Miscellaneous Matters

Can you believe that Justice Clarence Thomas has been on the Supreme Court for 15 years? It just doesn't seem that long, but a new book examines his opinions from a conservative's perspective.

Ken Lammers on his CrimLaw blog highlights the challenges of practicing in several jurisdictions. Although we operate using the same body of law, every court does things a little bit differently.

If you watch (and like) The Office, you may get a smile out of this blog that "analyzes" the episodes because "it is fascinating to consider how many zeros a company would have to add to the settlement check if the antics of the folks at Dundler Mifflin appeared in a real lawsuit."

This article follows a seemingly simple General District Court case. The case involved a car purchased from a dealer. The dealer represented that the car had a single owner and had never been wrecked. Both representations were proven to be false. The plaintiff won a $10,000 verdict in General District Court, but the defendant appealed. The parties agreed to arbitration and the arbitrator awarded the plaintiff $114,400 which included punitives and attorneys' fees. As Kenny Rogers once said, "You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em."

This Washingon Post article discusses a proposed change from the Virginia State Bar's standing committee on legal ethics to permit state lobbyists to be employed in the same law firms as state legislators. As the article contends "Richmond's leading law firms . . . would be free to hire the speaker of the House of Delegates or the Senate floor leader even as their lobbyists prowl the halls of the General Assembly." The proposed change was prompted by "Sen. R. Creigh Deeds (D-Bath), who recently joined the law firm of Hirschler Fleischer P.C., a Richmond-based firm with a small lobbying presence. Without the proposed change, Deeds would be violating state ethics rules." Here's a link to the seventeen page proposed LEO. There are good points on each side of the argument, and the discussion is sure to be spirited.