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Fed court nixes NJ appeal in sports betting case
Attorney Opinions |
2013/09/18 14:54
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A federal appeals court dealt another blow to New Jersey's efforts to legalize sports gambling Tuesday, upholding a ruling that the state's betting law conflicts with federal law and shouldn't be implemented.
The case was heard by a three-judge panel at the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, and the state could seek to have the case re-heard by the full appeals court. But Tuesday's ruling more likely means New Jersey's last chance to legalize sports gambling is to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.
A spokesman for Gov. Chris Christie didn't immediately return a message seeking comment Tuesday, but in the past Christie has said he would go to the nation's highest court if necessary.
Voters passed a sports betting referendum in 2011, and last year New Jersey enacted a law that limited bets to the Atlantic City casinos and the state's horse racing tracks. Bets wouldn't be taken on games involving New Jersey colleges or college games played in the state. Christie said at the time that he hoped to grant sports betting licenses by early this year, but those plans were put on hold.
The NFL, NBA, NHL, Major League Baseball and the NCAA sued the state last year, and the NCAA moved several of its championship events out of New Jersey, though it later relented.
The leagues said the betting law could harm the sanctity of the games. In a court deposition, MLB commissioner Bud Selig said he was "appalled" by Christie's actions.
Attorneys for the state had attacked the 1992 federal Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act on several constitutional levels. They argued the law unfairly "grandfathered" Nevada, Oregon, Montana and Delaware, which each had some form of sports gambling at the time, and said the law violated state sovereignty and equal protection provisions and trampled the authority of state legislatures under the 10th Amendment. |
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Ga. county must $4 million to billboard firm
Attorney Opinions |
2012/09/05 15:26
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A Georgia county has been ordered to pay more than more than $4 million in damages and attorney fees to a billboard company as part of its ongoing fight to keep billboards out of Atlanta's northern suburbs.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that the verdict is the latest blow to Fulton County in its long-running legal battle against billboard companies.
A U.S. District Court in Atlanta jury last month awarded the $3.97 million in damages to KH Outdoor, which sued the county in 2003. Last week, a federal judge ordered the county to pay $477,156 in attorneys' fees and expenses to the company's lawyers.
Adam Webb, a lawyer for the billboard company, declined to comment. Fulton County Attorney David Ware said an appeal by the county "remains a viable option." |
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Court orders woman to stay away from Jeff Goldblum
Attorney Opinions |
2012/05/26 15:52
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A judge on Friday granted Jeff Goldblum a temporary restraining order against a woman who has been repeatedly ordered to stay away from the actor in recent years.
Goldblum's attorneys obtained the order against Linda Ransom, 49, after she repeatedly went to the actor's home three times this month. A previous stay-away order against Ransom from 2007 has expired and police claim she has told them that she will not stop trying to meet Goldblum unless a restraining order is in place.
The filings state Ransom has been arrested three times for violating previous restraining orders. Goldblum first alerted authorities to her in 2001 after she attended one of his acting classes and then started waiting outside his home.
"Over the past decade, I have experienced substantial emotional distress due to Ms. Ransom's continuous stalking, harassing, and threatening behavior," Goldblum wrote in a sworn court declaration. |
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Disgraced ex-journalist fights for CA law license
Attorney Opinions |
2011/12/26 16:34
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A former journalist who became the subject of a Hollywood movie after he was caught fabricating articles in the late 1990s is fighting to become a lawyer in California over the objections of a state bar committee.
Stephen Glass, whose ethical missteps at The New Republic and other magazines were recounted in the film Shattered Glass and an autobiographical novel, has challenged the bar committee's decision to deny him a license to practice law, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Monday.
Glass attended law school at Georgetown University and passed California's bar exam in 2007. His application for an attorney's license was turned down by the state's Committee of Bar Examiners, which judged him morally unfit for his new profession.
But an independent state bar court ruled in Glass's favor in July and the California Supreme Court has since agreed to hear the committee's appeal. No date for oral arguments has been set.
The bar association's lawyers said in written filings that even though Glass' transgressions occurred when he was in his 20s, his attempts at atonement were inadequate and in some cases coincided with the publication of his novel. They faulted him for never compensating anyone who was hurt by his falsehoods. |
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Is the iPhone Ready for Law Firms?
Attorney Opinions |
2009/10/02 16:14
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pIt used to be that the only thing lawyers tried to recruit was new clients. But these days, seemingly every firm has a group of attorneys pushing to bring aboard something else entirely: iPhones. And they want them badly./ppI have probably 15 people who continue to e-mail me about it, says the IT director at an Am Law 100 firm who asked not to be identified. This one attorney, he goes out and finds someone who says he can solve any iPhone problem for $175, he says. These attorneys, they want this thing so much, they are off trying to solve my problems. God bless them, but they don't know what they're doing. /ppThe issue isn't technical. It's relatively simple to hook an iPhone into a corporate network, since it can use the same Microsoft Exchange Server that most firms already use for their BlackBerrys. Instead, IT directors' reluctance boils down to this: The BlackBerry was designed from the ground up to do one thing: transmit e-mail securely. Other features have been tacked onto newer models, but robust, secure, immediate e-mail was -- and is -- at the BlackBerry's core. The iPhone, on the other hand, is more of a consumer device with e-mail tacked on. Law firms shied away from the iPhone because it couldn't match the BlackBerry on security. And security -- well, that's at the core of a law firm IT director's job. The original iPhone and the later 3G model had no local encryption, which meant that everything on the device was stored in clear text, says the IT director. The simple passcodes many users had -- if they used any passcode at all -- could be hacked, and then everything would be viewable. We told our attorneys this was a deal-breaker.
But with the release of the latest iPhone, the a href=http://www.apple.com/iphone/ target=new3GS/a, along with the new iPhone 3.0 operating system, the platform is looking more business-friendly. Forget about the consumer-oriented enhancements (like the upgraded camera on the 3GS, capable of shooting video). The real story, at least for law firms, is the vast array of enterprise-focused improvements. The 3GS phone now has local encryption along with more memory (up to 32 gigabytes) and a faster processor. And with the 3.0 OS, law firms running Exchange can require the use of strong passwords (the complicated ones, with numbers and letters, that no one except IT administrators want to take the time to create and use) and remotely wipe devices that have been lost or stolen. Users get a long-awaited, cut-copy-paste feature (a glaring omission on the iPhone until now), a landscape keyboard option for easier typing, and the ability to search the from, to, and subject headers (but not, alas, the body) on their e-mail, as well as their iPhone contact list, calendar and notes.
/p |
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Six-figure Cabinet jobs sometimes mean a pay cut
Attorney Opinions |
2009/01/27 15:15
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| Jobs in President Barack Obama's Cabinet come with a pay cut for some of his appointees, who made millions from investments and lucrative careers in law, lobbying and business before joining his administration, according to financial reports the government released Tuesday.pAt least one must sell stock to avoid potential conflicts of interest./ppObama's choice for deputy defense secretary, William J. Lynn, until recently a lobbyist for military contractor Raytheon, holds Raytheon incentive stock valued at $500,001 to $1 million, the documents show. The stock is due to vest next month. He has Raytheon unvested restricted stock worth $250,001 to $500,000./ppLynn has said he will sell the stock. He received a salary of $369,615 last year as a Raytheon senior vice president, and is expecting a 2008 cash bonus of $100,001 to $250,000 to be paid this March, his report shows. Obama has given Lynn a waiver from ethics rules banning employees from taking part in decisions related to their former employers for two years and prohibiting them from taking jobs in agencies they recently lobbied. If he is confirmed as expected, Lynn will be subject to ethics reviews for one year./ppGovernment ethics rules require senior administration officials to provide details annually on their personal finances. The reports include descriptions of assets, income and debt — typically given in ranges rather than exact amounts — and lists of gifts and any outside positions. The disclosures are intended to shine a light on and help avoid any potential conflicts of interest./ppThe report for Obama's nominee to become attorney general, Eric Holder, shows he received $3.3 million, including deferred compensation, as a partner at the law firm Covington amp; Burling, far more than the $196,700 he would make as a member of Obama's Cabinet. He anticipates receiving a $1 million to $5 million partner separation payment when he leaves the firm./p |
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