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Children in Dependency Proceedings Need Lawyers
Legal Business |
2010/08/09 06:47
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| pLawyers who represent children in dependency proceedings say it’s time for these children – regardless of which state they live – to have a right to legal counsel./ppMeeting yesterday at the 2010 American Bar Association Annual Meeting in San Francisco, a panel of children’s rights advocates discussed eliminating the barriers that prevent lawyers from representing these children in life-impacting legal proceedings. nbsp; /ppAccording to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services there are more than half a million children in foster care and under the jurisdiction of family courts.nbsp; These are children who have been, for example, removed from their homes, placed in temporary shelters and possibly separated from siblings. /ppWhen it comes down to who is looking out for the rights and interests of the children in the courtroom – a lawyer, a guardian ad litem or an attorney ad litem -- there is no clear-cut, uniform answer./pp“Every state has a different model,” says Hilarie Bass, a Miami commercial litigator who does pro bono work representing foster kids. /ppShe points out the obvious — that there are too many children who need help, without enough money in the system to serve them.nbsp; Despite those hurdles, Bass, who is also incoming chair of the American Bar Association Section of Litigation, says she expects the section to make a recommendation on the right to counsel for children that should come up for debate before the ABA’s policymaking body in 2011. /pp“It would be a recommendation to provide for counsel and representation of children in delinquency and dependency proceedings,” says Bass.nbsp; /ppABA President Carolyn Lamm says the ABA is an association interested in promoting the best interest of children and finding solutions “before we have a crisis situation.”/ppLamm adds, “These citizens are the most vulnerable of course, in terms of no one to defend their legal rights.nbsp; The ABA does so much work in the public interest.nbsp; This is a segment of the public that needs us and we are strong and forceful advocates for children and the rights of children to be represented. nbsp; /ppSo far, the U.S. Supreme Court has not spoken on the issue of whether children have a constitutional right to counsel in dependency proceedings. /ppGeorgia attorney Trenny Stovall directs the DeKalb County Child Advocacy Center and represents children in dependency proceedings every day.nbsp; She says children who don’t have their own lawyer do not have a voice. /pp“When children don’t have a lawyer, their ability to be considered a living being with rights is vastly diminished.nbsp; Without representation, they become a widget in the eyes of the court,” says Stovall./ppChildren like 16-year-old Trevor Wade — who has been through the dependency court system — will tell you that having a lawyer makes a difference.nbsp; He says his lawyer fought against a system that would have placed him back with an abusive father.nbsp; These days he’s an intern in a public defender’s office, helping kids who are going through the court system. /p |
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2 re-sentencings ordered in $1.9B Ohio fraud case
Legal Business |
2010/07/29 09:07
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| A federal appeals court on Wednesday ordered new sentences for two former National Century executives convicted in a $1.9 billion corporate fraud case once likened to the Enron scandal, saying the government had proved some but not all of its case.pA three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati overturned Donald Ayers' conviction of conspiracy to commit money laundering, and Roger Faulkenberry's conviction of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering, saying the government didn't provide enough proof./ppRemaining in place are Ayers' convictions of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and securities fraud, and Faulkenberry's convictions of conspiracy to defraud the U.S., securities fraud and wire fraud./ppAyers, 74, is serving 15 years in Coleman federal prison in Florida after his 2008 conviction with Faulkenberry and four other top executives from National Century Financial Enterprises, a Columbus health care financing company. Federal prosecutors compared the case to Enron./ppFaulkenberry, 49, is serving 10 years in Gilmer federal prison in West Virginia after his 2008 conviction./p |
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Pa. senator, sister to be tried on ethics charges
Legal Business |
2010/07/22 04:49
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A western Pennsylvania lawmaker and one of her sisters will stand trial on charges they used the state senator's taxpayer-funded staff for campaign work for herself and another sister, a state Supreme Court justice, a judge ruled Wednesday.
State Sen. Jane Orie and her sister, Janine, were charged in April with using Jane Orie's legislative staff to conduct campaign business. Janine Orie was an aide to their sister Joan Orie Melvin while she was on the Superior Court and during the judge's two previous runs for the Supreme Court. Janine Orie is on paid suspension from that job. pAfter three days of testimony from former staffers, Allegheny County Judge Donna Jo McDaniel heard brief closing arguments and immediately ruled that the sisters were to stand trial on all charges./ppAttorneys for both women said they were not surprised at the judge's decision but said they were confident of their chances at trial./ppJane Orie's attorney, William Costopoulous, called the evidence put forth by prosecutors as trivial. He acknowledged staff members performed campaign work, but said they did so at their own volition or on compensatory time./p |
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Massey settles lawsuit over miner's death in 2008
Legal Business |
2010/07/19 09:29
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Massey Energy has settled a lawsuit filed by the family of a contract worker killed at one of the company's West Virginia coal mines.
Boone County Circuit Court records show Massey paid the family of Steven Cain $2.1 million. Cain died in an accident at Massey's Justice No. 1 mine in October 2008.
Government investigators concluded Cain, who had just a few months of mining experience, was crushed to death between an underground railroad car and the wall of the Boone County mine.
Virginia-based Massey owns the Upper Big Branch mine in Raleigh County, where 29 men died and two were injured in an April 5 explosion. The blast is the subject of civil and criminal investigations. Massey operates mines in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia. |
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Self Representation Hurting Individual Cases, Courts
Legal Business |
2010/07/12 09:57
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| pIn a survey released today by the American Bar Association, judges indicated that a lack of representation in civil matters is hurting those individuals’ cases, and is negatively impacting courtrooms. /ppApproximately 1,000 state trial judges responded to the survey, which posed questions about their dockets, self-representation and the impact on the courts.nbsp; More than half of the judges stated that their dockets increased in 2009, with the most common areas of increase involving foreclosures, domestic relations, consumer issues such as debt, and non-foreclosure housing issues such as rental disputes.nbsp; /ppSixty percent of judges said that fewer parties are being represented by lawyers, with 62 percent saying that parties are negatively impacted by not being represented.nbsp; The impact is exemplified, through a failure to present necessary evidence (94 percent), procedural errors (89 percent), ineffective witness examination (85 percent), failure to properly object to evidence (81 percent) and ineffective argument (77 percent). /ppThe ABA has a resource page on its website that can help individuals find legal assistance — a href=http://www.findlegalhelp.orgwww.findlegalhelp.org/a. nbsp; /ppDuring a time when state budgets are constrained, agencies as well as courts are being asked to become more efficient.nbsp; However, the increase in non-represented parties makes this more difficult for courts.nbsp; The lack of representation has a negative impact on the court, said 78 percent of the judges, and 90 percent of judges stated that court procedures are slowed when parties are not represented. /ppNearly half of the judges responding believe that there is a middle-class gap with respect to access to justice, stating that the number of people who are not represented and who do not qualify for aid has increased. /ppLamm announced the findings during a news conference earlier today at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.nbsp; /ppThe survey of judges on the impact of the economic downturn on representation in the courts was conducted for the ABA Coalition for Justice.nbsp; Respondents came from around the country. /p |
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Gun rights, campaign spending top high court term
Legal Business |
2010/07/01 09:22
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pTwo conservative-driven decisions with potentially broad consequences will likely define the just-completed Supreme Court term: freeing corporations and unions to spend as much as they like in campaigns for Congress and president, and ruling that Americans have a right to a gun for self-defense wherever they live./ppA key member of the five-justice majorities in both cases, and the author of the guns opinion, was Justice Samuel Alito. Though he has been on the court less than five years, Alito has had an outsize influence in firming up the court's conservative bloc./ppHis appointment to replace the more moderate Sandra Day O'Connor, more than any other choice in the last decade shows the importance of Supreme Court nominations. It also points up that Elena Kagan's nomination to take the place of the like-minded John Paul Stevens almost certainly will not have the same short-term impact as Alito has had./ppOf all the changes in personnel during this time of rapid change at the court, the Alito-for-O'Connor switch has clearly been the most consequential, said Paul Clement, who was top Supreme Court lawyer for then-President George W. Bush./ppIndeed, nothing is likely to alter the court's current path in either direction unless President Barack Obama has the chance to replace a right-leaning justice, or a future Republican president gets to add another solid conservative vote./ppThe conservative trend on the court might be even stronger as long as Democrats hold Congress and the White House, said Paul Smith of the Jenner and Block law firm in Washington. The conservative majority is going to continue to feel a need to push back in a lot of areas, Smith said./ppThe credit, or criticism, for many of the court's high-profile decisions goes variously to Chief Justice John Roberts, the putative leader of the court's conservatives, or Justice Anthony Kennedy, who dislikes the label swing justice, but is always in the majority when the other eight justices split along liberal and conservative lines./ppTheir influence certainly was in evidence this term. Roberts was in the majority more than any other justice — 92 percent of the time — and Kennedy wrote the campaign finance decision as well as one in which the liberal justices prevailed, ruling out life prison terms with no prospect of parole for juvenile offenders in other than murder cases.
/p |
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Law firm a low-cost alternative for small companies
Legal Business |
2010/06/28 08:45
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| pWhen clients call Washington attorney Sue Wang, the clock doesn't start ticking. /ppPhone calls aren't billed in six-minute intervals and each hour of work won't cost several hundred dollars. /ppWang and the four other lawyers in Clarity Law Group aim to reconfigure the billable-hour business model at law firms that she said tends to shut out small and start-up companies with shallow pockets. /ppPeople have been speaking about the death of the billable hour, but people had been saying that for years and they weren't really acting on it, said Wang, formerly of Latham amp; Watkins. /ppClarity Law Group is designed like a timeshare, where clients pay a set fee for access to the entire firm, Wang said. The firm also reduces costs by forgoing the standard luxuries at big-name firms like secretaries, wall art and swanky office space. /ppThe firm opened its Illinois office last October and secured its Washington license in April. /ppThe relationship between attorneys and clients is not a friendly one, said Kim Le, who works at Clarity. They're worried all the time about getting billed for every little thing, and that doesn't build a good, trust[ing] relationship. /ppWhile other firms around the country are also trying to lower the barrier of entry to legal services, Wang said the idea for Clarity came to her and her former University of Michigan law school roommate, Leah Goodman, while on a recent vacation in Greece. /ppAt Clarity, each client is assigned two attorneys who act as the primary counsel, but any of the lawyers may be called on depending on the legal needs. It's a hybrid model between big-firm contractors and in-house counsel, Wang said. /p |
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