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Recent rulings of importance to you and your practice.

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As counsel in a hotly contested case, you suspect that the presiding federal judge has engaged in judicial misconduct. What are your options? Should you overlook the alleged misconduct for fear of incurring the judge's wrath and perhaps prejudicing your case? Is there a formal procedure for filing a complaint of judicial misconduct? Many in-house counsel and practitioners alike are unfamiliar with the provisions of 28 U.S.C. ' 351 et seq., and the Rules Governing Complaints of Judicial Misconduct and Disability adopted by each of the federal circuits, which govern the handling of complaints of judicial misconduct or disability.

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In <i>Arthur Andersen LLP v. United States</i>, 125 S. Ct. 2129, 235 (2005), the Supreme Court acknowledged the importance of records management policies that provide for the routine destruction of unneeded records under ordinary circumstances. It is, however, common knowledge that such policies should ordinarily be suspended once an investigation or litigation is reasonably anticipated. This is normally accomplished through the imposition of a 'litigation hold,' the process of notifying employees of their obligations to preserve all potentially relevant records while continuing the routine destruction of non-relevant active and archived data. This may be a company's first line of defense against claims of spoliation or obstruction. The failure to suspend routine purges of records in the face of litigation has contributed to the imposition of sanctions as high as $1.45 billion on companies.

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Historically, when a health care company had a compliance failure, counsel could help it remain in business by negotiating with the relevant agency. If the problem involved sales, marketing or pricing, the company could seek a Corporate Integrity Agreement (CIA) with the Office of Inspector General (OIG) at Health and Human Services (HHS). If the problems related to manufacturing, counsel could obtain a consent decree of permanent injunction ('consent decree') with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDCA). Consent decrees and CIAs each had their particular burdens and benefits, which health care practitioners had learned to navigate. Now this tidy distinction has become blurred as the FDA has borrowed features from HHS's CIAs.

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By now, I'm sure everyone has heard that the new Windows operating system, Vista', is available for purchase. While Vista has been available for corporate licensing since late last year, the full rollout for individual PCs didn't become available until Jan. 30. <br>The question is: Should you upgrade your machine with this new system?

Today, e-mail is as second nature to most attorneys and law offices as sending a letter or fax. Hardly anyone ever thinks twice about sending, receiving or even thinking about the content they put into the average e-mail message. Most even think a step further and really think that an e-mail is just like a conversation, <i>i.e.</i>, once it's over the conversation ceases to exist.

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A few years ago, Kennedy Childs &amp; Fogg, P.C., a law firm with offices in Denver and on the Western Slope with 42-plus trial lawyers, had reached a crossroads when it came to time, billing and accounting system: Either spend a significant amount of money upgrading to the next version of Thomson Elite (around $120,000), including adding multiple SQL servers with ongoing maintenance issues, or convert to a newer system with the same ' or better ' features that would be both easier to use and less expensive. The firm chose the latter.