Recession Proof: U.K. Law firms have been feeling the effects of the recession, too. Profit at the 100 highest-grossing U.K. law firms fell 30 percent on average during the past year, according to a new survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Bloomberg reports that Large law firms in the U.S. and U.K. have been forced to cut costs by firing lawyers, reducing pay and deferring the hiring of first-year attorneys.
Torture Trial: Lawyers for John Yoo, the Bush administration attorney and author of the contentious memos justifying torture, say a judge's refusal to dismiss a suit by Jose Padilla injected the courts into the political arena. Padilla says Yoo, a member of a Bush administration planning group known as the "war council," reviewed and approved his detention in the brig after he was arrested on terrorism charges and provided the legal cover for his abusive treatment. Yoo's lawyers say this will "open the floodgates to politically motivated lawsuits," the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
Judicial Immunity: A set of civil lawsuits filed against two former Pennsylvania judges is testing the doctrine of judicial immunity, which protects judges from such suits. Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan, judges on the Luzerne County, Pa., Court of Common Pleas, were previously charged criminally with sending juveniles to detention centers over several years in exchange for more than $2.6 million in kickbacks from the former co-owner of two centers. Now, civil suits seeking monetary damages were filed on behalf of dozens of children and their families, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Same-Sex Marriage: The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn't change a proposed same-sex marriage law, the Washington Post writes. Churches wouldn't be forced to perform the weddings, but the group is fearful that thet would have to extend employee benefits to same-sex married couples. In that case, church officials said they would have no choice but to abandon their contracts with the city.
What about divorced employees or those where one spouse is a Catholic and the other is not, and they do not raise their children in the Catholic faith? Do they not provide benefits for them too?
Posted by: Joe | November 12, 2009 at 10:21 AM