Law Roundtable

Two New Jersey trial judges have been reprimanded for making derogatory comments touching on the alienage, ethnicity, race and honesty of physical ailments of litigants and lawyers appearing before them. Among a litany of incidents laid out in court papers, James Citta compared a criminal defendant to O.J. Simpson and ...

Failure to make a prima facie case that an anonymous e-mail was defamatory is grounds to quash a subpoena seeking the writer's identity, a New Jersey appellate court says. No plaintiff "is entitled to an order unmasking an anonymous author when the statements in question cannot support a cause of ...

Religious schools don't have a free pass to ignore a key federal employment law based on a "ministerial exception." At least not in the 6th Circuit, according to a ruling Tuesday in a case of first impression. Kindergarten teacher Cheryl Perich says she was unlawfully fired by Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran ...

Lehman Brothers and its lawyers at Weil, Gotshal & Manges sent a clear message this week to the judge hearing Lehman's bankruptcy case: Make public the full report about Lehman's demise. In a motion filed Monday by Weil's Harvey Miller, Lehman says it has cooperated fully with the special examiner ...

Just a decade ago, China's rise as an economic superpower still seemed uncertain. Back then, the China practice of major international firms was still mainly the province of the Old China Hands -- lawyers who perhaps had a deeper affinity for Chinese language and culture than the practice of law ...

A central New York attorney active in defending women's and gay rights pleaded guilty Monday to a Class E felony tax fraud charge that will result in her disbarment. Bonnie Strunk admitted to fourth-degree criminal tax fraud before Supreme Court Justice John Brunetti in Syracuse. Strunk acknowledged in court that ...

At a hearing Tuesday, Houston Judge Kevin Fine rescinded his March 4 order in which he granted defendant John E. Green's motion to declare the state's death penalty statute unconstitutional, according to Alan Curry, appellate division chief in the Harris County district attorney's office. Curry says Fine now wants the ...

A federal judge overseeing a big death penalty case in California has ticked off a cadre of defense lawyers by publicly questioning the need for taxpayer-funded victim outreach. Court-appointed attorneys representing alleged MS-13 gang members are fuming because their funding requests are usually kept private, so prosecutors cannot discern defense ...

A broad spectrum of scholars and advocacy groups agreed that McDonald v. City of Chicago presented the best -- and possibly the last -- chance to revive the argument that the 14th Amendment's "privileges or immunities" clause was the soundest way to apply individual rights like the Second Amendment right ...

A former television producer pressured by debt and riven by jealousy admitted Tuesday he tried to extract vengeance and money by shaking down David Letterman in a case that bared the late-night icon's affairs with staffers. Robert "Joe" Halderman pleaded guilty to attempted grand larceny, acknowledging he tried to chisel ...