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Next Pa. Justice Can and Should Be More Than Just a Tiebreaker
The Legal Intelligencer
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Now that former Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin's resignation from that court has become official, Governor Tom Corbett has 90 days in which to nominate a successor.
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Criminal Antitrust Enforcement: A Review, a Look Ahead and a Change
The Legal Intelligencer
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
The Obama administration began its second term with a new leader, William J. Baer, heading up the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. At the recent ABA Antitrust Law Spring Meeting in Washington, D.C., Baer, along with other government prosecutors and private defense attorneys, reviewed developments over the last year and offered a look ahead. One development that may affect Pennsylvania in particular is the closing on January 30 of the division's Philadelphia field office after 65 years of service.
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Can Judgment on Your Arbitration Award Be Entered in Court?
The Legal Intelligencer
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Bob may be interested in the theoretical issues of the law. His clients? They want results. But they do not want to pay a bundle to get those results.
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Lawyers are obligated to present ? mitigating evidence
The Legal Intelligencer
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
I attended a seminar on capital litigation and the question posed was whether a lawyer could be ordered by his client not to present any mitigation if the client had been convicted of murder of the first degree. According to the hypothetical, the client preferred death as opposed to life imprisonment and at least appeared to be competent. Can a lawyer ethically allow a client to go to the death phase without presenting any mitigating evidence?
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Recurring Issues With Verdict Slips Continue to Divide Parties
The Legal Intelligencer
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
A common dispute between plaintiffs and defendants at any civil trial is how many lines should be placed on the verdict slip for the jury to put down dollar amounts for awards.
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Building a Championship Diversity Program With a College Athletics Approach
The Legal Intelligencer
Monday, May 13, 2013
Recruit. Develop. Promote. The mantra of every college athletic department in the country. Recruit the talented blue-chipper, coach him up on skills and fundamentals, and gradually promote him from benchwarmer to second team to starter to ... you get the picture.
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Digital Signatures Are Safer Than Ink on Paper
Law Technology News
Monday, May 13, 2013
Pen and paper is an inferior option for executing legally binding agreements. Yet a recent study commissioned by Adobe Systems Inc. found that 98 percent of surveyed managers "still rely on hard copy in the 'last mile' to deliver contracts to get clients and customers to sign on the dotted line."
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Reading Between the Lines: Informal Guidance in Environmental Regulation
The Legal Intelligencer
Friday, May 10, 2013
Environmental law practitioners are required to be familiar with a wide range of administrative actions by federal, state and local environmental agencies. These actions span what one court called a "sometimes murky spectrum" from formal agency adjudications and rulemaking, to purely informal advice and input provided by individual agency employees such as case managers overseeing a site undergoing remediation.
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Using the Sudden Medical Emergency Defense in Pennsylvania
The Legal Intelligencer
Friday, May 10, 2013
Every so often Pennsylvania appellate courts hand down a decision that addresses several novel and/or uncommon legal issues in one decision. When the courts render such a legal gem, the legal community should be aware of the decision. One such appellate decision is the state Superior Court's opinion in the recently decided case of Shiner v. Ralston, No. 1791 MDA 2011, (Pa. Super. Feb. 22, 2013). In Shiner, a panel of the Superior Court addressed several interesting legal issues: (1) the distinction between the "sudden emergency doctrine" and the "sudden medical emergency defense"; (2) the defendants' burden of proof in order to obtain summary judgment where they seek judgment based upon an affirmative defense; (3) the proof required for expert testimony where the party offering the testimony does not have the burden of proof; and (4) the moving party's ability to obtain summary judgment under the Nanty-Glo rule where it relies upon its own witnesses' testimony.
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Patent Law and Uneasy Compromises at the U.S. Supreme Court
The Legal Intelligencer
Thursday, May 9, 2013
At oral argument in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, the U.S. Supreme Court recently grappled with the question of whether human genes are patentable.
