The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times

Supreme Court Ruling Jeopardizes Encyclopedia Group's Legal Malpractice Lawsuit

Several months after losing a motion for summary judgment, Encyclopaedia Britannica is facing another possible setback in its legal malpractice lawsuit against Dickstein Shapiro.

In an order yesterday, U.S. District Judge John Bates asked Britannica to explain why he should still be able to hear the case, in light of a ruling yesterday from the U.S. Supreme Court that narrowed the ability of plaintiffs to pursue legal malpractice claims involving patent matters in federal court.

The high court found in Gunn v. Minton that state legal malpractice claims over how lawyers managed patent matters couldn't be brought under federal patent law. The justices reasoned that regardless of how a legal malpractice claim resolved, it wouldn't affect the original federal patent litigation.

The Morning Wrap

Spending Cuts: The economy, the middle class and several basic U.S. Justice Department priorities would suffer if Congress fails to stop severe federal spending cuts from taking effect on March 1, President Barack Obama said on Tuesday, The National Law Journal reports. Federal prosecutors "will have to close cases and let criminals go," he said.

SCOTUS: The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday issued four opinions on issues ranging from antitrust to drug-sniffing dogs. The National Law Journal takes a look.

Jackson Case: Former Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) and his wife are set to appear before U.S. District Judge Robert Wilkins in D.C. on Wednesday, The Associated Press reports. They are facing charges related to an alleged scheme to spend $750,000 in campaign funds on personal items.

Fourth Circuit Judge to Chair Judicial Conference Executive Committee

Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. has tapped Judge William Traxler Jr., chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, as the new chair of the executive committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States.

According to a release today from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, Traxler will succeed Judge David Sentelle, who stepped down earlier this week as chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and took senior status.

"Judge Traxler assumes this important administrative role at a time when the federal judiciary faces significant financial challenges," Roberts said. "I know the Executive Committee and the Judicial Conference will benefit from Bill Traxler’s skilled leadership, commitment to cost containment and prudent management."

Lawyers Debate Meaning of 'Abstract' in Federal Circuit Patent Case

A full panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit heard oral arguments Friday in a case to determine the patent eligibility of a computer-assisted financial transaction method.

The case pits CLS Bank International, the largest multi-currency cash settlement system for the foreign exchange market, versus Alice Corp., the patent holder of a "computerized trading platform for exchange obligations."

A panel of Federal Circuit judges validated the patents in a 2-1 ruling in July. In October, the Federal Circuit granted an en banc review.

In arguing for CLS, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher partner Mark Perry told the en banc panel of 10 judges that "these patents claim only abstract ideas," and that "reciting an abstract idea is not a sufficient claim."

Man Convicted of Deceiving Judge Given Five-Year Sentence

A Washington federal judge sentenced a man yesterday to serve five years in prison for deceiving one of the judge's colleagues on the bench.

David Copeland-Jackson, 40, pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice and perjury in February 2011. After filing a defamation lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in 2007, he admitted to filing a false affidavit that he had served the defendant and then filing court documents in the defendant's name. He won a $3 million default judgment from U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle, which was vacated after she learned of the fraud.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon sentenced Copeland-Jackson yesterday. The sentence also covered Copeland-Jackson's guilty plea in a separate case for mail fraud.

In Q&A, D.C. Forensic Sciences Chief Says Lab Moving Toward Accreditation

It's been four months since the grand opening of Washington's new forensic sciences laboratory. The $220 million facility is fully operational and District of Columbia Department of Forensic Sciences director Max Houck said they have a plan in place for moving towards accreditation and are making progress in filling vacant positions.

The 287,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art building isn't just home to new lab space, though. It is itself an experiment: Houck is guiding the city's transition to independent forensic testing, in which evidence testing and storage are no longer handled by law enforcement.

Houck sat down with Legal Times on January 25 to talk about the lab's first few months. Besides forensic sciences, the new building houses the city's public health lab, which is also under Houck's department, and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, which continues to manage the city's morgue. His comments have been edited for space.

The Morning Wrap

Layoffs: With layoffs running rampant at Allen & Overy, DLA Piper, and Eversheds, The American Lawyer asks whether U.S. law firms will be next. "These are not outliers. They're not anomalies," Zeughauser Group consultant Kent Zimmermann said of the recent layoffs. "It is something that's happening quietly in many, many firms in the industry."

Contraception Battles: Roman Catholics, evangelicals and Mennonites are flooding courts with challenges to a provision in the new health care law that requires employers to cover birth control in worker health plans, The New York Times reports. "This is highly likely to end up at the Supreme Court," said Douglas Laycock, a law professor at the University of Virginia and one of the country’s top scholars on church-state conflicts. "There are so many cases, and we are already getting strong disagreements among the circuit courts."

Stepping Down: Lisa Gomer, the general counsel of the U.S. Agency for International Development, is leaving the agency on February 9 amid an ongoing probe into alleged contract rigging, Corporate Counsel reports. Gomer’s attorney, David Schertler of Schertler & Onorato, said his client "did not violate any law." He added that she "cooperated completely" with the Office of Inspector General investigation, according to an emailed statement.

D.C. Lawyer Pleads Guilty to Stealing $109K

Updated at 12:52 p.m.

A now-disbarred Washington lawyer and former D.C. Council candidate, Deairich Hunter, pleaded guilty this week in federal court to stealing more than $109,000 in funds intended for his clients.

At a plea hearing January 23 before U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, Hunter, a former solo practitioner, admitted to keeping thousands of dollars in settlements for clients in disability and personal injury cases. In at least one instance cited in court filings, he stole funds that he was supposed to use to pay the medical bills of a client injured in a car accident.

Hunter is scheduled for sentencing before Howell on April 26. He was released on personal recognizance until the hearing, and was ordered to stay in the Washington area and surrender his passport.

Lawyers in LivingSocial Class Action Seek $3M in Fees

Lawyers behind a class action against daily deal company LivingSocial are hoping to collect $3 million in fees, the maximum amount that the two sides agreed to in a settlement. The fees are on top of the $4.5 million that LivingSocial agreed to pay to settle claims that its deal voucher expiration dates and other restrictions violated federal and state laws.

The fee arrangement was spelled out in an agreement (PDF) that U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle gave preliminary approval to in October. Under the agreement, LivingSocial said it wouldn't contest a request for attorney fees up to $3 million. On January 18, the plaintiffs filed a motion for attorney fees (PDF), asking Huvelle to order the award.

Plaintiffs in the District of Columbia, Florida, California, Minnesota, and Washington filed class actions in early 2011 against LivingSocial, all alleging similar violations of the federal Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act and state laws. The cases were consolidated into a single multi-district litigation in D.C. federal court.

D.C. Distillery Behind 'Green Hat Gin' Sues to Protect Trademark

Washington's first micro-distillery - or, at least, its first legal one - filed a lawsuit yesterday seeking to protect its trademark against legal action brought by a New York gin producer.

New Columbia Distillers LLC, the D.C.-based producers of Green Hat Gin, was sued (PDF) for trademark infringement in November in New Jersey federal court by Green Farms II LLC, which makes Greenhook Ginsmiths brand gin. New Columbia filed a complaint (PDF) yesterday in Washington federal court asking for a court to determine that its trademarks are valid and should be protected.

New Columbia filed for trademarks on "Green Hat" and related terms beginning in April 2011, according to the complaint. The name stems from the story of a Prohibition-era bootlegger in Washington often identified by his choice of green headwear.