We can't just ask for the court to give these kids counseling at this point," Byron Mills said. "The family juvenile court already is tasked with getting them counseling, and it isn't. The money from these lawsuits will go into court-monitored and controlled accounts to pay for counseling until the kids are 18. At that point anything that's left over will go directly to the kid."
The idea is for the firm to be a resource for these children since they have nowhere else to turn.
"The sad part is these kids and their parents don't know who they could report it to," Mills said. "I mean, you can't call (the children's service division)on itself. And these kids are not getting the help they need."
The parents will not be able to exploit the situation because they won't have access to these funds except in cases where the child has died, he said.
"If the parents know their kids have been abused or are being abused they can contact us. But they don't stand to gain from it," Mills said. "Remember these people did things to have their children taken away in the first place. So we're very mindful of that."
The firm's secondary aim is to see the department reformed, fully funded and children protected from future abuse.
Ideally, foster care caseworkers have about 20 kids to evaluate, Mills said. In Nevada, funding for the program is so inadequate that one caseworker may be working with 50 or more children, according to media accounts. These caseworkers are supposed to meet these children in person at least once a month, but there simply isn't enough time. They are lucky to see kids once every other month, Byron Mills said.
"It makes it impossible for them to do their jobs," he said.
If a caseworker cannot see the child, she has no way of knowing if abuse is taking place or likely to occur. And the lack of qualified foster homes has led to children being placed in homes that have not been properly evaluated.
"While doing these types of cases we realized that while the foster system is quick to take kids away from their parents, they're not so good at protecting them once the kids are in foster care," Byron Mills said. "People within the foster system have asked us for help. They have a huge amount of cases and not even close to enough caseworkers and nowhere near enough money to run the program and protect the kids."
The Mills brothers have supported legislative lobbying efforts in the last session, although they haven't done any direct lobbying themselves. Gov. Jim Gibbons has pledged to leave the agency's budget intact while many other agencies face budget cuts in the latest round of belt-tightening. And the Mills brothers hope that something will occur in the 2009 Legislature to bring additional funding to the program.
In the meantime, they plan to use the only means they have of persuading lawmakers that fully funding foster care programs is in the state's best interest.
"Just like a large corporation, until it hurts them in the wallet, they're not gong to do anything," Mills said. "It's our goal to hit them so hard and so repeatedly that they're forced to deal with the problem and increase the funding. We hope that in the future we don't have to do this anymore because the problem won't exist."
At the same time, the brothers are urging their colleagues in the legal profession and the business community to get more involved in the issue. They are encouraging lawyers and businesspeople to lobby legislators and to participate in the Court Appointed Special Advocate program, which provides volunteer advocates for abused and neglected children going through the foster care system.
The Mills are also spreading the word about the dire need for foster parents. There are too few foster parents anyway, but even fewer from the professional and business community, and the more good homes foster children have to go to, the better off everyone will be, they said.
"Ultimately this comes out of all our pockets," Byron Mills said. "And if this problem grows, this burden will grow for everyone and in myriad ways." |
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Chinese Law Firms Opening In The US
Law Firm News |
2007/12/21 09:37
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For many years, U.S. law firms have been rushing into China, investing people and resources to help clients on the ground there.
Now, a Chinese firm is mimicking their strategy -- opening a representative office in the United States. This year, Guangzhou-based Alpha & Leader, with more than 60 lawyers, planted its flag in Los Angeles.
The firm is among a handful from China that have set up shop here -- such as King & Wood in Silicon Valley and Jun He in New York City -- likely harbingers as Chinese law firms mature and expand internationally.
"I think we're going to see more Chinese firms here -- they want to have a footprint here," said Robert Allan, the managing partner of Alpha & Leader's Los Angeles office.
For now, the advantages for Alpha of having its five-lawyer office here are mostly practical, he said. They also mirror what American firms say about opening in Asia: It's helpful to have someone based in the distant time zone, who literally speaks the client's language.
Allan is a Canadian-trained lawyer who has been a solo practitioner in the U.S. since 1985. In 2003, a client suggested that Allan meet one of the client's Chinese lawyers. Through an interpreter, he connected with Wesley Pan, now the senior partner in Alpha & Leader's China office. The two started working together under a loose alliance called the USA China Law Group. This summer, they formalized the relationship under the Alpha & Leader name, and Allan now devotes most of his time to the firm because, he says, the name says it all.
"We're first and first. You can't beat that."
He and Pan formed an alliance that resulted this summer in the L.A. representative office.
The firm targets much of its practice on a specialized niche: the purchase and sale of non-performing loans -- loans that are in or near default. As the Chinese government has transferred NPLs from state-owned banks to asset management companies over the past decade, it opened the door for foreign investors. Those foreign investors were looking to invest in China's development, but were limited by the Chinese government's currency restrictions and rules governing foreign ownership of property, Allan explained.
The legal work includes locating a loan, doing the due diligence on it, and handling the actual transaction. The firm's clients include Chinese banks and asset management companies as well as purchasers such as Citigroup, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs.
Allan said it was Pan who realized that a firm could find a lot of work in that specific area.
"Wesley's theory really struck me -- I thought it was an astute observation," Allan said.
Alpha & Leader has been involved in some aspect of more than 50 percent of the transactions involving non-performing loans in China, Allan said. Its competitors are other Chinese firms and American-trained lawyers such as Howard Chao, the head of O'Melveny & Myers' Asia practice.
But Chao said he wasn't familiar with Alpha, and dismissed the importance of a non-performing-loan practice for firms like his.
"The NPL practice in China has not blossomed the way some people thought it would," he said "The market for those deals has been decidedly smaller and local, domestic. There haven't been large-sized transactions anymore."
Chao attributes that, in part, to the policy of the Chinese government that encourages smaller, domestic bidders. There's so much liquidity in the Chinese domestic market that they don't need foreign investors in that sector, he said.
But, within China, Alpha & Leader is known as the go-to counsel on NPL portfolios, said Jinshu "John" Zhang, the head of the China practice at Greenberg Traurig, a firm that has sponsored Alpha attorneys to work in its L.A. office for a summer.
"In connection with the sale of NPL portfolios, they have worked with quite a few major I-banking houses," Zhang added. |
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Law Firm to Investigate MN Bridge Collapse
Breaking Legal News |
2007/12/21 09:23
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The state legislature has hired a Minneapolis law firm to help in an investigation of the 35W bridge collapse, according to media reports.
The members of a joint bipartisan bridge investigation committee retained Minneapolis-based Gray Plant Mooty to serve as special counsel. The firm, which is being paid $500,000 to conduct its review, plans to issue a report of its finding in March.
Sen. Dick Cohen, DFL-St. Paul, told Minnesota Pulic Radio Wednesday that the investigation aims to uncover why the bridge collapsed, and also how to prevent future transportation problems.
In addition to this and the official investigation from the The National Transportation Safety Board, a private firm is also examining the state's bridge inspection program, and the Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor is scrutinizing MnDOT and its expenses. There are also several law firms that have launched similar investigations, MPR reported.
MnDOT is paying a Chicago-based firm that is working with the NTSB's probe $2 million to look into the collapse. Gov. Pawlenty has said that the firm would provide another set of eyes on the investigation.
However, the Star Tribune quoted state Sen. Dave Senjem, R-Rochester, who serves as Minority Leader, as saying the legislature's move would duplicate other investigations. |
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Blackwell Sanders to Merge with Husch
Law Firm News |
2007/12/21 09:22
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Two of Missouri’s biggest law firms have agreed to merge, creating a 630-lawyer powerhouse that will rank among the top 100 in the country in size and revenue.
Partners at Kansas City-based Blackwell Sanders and St. Louis-based Husch & Eppenberger approved the combination over the weekend. The electronic vote in favor of the union was nearly unanimous, according to Blackwell Chairman David Fenley.
“The whole notion of achieving a great deal more depth and more expertise is very attractive to clients and to people who may become our clients,” he said.
The merger is expected to close in January. A name for the combined firm has yet to be chosen.
Blackwell has about 330 attorneys and grossed $116.5 million in 2006, according to The American Lawyer, a legal publication. About half the firm’s attorneys are based in the Kansas City area.
Husch, which has a 40-attorney office in downtown Kansas City, has about 300 attorneys overall. The firm tallied $124 million in revenues in 2006.
The firms said they expected to generate combined revenues in 2008 of more than $275 million.
The marriage of the two firms dwarfs any previous law firm combination in Missouri, creating the state’s second-biggest legal shop. The biggest firm headquartered in Missouri is St. Louis-based Bryan Cave, which has about 800 attorneys.
“This will really differentiate them from other firms in the market,” said Lisa Smith of Hildebrandt International, a provider of consulting services to law firms. “And it gives them the platform to expand regionally.”
Smith, who advised Blackwell and Husch on the merger, said the union would give the new firm the kind of beefed-up resources that clients are increasingly demanding.
“Clients aren’t looking for size so much as practice depth,” she said. “This gives them additional depth in all of their practices. It really combines complementary practices because the relative strengths of each firm are a little different.”
Blackwell is best known for its corporate, transactional, real estate, and labor and employment practices. Husch is best known for its litigation, commercial finance, environmental and bankruptcy practices.
The last major cross-state merger of law firms took place 3 ½ years ago when Kansas City-based Polsinelli Shalton & Welte merged with St. Louis-based Suelthaus PC, creating a 190-lawyer firm with 70 lawyers in St. Louis. The firm, now called Polsinelli Shalton Flanigan Suelthaus, currently has close to 300 attorneys.
The biggest law firm merger in Kansas City occurred more than five years ago when two of the city’s largest and oldest firms — Stinson Mag & Fizzell and Morrison & Hecker — combined to create a 342-lawyer practice. That firm is now known as Stinson Morrison Hecker.
The union of Blackwell and Husch will give the combined firm 16 locations in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Illinois, Tennessee, Washington, D.C., and London. The firms have overlapping offices in three cities — Kansas City, St. Louis and Springfield.
Fenley said the merged firm will address lease issues in those cities “as soon as we can, but we’re going to accomplish physical integration irrespective of having two offices in the same cities.”
Blackwell has 13 years remaining on its lease in the Plaza Colonnade, located at Main Street and Ward Parkway overlooking the Country Club Plaza. The firm moved in three years ago and occupies about 120,000 square feet on four floors. Husch occupies three floors downtown at 1200 Main St. and has nine years to run on its lease. |
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Mayer Brown Merges with Hong Kongs JSM
Law Firm News |
2007/12/21 09:21
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US-based international law firm Mayer Brown and Hong Kong’s Johnson, Stokes and Master are merging in a move that will create the world’s tenth-largest law firm by revenue.
The rare trans-pacific merger reflects the increasingly global operations of large businesses. It brings together two firms founded in the 19th century which are both largely focused on commercial transactions and litigation.
The combined entity, which will be known in Asia as Mayer Brown JSM, will have an annual revenue of $1.3bn and around 1800 lawyers. Jim Holzhauer, Mayer Brown chairman, will chair the global firm’s central policy and planning committee, and Elaine Lo, chairwoman of JSM’s partnership board, will head the combined entity’s Asia board.
The firms expect to grow substantially after the merger. Mr Holzhauer projects annual revenue to hit $2bn ”very quickly” and Ms Lo predicts earnings of $4bn within two to three years. ”This kind of growth cannot be obtained by just organic growth alone,” said Ms Lo.
Up to now, Mayer Brown’s Asia presence has been limited to one office in Hong Kong and a representative office in Beijing. JSM, whose clients include HSBC, Bank of China and Cathay Pacific, has 200 lawyers in mainland China, but none outside Asia.
That has meant that both firms had to find outside partners when handling cases that involve elements outside the firms’ home regions, such as cross-border mergers and acquisitions.
”The synergies will come from the clients,” said Paul Maher, Mayer Brown vice-chairman. ”Many of the major banks or industries we represent have transactions that will have both a European and Asian component, for example, and we will soon be able to do both within one firm.”
The merger comes nearly six years after the trans-atlantic tie-up between the US’s Mayer, Brown & Platt and the UK firm of Rowe & Maw to create Mayer Brown. The firm has suffered a tumultuous year, most recently with partner Joseph Collins being indicted in Manhattan on fraud charges related to the collapse of trading firm Refco in 2005. Mr Collins has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Ms Lo said the merger brings together JSM’s knowledge of the Chinese market with Mayer Brown’s global reach and experience in sophisticated commercial transactions. ”The world is becoming more globalised,” she said. ”Chinese companies are encouraged by the central government to expand overseas and they are just poised to grow out of China.” |
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U.S. appellate court overturns state murder conviction
Law Center |
2007/12/20 07:06
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| A federal appeals court overturned a Santa Rosa woman's murder conviction Wednesday for killing a man during an attempted carjacking in 1996, saying she had been forced to go to trial with a lawyer she wanted to replace. Nicole Bradley was 18 when she and two juveniles were arrested for the fatal shooting of James Strickler Jr., 19, of Santa Rosa. The court said Bradley had shot Strickler unintentionally, but she was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 35 years to life in prison for a homicide committed in the course of another felony. Bradley's lawyer quit before the trial, and a Sonoma County judge appointed a replacement in a hearing from which Bradley and her chosen lawyer were excluded. When Bradley sought to dismiss the new lawyer because of conflicts, Superior Court Judge Knoel Owen refused, saying the trial had already been delayed by almost two years and it wasn't clear Bradley could pay for her own lawyer. In Wednesday's 9-2 ruling granting Bradley a new trial, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said nearly all the pretrial delays were the results of judges' decisions, not Bradley's. Noting that Bradley's trial lawyer disagreed with her on a possible plea agreement and on whether she should testify, the court said the trial judge's decision had created an adversary relationship between lawyer and client. Defense lawyer Dennis Riordan praised the ruling and said a new trial could result in a lesser conviction, for second-degree murder or manslaughter. Deputy Attorney General Gregory Ott, who represented the prosecution, said the court disregarded a federal law that requires federal judges to defer to state court rulings unless they are clearly wrong. |
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Class action or a representative action is a form of lawsuit in which a large group of people collectively bring a claim to court and/or in which a class of defendants is being sued. This form of collective lawsuit originated in the United States and is still predominantly a U.S. phenomenon, at least the U.S. variant of it. In the United States federal courts, class actions are governed by Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule. Since 1938, many states have adopted rules similar to the FRCP. However, some states like California have civil procedure systems which deviate significantly from the federal rules; the California Codes provide for four separate types of class actions. As a result, there are two separate treatises devoted solely to the complex topic of California class actions. Some states, such as Virginia, do not provide for any class actions, while others, such as New York, limit the types of claims that may be brought as class actions. They can construct your law firm a brand new website, lawyer website templates and help you redesign your existing law firm site to secure your place in the internet. |
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