<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?> <rss version="2.0"> <channel> <title>Connecticut Law Tribune</title> <link>http://www.ctlawtribune.com</link> <description>Legal news for the state of Connecticut</description> <pubDate>Sat, 04 Jul 2009 09:26:23 EST</pubDate> <item> <title>Losing A Son, Gaining A Purpose</title> <link>http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?id=34204</link> <description>On Labor Day 2006, attorney Pamela Levin Cameron received the phone call that every parent fears. She was told her 24-year-old son had died in a boating accident in Africa.  I was devastated, said Cameron, a personal injury lawyer at Sinoway, McEnery, Messey &amp; Sullivan in North Haven.  My whole world was crushed when I got that call. </description> </item> <item> <title>Elite List Under Scrutiny</title> <link>http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?id=34195</link> <description>To most Connecticut foreclosure attorneys, it s known as  the list. Inclusion is supposed to guarantee not only prestige in the legal community but, more importantly, a massive flow of foreclosure cases at a time when there s money to be made in volume work. Mortgage giant Fannie Mae maintains the primary list, called the retained attorney network, and it includes about 140 select law firms in 31 states. Many of those chosen firms also comprise the Freddie Mac designated counsel list of about 50 members. </description> </item> <item> <title>Student s Vulgar Word Continues To Echo</title> <link>http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?id=34196</link> <description>In the spring of 2007, then-Burlington high school senior Avery Doninger sat at her home computer and typed a scathing blog entry that referred to school administrators as  douchebags. One might imagine that the outburst would have earned her a couple days of detention or suspension. But no one could have predicted that the insult would still be reverberating two years later  in federal court, in the state legislature, and even in the debate over the merits of Judge Sonia Sotomayor as a U.S. Supreme Court nominee. </description> </item> <item> <title>One Man s Battle Against GM s Bankruptcy</title> <link>http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?id=34197</link> <description>The way Radha R.M. Narumanchi had it planned, he was supposed to have retired by now. But that was before General Motors bankruptcy earlier this month wiped out a $400,000 nest egg that he had invested in bonds sold by the automobile giant. Now, at 73, Narumanchi has no alternative but to return to work as an accounting professor at Southern Connecticut State University. </description> </item> <item> <title>Autism Rulings Offer Hope To Advocates</title> <link>http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?id=34198</link> <description>As a lawyer who focuses on disability law for schoolchildren, Sherman solo Jennifer Laviano has several new reasons for optimism. On June 9, Gov. M. Jodi Rell signed a bill that makes it clear that new behavioral treatments for autism are as much an educational responsibility as a medical one. Laviano fears that without such language, school districts would attempt to avoid responsibility for such treatments under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).</description> </item> <item> <title>Taking Advantage Of Your Summer Associates</title> <link>http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?id=34199</link> <description>Firms with summer associates have a tremendous opportunity over the next couple of months to leverage the power of the millennial generation. Today s law students are more proficient with technology and in organic self-marketing than most organizations realize. Harness that talent and allow your summer hires to demonstrate their potential in these areas, particularly in a down market when everyone must increase their business development initiatives. A collaboration of this type between the generations is the ideal solution for law students seeking to distinguish themselves to employers and lawyers interested in raising their profile among prospects. </description> </item> <item> <title>Anticipating A Legal Boom In Stamford</title> <link>http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?id=34200</link> <description>Murtha Cullina isn t taking this recession sitting down. The law firm is using a shift in industry thinking and an availability of legal talent to enhance its presence in Stamford, the hotbed of business activity in the state. </description> </item> <item> <title>Prosecutors Can t Say When Suspect Hired Lawyer</title> <link>http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?id=34201</link> <description>After someone is arrested, he s informed that he has a right to a lawyer and a right to remain silent. But what if that same defendant had decided to  lawyer up and remain silent before the arrest? Can the prosecutor inform the jury of that behavior? Danbury State s Attorney Stephen J. Sedensky III did just that during a 2006 trial in which a jury ultimately convicted a man of sexual abuse. </description> </item> <item> <title>Plaintiff Gets Nothing After Dance Floor Fall</title> <link>http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?id=34203</link> <description>Marianne Varunes v. Janet Battey, et al.: A Hamden bookkeeper who broke her ankle in a fall at a restaurant lost her lawsuit after she was unable to prove there were problems with the establishment s dance floor.</description> </item> <item> <title>Help For Legal Aid, Higher Bills For Others </title> <link>http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?id=34238</link> <description>The price of using the state s court system has gone up, with a variety of higher filing fees kicking in July 1. The added money  in general, $50 to $75 per case  will go to what most everyone agrees is a good cause: helping out legal services agencies that had suffered massive reductions in aid from their main funding source, Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts. But although the Connecticut Bar Association endorsed the measure, not everyone is 100 percent happy with the bill signed last week by Gov. M. Jodi Rell. That s because the higher fees will have to be passed through to clients in the form of higher legal bills. </description> </item> <item> <title>Some Firms Are Rockin The Fee World</title> <link>http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?id=34206</link> <description>Attorney Bruce Raymond knew there was a better way of doing business. For two decades, he practiced at a Hartford law firm of about 100 lawyers where every year the M.O. was similar to thousands of other firms increase billing rates and billable hours. </description> </item> <item> <title>Public Defender Cleared Of Charges</title> <link>http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?id=34202</link> <description>Supervisory Public Defender Elisa Villa was cleared of all charges last week stemming from her arrest after an unusual confrontation in a Bristol courthouse earlier this year. </description> </item> <item> <title>Who Will Care For Clients Best Friends?</title> <link>http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?id=34205</link> <description>With the close of Connecticut s legislative session in June, Connecticut joined more than 40 states that allow the formation of a trust for the care of pets. The new law will allow our clients to ensure that their pets are cared for in case of our client s disability or death. Without proper planning, many pets are either not cared for as the pet owner intends or euthanized. So how does the new law work to ensure the proper, loving care for pets in case of a client s incapacity or death? The answer is a trust specifically designated for this purpose and now legally sanctioned by the State of Connecticut. </description> </item> <item> <title>Snarls, Evasiveness Make Potential Juror Memorable</title> <link>http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?id=34208</link> <description>Recently, I attended jury selection as the stunt double of one of the partners at my firm. On this occasion, I encountered a situation that I had seldom bumped up against: the truly hostile venireman. </description> </item> <item> <title>Justice Supported Jefferson s Wall</title> <link>http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?id=34209</link> <description>If you believe with Thomas Jefferson that the First Amendment builds  a high wall of separation between Church &amp; State, then you will sorely miss Justice David H. Souter when he retires from the U.S. Supreme Court this month. Few justices in recent memory have been more vigorous in defending Mr. Jefferson s wall against increasingly successful efforts by some on the court to dismantle it brick by brick.</description> </item> <item> <title>Rigid World View A Recipe For Danger</title> <link>http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?id=34210</link> <description>As a child I would delight in the asinine adventures of the nameless spooks in Mad magazine s Spy v. Spy. The two covert operatives were no doubt involved in the deadly serious business of clandestine service. But they were such bungling idiots. If the world were left to them, we d all be living in caves and dining on uncooked roots and berries.</description> </item> <item> <title>Judging The Judges</title> <link>http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?id=34207</link> <description>Not since 1978 has Connecticut judged its judges through a comprehensive judicial performance evaluation. It was in that year that the judiciary lobbied the Connecticut Bar Association leadership to end its nationally acclaimed review program. Judicial Branch officials cited fears of an end to judicial independence and potentially unfair attacks on judicial character. The then-chief justice claimed that the judiciary could review the performance of its own judges and would quickly implement a judicial performance program.</description> </item> <item> <title>White Firefighters Win Reverse Discrimination Case</title> <link>http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?id=34212</link> <description>The U.S. Supreme Court handed white New Haven firefighters a clear-cut victory Monday, ruling that the city was wrong to throw out the results of a promotional exam in which no black applicants scored well enough to win captains or lieutenants positions. The case of Frank Ricci v. John DeStefano Jr. focuses on a seeming contradiction in federal civil rights law, which forbids race-based job discrimination, but also prohibits promotion tests that favor one race. </description> </item> <item> <title>Decision Could Affect Private Employers</title> <link>http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?id=34213</link> <description>Private employers with workplace diversity programs are among those who could be affected by a Monday U.S. Supreme Court ruling, according to legal experts.</description> </item> <item> <title>Endangered Courthouses</title> <link>http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?id=34194</link> <description>Rep. Ryan Barry, D-Manchester, remembers when his hometown Superior Court building was outfitted as a haunted house attraction for the weeks before Halloween. Before that, he said, it had been a King s Supermarket.  It s not designed to be a courthouse, Barry conceded. But he s fighting hard to counter a plan to shut it down, along with five other imperfect, hard-working courthouses targeted in Gov. M. Jodi Rell s plan to cut the state s cavernous budget gap. </description> </item> </channel> </rss>