LJN Newsletters

At some point or another in the life of your law firm one of your staff is going to ask the ill-fated question: "Why can't we just print one label to send this material out?" For years computer literate law firms have still had to either have pre-printed labels made with handwritten addresses or, alternatively, print an entire sheet of labels for only one address!
If this all too familiar scenario seems to be on your list of "been there, done thats," then it's about time that you heard the good news, and that's as easy as the words ' Seiko Smart Label Printer 430! Now you can print as many labels as you need from one at a time to many others all from within your computer.

Introduction to this Special Issue: This past June, the American Medical Association (AMA) joined myriad other consumer and medical interest groups to ask the question whether direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising by pharmaceutical companies had gotten out of hand. Sensing the way the winds were blowing, the pharmaceutical industry's trade group PhRMA (Pharmaceutical and Research Manufacturers of America) announced on Aug. 2 that it would self-police DTC drug advertising practices by signing up pharmaceutical manufacturers to a voluntary agreement to follow PhRMA's new DTC policies. In this issue, we will look at those policies and at the reactions they caused in the medical, legislative and consumer communities.

When the Pharmaceutical and Research Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) announced it was instituting a new policy on direct-to-consumer advertising, PhRMA President and CEO Billy Tauzin stated, "With these principles, we commit ourselves to improving the inherent educational value of advertisements. Patients need accurate and timely information and should be encouraged to discuss diseases and treatment options with their physicians. These principles will help us reach that goal."

In response to continued scrutiny from the public and from legislators concerned over the effects of direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising, the Board of Directors of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA) voted this past July 29 to institute what it calls a set of "Guiding Principles" that will extend and augment the current FDA rules for DTC advertisement. These principles will go into effect in January 2006.

Six years ago, in Perez v. Wyeth Laboratories Inc., 161 N.J. 1 (1999), the New Jersey Supreme Court enunciated a novel exception to the learned intermediary doctrine intended to address the rise of direct-to-consumer (DTC) marketing of prescription pharmaceuticals. The learned intermediary doctrine is a common law principle, codified in many states, that shields prescription pharmaceutical manufacturers from liability for failing to warn consumers of the potential side-effects associated with their products as long as they have adequately warned prescribing physicians. The Perez court, however, held that when pharmaceutical companies employ DTC advertising, there is an additional duty to warn consumers of potential risks.

Domestic violence probably impacts at least a few, if not several, of the clients you assist each year. In this Special Issue, we focus on some of the problems endemic to domestic violence: the plight of the victim when police protection is inadequate; the consequences to the perpetrator when Family Court issues impact on Criminal Court proceedings, and vice versa; and what can happen to attorneys who get swept up in their clients' problems to become potential victims of violence themselves.

When accusations of domestic violence or child sexual abuse are brought in a family matter, the attorney for the accused party has a lot to think about. How to prove that no abuse occurred, that the client has reformed or that it was a one-time occurrence that won't happen again? Such issues can command a lot of the attorney's focus. But because matters surrounding spousal or child abuse accusations often are or will later become germane to a criminal case, family law attorneys have extra considerations apart from the outcome of the divorce or custody matter. How might criminal proceedings impact custody issues? Will the facts that come out in Family Court affect a later criminal prosecution? When admissions of criminal behavior are elicited in Family Court, do constitutional protections afforded to criminal defendants attach?

On June 27, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered its decision in Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 2005 U.S. LEXIS 5214, the civil rights case that asked whether a court-issued domestic restraining order, whose enforcement is mandated by a state statute, creates a property interest protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court's decision reversed the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals' finding that the restraining order, coupled with the Colorado statute mandating the enforcement of such orders (see Colo. Rev. Stat. ' 18-6-803.5(3)), established a protected property interest in the enforcement of the restraining order which could not be taken away by the government without procedural due process.