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Week Of Monday June 15, 2009
Probable Cause Hearings Fall From FavorFREE
To some criminal defense lawyers, it’s a free opportunity to get a glimpse of the state’s evidence in a murder case. To others, the probable cause hearing is a potential minefield that can end up making the eventual trial even tougher to win. However, defense lawyers say it’s not a defeatist attitude – or laziness – that leads them to waive the hearings. Instead, it’s a strategic move as they head into the remainder of the discovery process and the eventual trial. And, to be sure, there’s no unanimity on probable cause hearings.
My Father, The First-Year Associate 
Greg Bachand (left) had been selling life insurance for 35 years. He was burned out and tired of the grind. He picked up the phone to call his daughter last June, and stumbled into a different business opportunity. Tanya Bachand was in a pickle. She had just taken over a busy personal injury practice after her former boss resigned from the bar after stealing clients’ funds, and she had no idea how to run the business. Greg, who passed the bar exam in 1974 but never practiced law, had the business acumen to help his daughter, and he was ready for a career change.
A Rare Win For ImmigrantsFREE
It was exactly two years ago that Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agents rounded up 31 undocumented immigrants in the New Haven area. There was speculation that the highly publicized raid was retaliation for a New Haven program that made ID cards available to illegal immigrants so they could open bank accounts and access other services. ICE officials denied the retaliation allegations and said the raids were lawfully conducted.
Verdicts & Settlements
Gas Station Fall No Jackpot For Casino Visitor FREE
Janet Dilisio v. ExxonMobil Corp.: On an excursion from her home in Nashua, N.H., to the Mohegan Sun casino in 2007, Janet Dilisio stopped at the Plainfield ExxonMobil service station on southbound I-395. She bought a candy bar, and on the way back to her car, parked on the periphery of the lot, tripped on a 23-inch by eight-inch hole in the pavement that was about five inches deep. She claimed she damaged the tendons in her ankles so badly she couldn’t do her job as a nurse’s aide for five months.
Enjoying The Trappings Of The OutdoorsFREE
Lawyers are known for setting traps for their opponents in the courtroom. Thomas Albin takes that notion a few steps further in his spare time. For the past five years, Albin has been operating a part-time, one-man nuisance animal control business called Critter Ridder. People near Albin’s eastern Connecticut home in Pawcatuck call him at all hours when they find their homes invaded by all types of animals—bats, squirrels, woodchucks, skunks and raccoons.
Lawyer Looks To Make Killing With Farmers
There’s demand for locally raised meat, and there are Connecticut farmers who can provide it. The problem is getting the meat to the consumer with so few processing plants in the region. So if the farmers can’t get to the slaughterhouse, bring the slaughterhouse to them. That’s what a New York nonprofit is planning to do with the help of lawyer/cattle farmer Doug Dubitsky of Pullman & Comley in Hartford. The Glynwood Center of Cold Spring, N.Y., got serious last year about creating a mobile processing unit – a slaughterhouse on wheels – that would be certified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That’s when the group retained Dubitsky, an agribusiness attorney.
Nothing Pretty About Interior Designers’ Feud
It seems like the unlikeliest of controversies – just who exactly is entitled to call herself or himself an interior designer. But the very question has created a flurry of legal activity across the country. A trial was set to begin this month in a federal lawsuit by three Connecticut decorators who are challenging a state law that requires anyone describing themselves as interior designers to pass an exam and meet other qualifications. After the state agreed not to enforce the law, pending review by the legislature, U.S. District Court Judge Mark Kravitz put the matter on hold.
Legal Tech
Another Hijacking On Information Highway?
Neil Ferstand was looking forward to surfing the new and improved web site for the Connecticut Trial Lawyers Association, of which he’s the executive director. He typed the full name in Google and up popped a map with the CTLA’s home address, 100 Wells Street in Hartford. But the link nestled at the bottom of the address had a distinctly foreign look: CTBAR.org – the site of the CTLA’s friendly rival, the Connecticut Bar Association.
Q&A
Attorneys Push Bankruptcy Act ChallengesFREE
At a time when bankruptcy threatens a growing number of Americans, the laws that govern the process may undergo changes after the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments during its next term. The high court granted review last week of a case involving a Minnesota law firm’s challenge of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA). That act was passed in 2005 and has been the cause of much court activity throughout the country, including Connecticut.
Courtroom Attire Comes Under Fire FREE
Illinois Chief District Court Judge Michael McCuskey caused quite a stir last month when he acknowledged at a 7th Circuit judge’s panel discussion that he was distracted by some of the women attorneys appearing before him in court. More and more often, women come into court wearing “skirts so short that there’s no way they can sit down and blouses so short there’s no way the judges wouldn’t look,” said McCuskey, who serves the Central District of Illinois.
Brain DrainFREE
The state’s efforts to trim its spending seems likely to have profound consequences for the operation of the court system, with hundreds of senior state employees – ranging from court clerks to veteran prosecutors – taking early retirements.
Foreclosure Mediation Becomes Mandatory FREE
A voluntary foreclosure mediation program has worked so well in the eyes of legislators that the General Assembly pushed through a measure to make the program mandatory starting July 1. Nearly 60 percent of those participating in the voluntary program have remained in their homes, and supporters contend that even more distressed mortgage holders will benefit from being forced into mediation. To date, only about 34 percent of those eligible for mediation have made use of the voluntary program, according to the Judicial Branch.
The Church Fights Back
It’s been, quite literally, a case of church versus state. In recent months, the Catholic Church in Connecticut has repeatedly been at odds with various branches of the state government, to the point where the church has singled out Connecticut as a place where it needs to “vigorously fight for its constitutional rights.”
‘The Most Important Thing I Can Do’FREE
At the heart of his profession, James K. Robertson Jr. thrives on conflict and disputes as a litigation partner at Carmody & Torrance. But away from work, Robertson focuses on cooperation and tolerance among a group of people probably more at odds than any of his clients—Christians, Jews and Muslims. For 15 years, Robertson has been involved with the Hartford Seminary, studying theology, history and religion and working with the seminary to improve relations and create interfaith ministries among religious groups. His activities have taken him to the Persian Gulf on numerous occasions where he participates in forums with scholars and students to help prepare them to become peacemakers. He’s also involved in recruiting students from Islamic countries to study at Hartford Seminary.
Economy Hamstrings UNH Law School Plans
To establish a law school, the University of New Haven determined last June that it needed about $25 million in start-up capital. Based on the health of the economy and financial markets, university officials now say the law school project won’t move forward any time soon. Still, the private school in West Haven says it remains serious about eventually creating a fourth law school in the state, joining Yale, Quinnipiac and the University of Connecticut.
Family Can’t Sue Police After Faulty Raid
olice, armed with a search warrant, broke down the door of a Hartford home. They ransacked the apartment, pointed guns at family members and even helped themselves to the occupants’ food. Only one problem: they raided the wrong residence, a fact that even authorities later conceded. One might think that the occupants would be able to sue for damages after such an unwarranted intrusion, but a recent decision in a Connecticut federal court says otherwise.
Higher Filing Fees Would Benefit Legal Aid FREE
Connecticut attorneys won’t have to pay a higher occupational tax, but the legislature has approved a measure that would increase many court filing fees by $55 to $75. The annual proceeds – estimated at $7.7 million – would go to the state’s legal aid agencies, which are mired in a fiscal crisis. Their main funding source – proceeds from Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts, or IOLTA – has all but dried up due to low interest rates and the poor housing market.
Legal Tech
When Sharing Might Not Be A Good IdeaFREE
In this visual, media-driven world, more and more lawyers are using courtroom technology to speed the flow of trials and more effectively communicate to judges and juries. But it often happens that opposing sides are unevenly matched, and the less technologically equipped party cries foul. At some point, lawyers who bring their own technology into the courtroom likely will encounter requests – and judicial pressure – to share their hardware, software and even their staff with opposing counsel.
Q&A
The ABC’s Of Performing Public Service
Like other commencements, law school graduation ceremonies are often long on inspirational messages and short on nuts-and-bolts advice. That wasn’t the case with the speech U.S. District Judge Mark R. Kravitz made to Quinnipiac School of Law graduates last month. Like other law school commencement speakers, Kravitz, an appellate practice group chair at Wiggin and Dana before being named to the bench in 2003, extolled the virtues of public service for lawyers. Unlike others, Kravitz spelled out exactly what graduates might do and how it would help them. “Of all the lawyers [I] have known, those who were the most fulfilled by their work and by their lives were those who were active volunteers and participants in the life and work of their communities and their profession,” Kravitz told the Quinnipiac grads.
Clothes Call Goes Against Recycling Firm
Over the years, the Dumpster-sized bins have sat in the parking lots of shopping centers and supermarkets. They invite donations of used clothing, suggesting that the proceeds would support such worthwhile causes as your local police department or your child’s Pop Warner football league.
Verdicts & Settlements
Town Agrees To Pay Fire Victim’s Family $1.4M
Edward Romig v. James Sutton, et al.: The Town of Greenwich has agreed to pay $1.4 million to the family of a 22-year-old who was killed in his apartment during a fire in December 2000. The case had been pending for more than six years and a settlement between the town and the family’s lawyers did not occur until a day after jury selection began in mid-May.
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