One of the greatest opportunities for immediate improvement in the practice of matrimonial law lies in the cultivation of the binocular mindset. Binocularity involves the balancing of the settlement mindset with the trial mindset. This balancing occurs even in situations in which the practicing attorney has no intention of ever going to trial.
The U.S. Supreme Court in February tackled an issue that has come up frequently in lawsuits brought by plaintiffs claiming they've been injured by medical devices: Do the Medical Device Amendments of 1976 preempt state law-based claims against device manufacturers? The Court had partially answered the question in <i>Lohr v. Medtronic</i>, but the fact situation in that case did not necessarily make its decision applicable to other cases against medical devices manufacturers.
Last month, we discussed the fact that a recent decision by the California Court of Appeal explores the relationship between the doctrine of informed consent and the intentional tort of battery. The case was <i>Saxena v Goffney</i>. This is the conclusion of that discussion.
Federal government attorneys recently unsuccessfully attempted to convince a Federal District Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to rewrite the terms of the Federal Tort Claims Act ('FTCA') to allow the creation of a reversionary trust rather than give a lump-sum award to pay for a medical malpractice plaintiff's future medical expenses.
New Jersey's year-old Civil Union Act has failed so far to convey to registered same-sex couples the rights and privileges of marriage, a state commission reported on Feb. 18.
With trillions of dollars to keep watch over, the last thing we need is the distraction of costly litigation brought on by patent assertion entities (PAEs or "patent trolls"), companies that don't make any products but instead seek royalties by asserting their patents against those who do make products.
Insiders (and others) in the private equity business are accustomed to seeing a good deal of discussion ' academic and trade ' on the question of the appropriate methods of valuing private equity positions and securities which are otherwise illiquid. An interesting recent decision in the Southern District has been brought to our attention. The case is <i>In Re Allied Capital Corp.</i>, CCH Fed. SEC L. Rep. 92411 (US DC, S.D.N.Y., Apr. 25, 2003). Judge Lynch's decision is well written, the Judge reviewing a motion to dismiss by a business development company, Allied Capital, against a strike suit claiming that Allied's method of valuing its portfolio failed adequately to account for i) conditions at the companies themselves and ii) market conditions. The complaint appears to be, as is often the case, slap dash, content to point out that Allied revalued some of its positions, marking them down for a variety of reasons, and the stock price went down - all this, in the view of plaintiff's counsel, amounting to violations of Rule 10b-5.
At the Oscars in March, Best Actress winner Frances McDormand made “inclusion rider” go viral. But Kalpana Kotagal, a partner at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll had already worked for months to write the language for such provisions. Kotagal was developing legal language for contract provisions that Hollywood's elite could use to require studios and other partners to employ diverse workers on set.
This article discusses the practical and policy reasons for the use of DPAs and NPAs in white-collar criminal investigations, and considers the NDAA's new reporting provision and its relationship with other efforts to enhance transparency in DOJ decision-making.
While the DOJ Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative is still in its early stages and cybersecurity regulations are evolving, whistleblower plaintiffs have already begun leveraging the FCA to pursue alleged noncompliance with government cybersecurity requirements.
