Developing: The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has relieved Justice Joan Orie Melvin of all judicial and administrative responsibilities, ordered her records secured and directed the court administrator to “ensure that the premises are vacated.” The action, announced in a press advisory, follows news today that Melvin has been charged with nine counts, including four felonies, based on accusations she used state-paid staff for campaign work, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports. An earlier story in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette had news of the impending charges. Before the court action, Melvin had announced she was voluntarily recusing herself from judicial duties, but she was not resigning from…

[Read the rest of this article...]

Developing: The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has relieved Justice Joan Orie Melvin of all judicial and administrative responsibilities, ordered her records secured and directed the court administrator to “ensure that the premises are vacated.” The action, announced in a press advisory, follows news today that Orie has been charged with nine counts, including four felonies, based on accusations she used state-paid staff for campaign work, report the Pittsburgh Tribune. An earlier story in the the Pittsburgh Post Gazette had news of the impending charges. Before the court action, Melvin had announced she was voluntarily recusing herself from judicial duties, but she…

[Read the rest of this article...]

Developing: The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has relieved Justice Joan Orie Melvin of all judicial and administrative responsibilities, ordered her records secured and directed the court administrator to “ensure that the premises are vacated.” The action, announced in a press advisory, follows news today that Orie has been charged with nine counts, including four felonies, based on accusations she used state-paid staff for campaign work, report the Pittsburgh Tribune. An earlier story in the the Pittsburgh Post Gazette had news of the impending charges. Before the court action, Melvin had announced she was voluntarily recusing herself from judicial duties, but she was not resigning…

[Read the rest of this article...]

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has relieved Justice Joan Orie Melvin of all judicial and administrative responsibilities, ordered her records secured and directed the court administrator to “ensure that the premises are vacated.” The action, announced in a press advisory, follows news today that Melvin has been charged with nine counts, including four felonies, based on accusations she used state-paid staff for campaign work, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports. An earlier story in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette had news of the impending charges. Before the court action, Melvin had announced she was voluntarily recusing herself from judicial duties, but she was not resigning from the…

[Read the rest of this article...]

Developing: The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has relieved Justice Joan Orie Melvin of all judicial and administrative responsibilities, ordered her records secured and directed the court administrator to “ensure that the premises are vacated.” The action, announced in a press advisory, follows news today that Melvin has been charged with nine counts, including four felonies, based on accusations she used state-paid staff for campaign work, the Pittsburgh Tribune reports. An earlier story in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette had news of the impending charges. Before the court action, Melvin had announced she was voluntarily recusing herself from judicial duties, but she was not resigning from…

[Read the rest of this article...]

Steve Wolfson was a busy defense attorney before he was appointed in January to serve as district attorney for Clark County, Nev. That has presented a problem for his new colleagues, who have been dealing with efforts to disqualify the entire DA's office from prosecuting at least seven cases due to Wolfson's claimed prior involvement as legal counsel for the defendant, reports the Las Vegas Review-Journal. In March, the DA sent an internal memo listing 83 former cases from which he was to be walled off by others in his office, the article recounts. Not on the list, however, were two that have been in the…

[Read the rest of this article...]

Kindred Healthcare (KND) has dropped significantly over the last two days, after the Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit against one of its subsidiaries, therapy provider RehabCare Group. The lawsuit ...

[Read the rest of this article...]

The Federal Aviation Administration made "errors" when it exempted cargo airlines from rules to prevent pilot fatigue and will revisit the issue, Justice Department attorneys representing the ...

[Read the rest of this article...]

Policies buried in college student handbooks are being cited by universities asserting that they are due a cut of the profits from inventions conceived on campus. Harvard wasn’t one of them, Stanford law fellow Brian Love writes in the Boston Globe. Facebook was invented by Mark Zuckerberg and his friends working in a Harvard dorm on a Harvard computer network, says Love, who is moving to Santa Clara law school as an assistant professor this fall. Harvard “could have asserted a stronger claim to the company than the Winklevoss twins and Paul Ceglia combined,” he writes. Love suggests Harvard made…

[Read the rest of this article...]

The Other Big IPO Today, Facebook makes its historic market debut. But many lawyer-bloggers are talking about a different initial public offering: Last Friday, Web-based legal services provider LegalZoom filed for an IPO of up to $120 million to expand its services in the United States and around the world. Can LegalZoom documents truly compete on quality with a lawyer-for-hire? The answer to that question doesn't matter as much as what clients perceive. Lawyers "will assert that consumers and small business are exposing themselves to liability by using LegalZoom's limited services which will bring regret later," DirectLaw Inc. founder Richard…

[Read the rest of this article...]

Jurors were set to begin deliberating the fate of John Edwards on Friday, weighing nearly four weeks of testimony and evidence from the former presidential candidate's corruption trial.Edwards is charged ...

[Read the rest of this article...]

An armored car guard accused of killing his partner and making off with more than $2 million returned to Pennsylvania on Thursday to face charges after his arrest last month in Florida.Kenneth Konias Jr., ...

[Read the rest of this article...]

Opponents of Washington state's liquor-privatization initiative made a final bid Thursday to invalidate the voter-approved law just two weeks before it is set to take effect.An attorney argued before the ...

[Read the rest of this article...]

A robbery prank known as “Urban Skittles” could result in felony charges, according to a Kansas district attorney. According to a press release cited by KWCH.com, the prank originated in England and works this way: “The ‘game’ is played by an individual or group of youths that run into a random business and yell for everyone to get down on the floor as if they are going to perpetrate an armed robbery. The ‘players’ then count the number of individuals who ‘hit the deck,’ hence the name, Urban Skittles.” The release by the Sedgwick County District Attorney warns that pranksters…

[Read the rest of this article...]

The fathers of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman gave Sanford, Fla., police their opinions about the person who was crying for help in 911 tapes of the Feb. 26 confrontation that ended with the shooting death of 17-year-old Martin, according to documents released by the special prosecutor in the case. Neither said the voice was that of 17-year-old Martin, the New York Times reports. Zimmerman’s father said he thought the voice belonged to his son. Martin’s mother, however, has said it was her son who was screaming on the tapes. An analysis by an FBI lab was not able to…

[Read the rest of this article...]

Justice Stephen G. Breyer has been victimized by criminals for two months in a row. In the latest incident, Breyer’s Washington, D.C., home was burglarized, according to the Washington Post blog the Reliable Source. The burglar made off with a pair of $500 silver candlesticks and a silver set valued at $2,500, the story says. A housekeeper reported the crime when she arrived at the house on May 4. In February, a machete-wielding robber interrupted a bridge game at Breyer’s home on the Caribbean island of Nevis, stealing about $1,000 from the justice, his wife and two others. A suspect…

[Read the rest of this article...]

Justice Stephen G. Breyer has been victimized by criminals for two months in a row. In the latest incident, Breyer’s Washington, D.C., home was burglarized, according to the Washington Post blog the Reliable Source. The burglar made off with a pair of $500 silver candlesticks and a silver set valued at $2,500, the story says. A housekeeper reported the crime when she arrived at the house on May 4. In February, a machete-wielding robber interrupted a bridge game at Breyer’s home on the Caribbean island of Nevis, stealing about $1,000 from the justice, his wife and two others. A suspect turned himself in…

[Read the rest of this article...]

Justice Stephen G. Breyer has been victimized by criminals for two months in a row. In the latest incident, Breyer’s Washington, D.C., home was burglarized, according to the Washington Post blog the Reliable Source. The burglar made off with a pair of $500 silver candlesticks and a silver set valued at $2,500, the story says. A housekeeper reported the crime when she arrived at the house on May 4. In February, a machete-wielding robber interrupted a bridge game at Breyer’s home on the Caribbean island of Nevis, stealing about $1,000 from the justice, his wife and two others. A suspect turned himself in…

[Read the rest of this article...]

State media say Vietnamese police have arrested four senior executives at a major state-owned shipping company for alleged mismanagement in another high-profile scandal.Online VnExpress says Duong Chi ...

[Read the rest of this article...]

State media say police have arrested four senior executives at a major state-owned shipping company for alleged mismanagement.Online VnExpress says Duong Chi Dung, former chairman of Vietnam National Shipping ...

[Read the rest of this article...]