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US women due in court in Philly in terrorism case
Law Firm News |
2010/05/03 08:19
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pTwo American women charged in a global terrorism plot allegedly aimed at killing a Swedish artist are due in court in Philadelphia./ppCourt papers show the case is largely built on e-mails and online postings allegedly made by 46-year-old Colleen LaRose of Pennsburg and 31-year-old Jamie Paulin-Ramirez of Leadville, Colo./ppThe Colorado woman's defense lawyer, Jeremy Ibrahim, says he will ask Monday for copies of computer evidence. A judge may have to screen it first because prosecutors say some of it may be classified./ppLaRose is also expected to enter a plea to a superseding indictment. Both women have previously pleaded not guilty. They were arrested this year after returning from Europe.
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Florida Probing Law Firm in Foreclosures
Law Firm News |
2010/05/02 09:24
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pThe Florida attorney general's office is investigating possible misconduct by a large law firm that files foreclosures for banks, according to a posting on its Web site./ppThe Web site said the office is looking at whether Florida Default Law Group, based in Tampa, was involved in fabricating and/or presenting false and misleading documents in foreclosure cases. Mortgage documents that are used to prove a bank has a right to foreclose have later been shown to be legally inadequate and/or insufficient, the Web site said./ppA spokeswoman for Florida Default declined to comment. Ryan Wiggins, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Bill McCollum, said the investigation began last fall./ppThe civil probe comes as some judges and federal prosecutors in Florida are paying close attention to how banks—and so-called foreclosure-mill law firms that work for banks—are attempting to take control of homes from borrowers in default. Judges across the country have chastised banks and their attorneys for attempting to seize properties they can't prove they own. /ppLast month, a Florida judge said that a mortgage document filed by a bank in a foreclosure case was part of an intentional effort to mislead the court.
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Put an age limit on Supreme Court justices
Law Firm News |
2010/04/28 08:53
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pWhen President George W. Bush and his lawyers were insisting the commander in chief had the sole power to run the new war on terror, Judge Diane Wood sharply criticized that view./ppWood, now on President Obama's list as a possible Supreme Court nominee, wrote in a 2003 Chicago law review article that in a democracy, those responsible for national security must do more than say ‘trust us, we know best.' Secret prisons and secret evidence do not comport with the rule of law, she said./ppWhen the Bush administration argued that a Chinese Muslim could be held indefinitely as a Guantanamo Bay prisoner because he had gone to Afghanistan and may have associated with the Taliban, Judge Merrick Garland disagreed./ppGarland, also on Obama's short list for the Supreme Court, wrote two years ago for the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington that Lewis Carroll notwithstanding, the fact that the government has ‘said it thrice' does not make the allegation true. There was no evidence that the Uighurs were enemy combatants, he said.
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Beach, Chesapeake pay $9 million for outside legal help
Law Firm News |
2010/04/12 09:31
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pEach South Hampton Roads city has a cadre of attorneys on staff to deal with the many legal disputes that come with running a large city./ppSometimes, a case comes along that poses a potential conflict of interest, requires expertise that can't be found in-house, or just takes too much time./ppIn those scenarios, officials look outside the city attorney's office to hire a private law firm. That gets expensive./ppSaddled with long and costly legal battles, Chesapeake and Virginia Beach have paid nearly $9 million to private law firms over the past five years - more than twice the combined amount spent by Norfolk, Portsmouth and Suffolk./ppWhen we go through and see how much we have spent on outside counsel, I think we can do better, said Chesapeake Councilwoman Patricia Willis, who is a lawyer./ppCity Attorney Ronald Hallman said Chesapeake is a growing city and has faced a host of unique legal matters including opposition to a planned North Carolina landfill, the Battlefield Golf Club fly ash case, and a challenge to a police test by the U.S. Justice Department. All of these cases required specific expertise and lots of time, which equals large bills.
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