Commercial landlords are turning up the heat in financial  disputes with tenants as the tight economy places an even greater premium on available capital. As a result, many of the disagreements and misunderstandings between landlords and tenants are now ending up in courtrooms.

In Dallas, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. is facing a federal lawsuit filed by the owners of a shopping center who claim the automotive repair giant released toxic chemicals at a leased space used as a service center. The owners of the Montfort Square Shopping Center say Goodyear should be responsible for the costs to clean up the site. The Goodyear service center was in operation for 25 years before closing in 2008, and the property owners say they were left with a piece of land tainted by petroleum hydrocarbons, metals, chlorinated solvents and other toxic substances.

Commercial litigation specialist Michael Hurst from Dallas’ Gruber Hurst Johansen & Hail tells the Dallas Business Journal in a recent article that landlords increasingly are battling both the bad economy and their own tenants at the same time.

“You’re seeing a lot more aggressiveness from landlords as it relates to recovering monies from tenants, and you’re also seeing landlords having a tougher time mitigating or covering their damages by filling their lease space up with a replacement tenant,” Hurst tells the publication.

While most landlord/tenant disputes center on unpaid rent, many property owners are focusing on collateral claims like the environmental damage allegations in the Goodyear case. Environmental attorney Cindy Bishop from Gardere Wynne Sewell in Dallas tells the newspaper that disputes over environmental contamination at auto repair facilities are relatively common, but typically are worked out between the parties before a lawsuit is filed.

With the economic turnaround still on its way, we may see even more lawsuits than settlements when it comes to commercial landlords and their tenants. 

The recently passed financial reform bill contains a “transparency” provision with disclosure requirements that could place energy companies in a considerable bind. In an effort to reduce the possibility of corruption, the late addition to the Dodd-Frank Act requires all SEC-registered corporations to disclose how much they pay foreign governments for oil, gas and mineral rights.

“Many foreign governments mandate that the terms of these agreements be kept confidential, so forcing the disclosure of this information could cause these companies to violate the terms of their contracts,” says Andrew Derman, leader of the International Energy Practice Group at Thompson & Knight. According to environmental organization EarthRights International, which supported the provision, the requirement will cover the majority of the top 15 international oil and gas companies as ranked by Fortune magazine based on total revenues. Together, these listed companies accounted for more than $2.2 trillion dollars in revenues and close to $200 billion in profits. “While some contracts with foreign governments contain exceptions that allow the disclosure of certain confidential information, it’s unclear how the SEC may interpret the limits of that disclosure,” Derman says.

The SEC is now moving forward with a rulemaking and a public comment period before the requirements take effect; a process that could take up to a year. Once disclosure rules are in place, covered companies would begin disclosures in their annual reports on an ongoing basis.

So, is the biggest problem facing women lawyers the fact that they earn, on average, tens of thousands of dollars less than their male colleagues, or is it that their work hours are so brutal that they leave the profession? Both are serious problems, writes Dallas lawyer Kathleen Wu in this week’s Texas Lawyer, and one of the best ways to address both of them is for firms to get serious about offering flex-time.

I realize the disconnect: How will women ever close the pay gap if firms offer flextime policies, which allow women to downshift their careers temporarily and thereby get paid less but have more time off? The answer is simple: Because one of the main reasons the pay gap exists — lack of diversity on compensation committees — won't ever get resolved if women keep leaving the profession before they're senior enough to get on to those committees.

According to a recent study released by the Project for Attorney Retention, "New Millennium, Same Glass Ceiling? The Impact of Law Firm Compensation Systems on Women," women partners earn dramatically less than their male counterparts, with equity partners averaging $66,000 less and income partners averaging $25,000 less.

While some of the disparity was attributed to origination credit policies (which gives the “originating” attorney a larger share of the fees earned by a particular client), one of the main reasons cited for the pay gap was a lack of women on compensation committees. More than half of the firms surveyed by PAR have one or no women on the compensation committee.

But if firms allow women to downshift and work more manageable hours, those lawyers stay on track. They maintain their contacts, they stay on top of the law and they don't disappear into the void that so many women find themselves in when they step off the treadmill altogether. Yes, lawyers need to address the pay gap. It's enraging and should be remedied. But the legal profession can't do that by putting work-life policies on the back-burner. Only by keeping women in the work force — even if it's not at 100 percent — will there be enough of us in a position to make sure the rest of us are paid what we're worth.

After seeing their $16 million investment in a Plano, Texas-based hedge fund vaporize in less than 90 days, stunned investors turned to Houston’s Ahmad, Zavitsanos & Anaipakos for answers. 

Last week, Ahmad, Zavitsanos & Anaipakos lawyers Demetrios Anaipakos and Amir H. Alavi sued Ernst & Young for its role in the spectacular implosion of the Parkcentral Global hedge fund. The lawsuit claims that Ernst & Young falsely represented that it had fairly audited Parkcentral Global and failed in its “watchdog” role to warn relying investors of the risk of fraud and noncompliance by management, among other things.

The lawsuit focuses on two funds sold by Plano’s Parkcentral Global and was filed on behalf of Houston financial consultant Gus H. Comiskey and four Tucson, Ariz.-based entities, including the Thomas R. Brown Family Private Foundation. The now-defunct Parkcentral Global was operated by affiliates of billionaire and former presidential candidate H. Ross Perot before closing its doors after the bottom fell out of the securities market and credit froze in November 2008, losing more than $2.6 billion in a matter of days.

Earlier this month, Brown Investment Management, L.P., one of the plaintiffs in this suit against Ernst & Young, won a Delaware Supreme Court ruling that requires Parkcentral Global to disclose its former investors. Those investors could be added to the new Houston lawsuit. “Our clients were told that an investment in Parkcentral was designed to preserve capital,” Mr. Anaipakos says. “Instead, they lost every penny in record time.  E&Y was supposed to be auditing Parkcentral, but the audited financial statements never once warned Parkcentral’s investors of their impending doom.”

Not only has Dallas defense attorney Barry Sorrels slugged it out in more than 300 state and federal trials on both sides of the aisle. The Ivy League gridiron star with the syrupy Texas drawl has over the years become a sought-after legal analyst at the local and national level. Earlier this month, Barry was in the TruTV’s New York studios to discuss the day’s testimony in the Javon Walker robbery and kidnapping trial.

For eight long years, a group of Century 21 franchisees has soldiered on in litigation against Century 21 owner Cendant (now known as Realogy) over the proper use of more than $40 million in annual contributions to a trust for the benefit of franchisees and the withholding of services required in the franchise agreements. These individual Century 21 real estate offices point to franchise agreements that require revenue from a so-called National Advertising Fund to be used for marketing for the benefit of Century 21 franchisees. According to court documents, Cendant has instead diverted the funds for its own benefit and the benefit of Century 21’s competitors, including Coldwell Banker and ERA, both wholly owned by Cendant.

Newly released court transcripts indicate that Century 21 real estate franchisees might have clear cause to recoup some of their money via a class-action lawsuit against Cendant, which bought Century 21 back in 1995. In an August 17 ruling from the bench, New Jersey Superior Court Judge Robert Brennan indicated that the Century 21 franchises have an interest in ensuring that Cendant abides by the franchise agreement.

Importantly, the Plaintiffs in this case do not seek to change the franchise agreement, they simply want Cendant to abide by the terms of the agreement and to deliver the full panoply of benefits that it undertook to supply. No former franchisee has disavowed this goal.

Brennan added that the lawyers at Zwerling, Schachter & Zwerling LLP argued successfully for a class-action suit because they proved that all Century 21 franchisees were impacted by Cendant’s actions. The sheer number of potential plaintiffs – more than 1,000 – also helped qualify the matter for class-action status, he said.

Before it’s over, the class-action suit could include more than 4,000 individuals who held Century 21 franchises between 1995 and 2002.

"Class certification is a difficult hurdle to overcome," plaintiffs’ attorney Robert S. Schachter of Zwerling Schachter & Zwerling LLP told Law360. "You have to show why and how it's necessary, which we did. The judge found that we overcame that burden."

In 1995, former Century 21 CEO Richard J. Loughlin told the Orange County Register that Cendant’s purchase would have little impact on Century 21. The newspaper also quoted one franchisee saying that she hoped the purchase might mean more money to promulgate more sales.

But the lawsuit, which was filed in 2002, contends the opposite happened: that following the purchase, Cendant started using money from the National Advertising Fund to promote its other holdings, which included Century 21 competitors Coldwell Banker and ERA. Cendant also cut the Century 21 support staff from about 5,000 workers to fewer than 300 and trimmed Century 21’s salesperson training and recruiting programs as well, the suit maintains. At the time of the purchase, Cendant was known as Hospitality Franchise Systems Inc.

A recent ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Nina Gershon might be a major break in the case against Arab Bank, which plaintiffs claim is funding global terrorism. But to Dallas lawyer Mark Werbner, it’s one more step in an extended spiritual journey.

Werbner, co-founder of Sayles Werbner, is one of the lawyers representing plaintiffs in claims that Arab Bank has helped fund Hamas and other terrorist organizations in their attacks. About 200 plaintiffs – including 50 U.S. families – have signed on to the suit, which seeks $1 billion in damages from the bank.

D Magazine detailed how the case became a personal quest for Werbner: Werbner shifted from secular lawyer to Zionist activist in 1984, when he and his wife took a trip abroad with a group of Dallas Jews. Visiting Auschwitz, they saw the shower rooms where Jews were gassed; the ovens where their remains were burned; the shoes, eyeglasses, and luggage left behind. For Werbner, it was all suddenly much more than the history books. And from these camps, the group traveled to Israel.

This juxtaposition—"coming from the ashes of the crematorium to the steps of the parliament in Israel," says Cheryl Pollman—was transformative. After returning to Dallas, they joined just about every Jewish service organization in town. "It was like I had what I considered to be a fairly boring, average life,” says Werbner. “Suddenly I saw I had this great treasure of things that offered purpose, challenge, and adventure."

The protracted litigation – which began in 2004 -- has tested both Werbner’s resolve and previous legal boundaries. The case is among the first to apply new provisions of the Anti-Terrorist Act, passed by Congress in 2001, in part to prevent the secret bank financing of international terrorism. Through the course of litigation, Arab Bank has steadily resisted the discovery efforts of the plaintiffs, many of whom have lost loved ones or been wounded themselves by terrorist attacks in Israel. The ruling from the Eastern DIstrict of New York instructed the jury that based on Arab Bank's resistence to producing discovery material requested by the plaintiffs, they may infer from that Arab Bank processed and distributed payments to terrorists on behalf of the Saudi Committee to Support the Intifada Al Quds.

"This ruling is an important turning point in this long-running terror financing case," says Mr. Werbner, lead counsel for many of the victims. "It clears the way for a jury trial in Brooklyn and represents a landmark ruling for Americans injured or killed by international terrorism."

The instructions have given new fire for Werbner’s fight on behalf of terror victims. And likely they have strengthened Werbner’s faith in both his cause and his case.

Potential defendants in the BP oil spill prosecutions—and that list could be very long indeed—need to do two things: 1) keep their mouths shut and 2) settle in for a long, hard fight with the feds. This advice comes courtesy of Houston criminal defense attorney Dan Cogdell, of Cogdell & Ardoin, in an Aug. 22 editorial in the Houston Chronicle.

Cogdell’s editorial came out the day before federal prosecutors gather ammunition at the U.S. Coast Guard and the Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement hearings on the BP disaster. The hearings began today in Houston.

Cogdell, who has represented numerous clients in environmental and white-collar criminal cases, admits that staying silent may seem uncooperative, but it will be “the smartest path.” The federal government is preparing its BP prosecutions across a variety of fronts, including the Clean Water Act, the Refuse Act, and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act—and they won’t just be seeking slaps on the wrist, Cogdell says.

First, the government will rely on the "Responsible Corporate Officer Doctrine," which allows Clean Water Act violations to be directed at even top corporate officers. Prosecutions under this theory have resulted in convictions of people who were not even at work sites and, in one case, a person not even working for a company but who had "honorary power." The Responsible Corporate Officer Doctrine may be the prosecutor's ticket to tag BP's hierarchical elite while soothing the related political nightmare currently facing the U.S. government.

With such threats looming, employees of BP and other companies involved “must balance the idea of seeing justice done with protecting themselves and their employer. Taking the Fifth at this point may be the least popular but most prudent move,” Cogdell writes.

Defendants have two other things working against them, Cogdell writes. First, to secure a misdemeanor Clean Water Act violation, the government doesn’t have to prove intentional harm. It only needs to show that employees were negligent and failed to provide the proper care to avoid an accident—a much lower bar for prosecutors. Second, “this is not BP's first rodeo,” according to Cogdell.

A company culture that prosecutors contend encourages money-saving over safety has landed BP in the government's sights time and time again, and will only bolster the efforts of Howard Stewart, the formidable top prosecutor on the BP spill.

Houston law firm Ahmad, Zavitsanos & Anaipakos have earned a significant court ruling that helps lift a veil of secrecy that has allowed hedge funds to avoid disclosing the identities of their investors. In its August 12 ruling, the Delaware Supreme Court rejected the idea that federal law keeps investors who suffered hedge fund losses from learning who else might be interested in joining an investigation or a lawsuit against fund managers or third parties like auditors. 

The ruling from Delaware’s highest civil court stems from a case involving Brown Investment Management, L.P., a limited partner that invested in Plano, Texas-based hedge fund, Parkcentral Global. In less than 90 days, Brown Investment Management lost all of its investment in the hedge fund. Parkcentral Global is now a liquidated hedge fund run by affiliates of billionaire and former presidential candidate H. Ross Perot. Court documents show Parkcentral Global’s loses at approximately $2.6 billion. 

“Hedge funds exploded in the last decade because pooled investments provide a largely unregulated way for hedge fund managers to make money for themselves. This ruling helps those who lost money in poorly-managed funds to find other investors and join together to take legal action,” says attorney Amir H. Alavi, with Ahmad, Zavitsanos & Anaipakos who tried the case for Brown Investment Management. “Hedge funds where managers lacked diligence and proper risk analysis can no longer use divide-and-conquer tactics to avoid responsibility for losses.” 

Much has changed in the legal world since Steve Good began his first term as Gardere’s managing partner back in 2000. Under Good’s leadership the firm doubled its profits, expanded its expertise and added new offices, among other things.

Facing a term limit that would have prevented Good from serving a third term as managing partner, Gardere’s Management Committee realized that a shake-up at the top was unnecessary and voted instead to waive the partnership agreement in his case and allow him to serve another term. The popular Mr. Good will now continue as managing partner until 2017.

The decision to extend his term was an “overall vote of confidence” in the work Mr. Good has done since becoming Managing Partner, according to committee member Eric Blumrosen. Gardere has seen its profits more than double under Mr. Good's leadership. In that same period, the firm also went from three offices to four as he was instrumental in adding the Austin office which provides legislative and regulatory services. The firm also has offices in Dallas, Houston and Mexico City.

"In this job, you want to look around at the end of the day and see success not only for your clients, but also for your fellow lawyers and employees,” says Mr. Good, who also maintains an active tax practice at Gardere.

An Irving, Texas, high school student wasn’t at all happy when school administrators confiscated her cell phone recently and read through her text messages.  Now, Madelyn Beaird’s father is demanding $7.5 million in damages because, he says, the school violated his daughter’s constitutional rights.   

"The sender of text messages to the recipient enjoys an expectation of privacy," said John Beaird. "Probable cause is not just a hunch."

Mr. Beaird spoke to The Dallas Morning News, which reported that he also asked that the school fire individual administrators who were involved in the search. But attorney Tom Brandt of Fanning Harper Martinson Brandt & Kutchin in Dallas, who represents school districts, other public entities, and businesses, says it’s not always that clear-cut.  In fact, he tells FOX 4 News reporter Peter Daut that schools often struggle to find the balance between students’ rights and other concerns:

“The students’ rights to privacy usually give way to the concerns for public safety,” Brandt said. “The case law decisions that have been made in the past don’t necessarily address directly text messaging or Facebook or whatever it might be.”

You can view the FOX 4 News story in its entirety here.

The school, MacArthur High School, released a statement saying it was working in the interests of all students.  Administrators say they were investigating reports of possible criminal activity, including the keying of two cars and the possibility that someone brought a gun onto the campus.  The Irving ISD School Board later found the search was proper; Mr. Beaird indicates he will file suit.

Minnesota resident Koua Fong Lee is now a free man.

Lee walked out of prison this week following court hearings that focused on concerns that a cruise control problem in the Toyota Camry he was driving caused a 2006 crash that killed three people. Lee has been serving an eight-year prison sentence after a jury determined that he was to blame for causing the crash. Based on new testimony related to widespread problems with the Camry's cruise control system, Lee was granted a new trial. Prosecutors later indicated that they wouldn’t seek a new trial.

In June 2006, Mr. Lee was driving his Toyota Camry when it unexpectedly accelerated before crashing into another car and killing Javis Adams, 33, his son Javis Adams Jr., 10, and his niece Devyn Bolton, 7. Mr. Lee was convicted of criminal vehicular homicide in October 2007 and sentenced to eight years in prison. A fourth person in the car, Quincy Adams, recently told a Minnesota TV station that he felt joy when he heard Lee had been released.

Attorneys Bob Hilliard from the Corpus Christi, Texas-based law firm of Hilliard Muńoz Gonzales LLP and Brent Schafer of Minneapolis’ Schafer Law Firm, P.A. argued in court that an inspection of Lee’s car found a cable actuator in the cruise control mechanism stuck in the open position, which would have caused the car to accelerate uncontrollably.

Hilliard and Schafer warned that the deadly defect remains in older, non-recalled Toyotas. In fact, 11 owners of similar Toyota models testified at the hearing that they have experienced the same sudden, unintentional acceleration in their cars. Mr. Hilliard says prosecutors in at least three states are reevaluating cases of fatal accidents involving older Toyotas, and that the “Toyota Defense” used in Mr. Lee’s trial could help in those cases.

In a recent interview with Minnesota Public Radio, Hilliard said:

"I know there is at least one fellow in Oregon who's serving time whose lawyers have contacted me to take a look at his Toyota. He claimed that he was with his daughter in the middle of the day and it took off on him and there was a fatality. I know the prosecutor in Florida and perhaps California is considering charges and is reevaluating charges for two different individuals because they were driving Toyotas."

As an attorney focusing on appellate law, you could say that Ryan Clinton knows a thing or two about taking in stray cases; over time, he’s learned that, with proper care, no case is hopeless. 

Outside his Austin law offices at Hankinson Levinger, Clinton enjoys equally high esteem for his passionate work to improve conditions for stray animals in our nation’s animal shelters, and he has become a national voice in the cause of saving homeless pets. In a speech last month at the 2010 No-Kill Conference in Washington, D.C., Clinton delivered a detailed description of efforts by FixAustin.org to improve conditions and practices at the city of Austin’s animal shelter.

As reported by the San Francisco Chronicle: Clinton and other Austin animal lovers banded together as FixAustin.org and vowed to change things for the city's animals. At first, they had no luck. "No one wanted to even talk about improving things," he said. Not only were the head of animal control and even the large private animal organizations hostile, but "the City Council wasn't interested; it was like talking to a brick wall."

This is the point when a lot of animal lovers give up. After all, if the local government doesn't care, and the animal welfare groups don't care, and the shelter director doesn't care, what can you do?

But Clinton and other members of the FixAustin.org nonprofit went to battle. The result, so far, has been a reduction in shelter animals killed in Austin from about 50 percent to about 29 percent. The goal is to save the lives of at least 90 percent of the city’s shelter animals.

Last December, Clinton received the Henry Bergh Leadership Award, which salutes individuals for their animal-welfare efforts. (Clinton was one of five recipients of that award in 2009.) As a result of Clinton’s work, members of Austin City Council voted unanimously to direct the city manager to formulate a plan for Austin to implement no-kill policies and procedures.

While Clinton’s advice was definitely pertinent to animal lovers, it was extremely applicable to anyone who would like to work within the system (READ: an uncooperative bureaucracy) to improve a community’s quality of life, including:

• Don’t only criticize your local government, politicians or bureaucrats, but offer specific alternatives and solutions to current, flawed policies.
• Find those solutions by researching communities that have successfully met similar challenges with solutions elsewhere.
• Analyze the power structure in government to determine who can best affect change from the inside.
• It’s more important to look well-funded, well-organized and professional than to be all those things. Those elements are important in projecting power to those in power.
• Above all things, don’t give up. Bureaucracies often count on individuals eventually shrugging their shoulders and walking away. When those in government learn that you’re going to stick around, they’ll act.

BP Oilspill damages claims to be heard in New Orleans venue a plus for plaintiffs
The national litigation over the Deepwater Horizon environmental disaster will stay in the Gulf Coast region, now that the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation consolidated the country’s pending cases before U.S. District Judges Carl J. Barbier and Keith P. Ellison. As a result of the consolidation, all injury and economic damages claims related to the oil well blowout will be heard by Judge Barbier of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, while all investor lawsuits will be heard by Judge Ellison of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

Houston attorney Mark Lanier, founder of The Lanier Law Firm, filed the motion for national consolidation, and presented his case at a July 29 hearing in Boise, Idaho, before a panel of judges. Lanier argued that efficiency, economies of scale and fairness are achieved by some consolidation of cases against BP, Transocean, Cameron International, Halliburton Energy Services and others.

The New York Times reports: The choice of New Orleans is a significant defeat for BP and other companies being sued over the spill, which had asked the same panel to consolidate cases in Houston, where their headquarters are located — and where, plaintiffs had argued, they might find a friendlier legal environment.

Lanier tells the NY Times the decision to hear the cases in New Orleans bodes well for those negatively impacted by the oilspill: "[T]he decision by the panel was “logical,” but added, “BP is probably beside themselves.” In New Orleans, he said, “It will be very hard for them to find a jury that doesn’t want to hang ’em,” he said.

As for the investor cases consolidated in Houston, Lanier was quoted in a Bloomberg article saying: [T]he securities cases may have more value in the long run than the economic loss cases.”

The Lanier Law Firm represents hundreds of individuals and business owners in claims against the companies responsible for the April 20 explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, and Lanier was among the first attorneys in the nation to file suit against BP following the blast.

Gulf residents and businesses need to be ready to document their losses and expect a fair amount of scrutiny if they plan to seek compensation from British Petroleum’s $20 billion compensation fund, says Houston criminal defense attorney Dan Cogdell, who represented people accused of defrauding FEMA after the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes. The way prosecutors vigorously pursued those storm cases provides a blueprint for what could happen next, Cogdell says.

“Federal prosecutors filed charges over even a few thousand dollars thought to have been grabbed improperly,” says Cogdell of Cogdell & Ardoin. “Victims who feel massively wronged by what happened need to be careful to document everything in support of their claims, and not let the injustice of the situation lead them to bend rules and potentially wind up facing criminal charges.”

That kind of scrutiny may be difficult on those seeking quick compensation for valid claims, but it’s probably not unjustified, say experts. Even Kenneth R. Feinberg, who was appointed by President Obama to administer the fund, acknowledged that fraud is always a concern.

According to a report in the New York Times,

Nothing can undercut the credibility of a program more than the perception that you’re paying fraudulent claims,’ said Mr. Feinberg, who administered the settlement for victims of the 9/11 attacks and has done similar work for people affected by Hurricane Katrina, the defoliant Agent Orange and the 2007 killings at Virginia Tech University.

The key to fighting fraud, he said, is corroboration of large claims. Of the 7,300 claims processed in the $7 billion 9/11 fund, he said, his team determined that 35 were fraudulent. ‘Some people went to jail, others paid a fine,’ he said.

Emergency claims, which tend to be smaller, will not get that kind of scrutiny, he said. ‘You’ve got to get these payments out quicker, so people can stay in business and pay the light bill and put food on the table.

If history is precedent, though, some fraudulent claims are bound to get through. According to a 2006 report in USA Today, FEMA paid out at least $1 billion in fraudulent claims after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Among the Hall of Shame:

• FEMA sent $2,358 to someone who claimed a damaged house in a New Orleans cemetery.

• Another $4,358 went to a Mississippi prisoner who gave officials his correct mailing address — at the prison where he'd been locked up since 2004.

• The agency paid $8,000 for someone to stay in a California hotel for five months, all while paying $6,700 in rental assistance for the same period.

Working mothers everywhere cheered when news broke earlier this year that a little-known aspect of health care reform legislation would grant protections to working mothers and ensure that they are provided with time and resources to pump breast milk during the work day.

Turns out, while the amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act grants these protections to many working women, one important segment of the workforce is left out of the protections – those so-called exempt employees, executive-level workers who receive a salary rather than an hourly wage.

The legislation puts companies in a difficult position and threatens to alienate a valuable segment of their workforce, says Audrey Mross, who heads the Labor and Employment practice at Dallas’ Munck Carter. “No matter the law, companies need to ask themselves whether they really want to risk angering some of the more powerful, successful women in the building,” Mross says.  “I don’t know if that’s a policy they want to follow.” A recent USA Today article published some general information from a “Fact Sheet” the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division released that states:

•Employers must provide "reasonable break time" for an employee to express breast milk. Advocates say nursing mothers need about a half-hour break for every four hours worked.

•Employers must be flexible as far as the timing and length of breaks needed by nursing mothers to express milk. Although a bathroom is not a permissible space, employers don't need a dedicated lactation center, as long as a suitable temporary space is available when needed by a nursing mother. Companies with fewer than 50 workers don't have to give breast-feeding breaks if they can show that doing so would impose an "undue hardship."

Imagine, for just a moment, a roomful of lawyers, paralegals and legal staff forbidden from speaking. It’s not a lawyer joke – it’s one of a series of exercises that employees at Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP must complete during diversity workshops staged by the Anti-Defamation League.

There’s plenty to learn within any company about diversity and inclusion, and the ADL has figured out a way to teach this lesson in a memorable manner. For example, in the “Human Time Line” exercise, participants have to figure out how to communicate with each other and physically line up by order of firm seniority – all without speaking a word.

In other exercises designed by A WORKPLACE OF DIFFERENCE®, a program of the ADL’s A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE® Institute, participants explore “Conflict Triggers” where individual flashpoints are discussed openly in order to explore methods of effective responses to conflict.

The idea is that firm employees walk away with a greater sense of camaraderie and heightened morale. As a byproduct, the program enhances recruitment and promotion opportunities, improves client relations and customer loyalty and generally increases productivity. For more than 15 years, Gardere has required that attorneys and staff participate in the program during their first year of employment at Gardere, and the program now serves as a cornerstone for Gardere’s commitment to diversity.

“We are focused on encouraging and fostering diversity of thought, and creating a workplace that is truly inclusive,” says Managing Partner Steve Good. “This program has provided each of us with the tools and resources to better understand the needs of not only our colleagues, but our clients as well.”

The law of economics and human nature seem to agree on this much: If you pay someone for reporting a crime, you’ll probably catch more criminals. With that in mind, federal lawmakers are hoping that more financial fraud whistleblowers will come forward now that they’re offering them a piece of any ill-gotten gains that are recovered.

Explains the LA Times: Tucked in the massive bill is a provision that for the first time extends a concept long applied to government contracts to the private sector. It gives whistle-blowers a mandatory 10% — and as much as 30% — of what the government recoups in fines and settlements in financial fraud cases. These can include insider trading, false earnings reports and classic Ponzi schemes. To claim a bounty, the whistle-blower must provide the Securities and Exchange Commission with "original information" that reveals the fraud and leads to a successful recovery. 

But Vivienne Schiffer of the Houston office of Thompson & Knight says that a new whistleblower incentive in the new U.S. financial reform package could work against the best interests of companies. Schiffer says that in the past, company employees might have tried to prevent corruption from occurring in the first place. But thanks to the new incentive, now they might simply wait for the right moment to dial regulators.

“Unfortunately, instead of employees working with the company to improve anti-corruption standards, I can see employees looking the other way until they find just the right economic advantage for themselves,” Schiffer says.

The SEC isn’t the only government agency in the business of rewarding whistleblowers. The Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006 allows the Internal Revenue Service to pay whistleblowers 15 to 30 percent of all funds recovered by the IRS when they successfully pursue a case. That program is limited to claims against taxpayers whose gross annual income exceeds $200,000 and whose potential indebtedness for taxes, penalties, and interest is more than $2 million.

More recently, the the health care reform legislation of 2011 calls for high-tech bounty hunters to root out health care fraud. According to Bloomberg: The health overhaul makes it easier for citizens to be rewarded for uncovering swindles, cuts the time before medical providers can be accused of withholding overpayments from Medicare and Medicaid, and includes pages of complicated new rules that can be broken.

As a reporter, Mary Flood utilized a rare combination of talents to become one of Texas’ most respected legal writers. She was a seasoned Houston Post newspaper reporter before she decided to go to law school – graduating cum laude from Harvard Law School, no less. Mary practiced law in the Washington, D.C., offices of Morrison & Foerster, and as a solo plaintiff’s attorney in Houston before she returned to journalism. She worked for The Wall Street Journal’s Texas Journal and most recently the Houston Chronicle. Flood also taught Media Law & Ethics at the University of Houston for several years while working as a reporter. 

Covering the legal beat, including the business of law, for the Chronicle, Mary developed an enviable network of sources – from judges to clerks, solos to large firms and everyone in between – and led the Chronicle’s award-winning legal coverage of the Enron scandal. She covered hundreds of trials and penned a Chronicle blog and a hard-copy column about the legal business. NPR listeners came to know Mary as the regular guest analyst who could break down the complexities of the Enron scandal in a way that common folks could understand.

Androvett Legal Media & Marketing is proud to welcome Mary to its Houston office, where she will use her news judgment and knowledge of the Texas legal landscape to help lawyers and their clients frame litigation issues and handle crisis communications and mount effective public relations, marketing and advertising campaigns.

“We’ve worked with Mary as a reporter for many, many years,” says Mike Androvett, founder and President of Androvett Legal Media & Marketing. “She is a tough journalist who always asks the hard questions and leaves no stone unturned. She’s exactly the kind of reporter we prepare our clients for, so she’s the first person we thought of to help grow our Houston office.”

Online travel companies like Hotels.com, Travelocity, Expedia and Priceline have suffered another legal blow as cities across the U.S. challenge the companies’ business models and seek to collect millions in unpaid hotel taxes. 

The latest development: a $21.2 million award for the City of San Diego based on unpaid hotel taxes.

Attorneys from McKool Smith, including Gary Cruciani and Steve Wolens, represented the city with evidence that the online travel companies failed to pay the fair amount of hotel room occupancy taxes. Instead of paying taxes on the room price they charge to consumers, the hotel companies practice has been to pay taxes only on the bulk, wholesale price they pay for rooms before reselling to customers online.

Like other California cities, San Diego required the city to first exhaust its administrative remedies before going to court. After a contested evidentiary hearing that took place in January, the Hearing Officer found that the online travel companies owe the city slightly more than $17 million in unpaid taxes in addition to $4.25 million in penalties. The award was recently disclosed in documents filed by the defendants in a related case.

The San Diego case is one of hundreds filed by cities across the country. In October 2009, McKool Smith won a $20 million verdict for the City of San Antonio and more than 170 other Texas cities in a federal lawsuit based on similar claims. In California, the firm prevailed in another administrative hearing that resulted in a $21 million award for the City of Anaheim in February 2009. McKool Smith also represents Broward County, Florida, and many other governmental entities in similar proceedings over unpaid hotel occupancy taxes.

Consumer debt, it seems, is ubiquitous in the United States. While we all know about the practical reasons to avoid massive credit card debt, the big unknown is the emotional and psychological impact that debt can have on individuals’ personal and professional lives when it spirals out of control.

Last month's murder/suicide involving Coppell Mayor Jayne Peters and her daughter, Corinne, provides a grim glimpse at how debt can magnify stress and cause individuals to lose perspective. According to police reports, Jayne Peters was leading a secret life when it came to her financial situation. She was facing home foreclosure, as well as queries about her personal use of a city-owned credit card. As her financial situation reached a crisis, she fatally shot her teenaged daughter before killing herself. A city review of her municipal credit-card use indicates she spent more than $800 on restaurants between November 2009 and June 2010, when only about $100 of the charges appeared to be related to city business. Other charges included purchases at Anthropologie and Hollister clothiers.

Dallas collections attorney Darrell Cook of Darrell W. Cook & Associates says the Coppell tragedy offers valuable lessons about the stress and anxiety that accompanies people facing high amounts of debt. “Stress levels can go sky high when collections calls start coming, and people must prepare themselves beforehand,” Cook says.

One of the biggest mistakes people make is overreacting to calls from creditors, he says. “Even though most creditors are willing to negotiate, I’ve seen everything from people leaving the country to threatening to commit suicide simply because they couldn’t pay the bills,” he says.

When the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) went into effect Aug. 5, 1993, great hopes were placed on the legislation, one of the first signed by new President Bill Clinton. And with few exceptions the act has been a success in providing job protections for those facing serious health issues or who are responsible for helping seriously ill family members.

However, as the 17^th anniversary approaches, it would be easy to assume employers as well as employees now have a good understanding of this important protection. But you know what they say about what happens when you assume anything.

Despite claims by the Department of Labor touting the success of the FMLA and the ease of administering associated leave, a high number of employers continue to struggle with issues such as record-keeping, determining eligibility, and coordinating with other leave and attendance policies under state and federal law. Unfortunately though there seems to always be a small percentage of workers who understand the system all too well, and take the opportunity to use it to their personal advantage.

Finding a way to deal with employees suspected of abusing FMLA protections is a continuing source of frustrations for employers who are otherwise happy to do everything possible to help when their workers need the protected leave, says labor and employment attorney Carrie Hoffman of the Dallas office of Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP. “FMLA provides few rights to employers to curb potential abuse of this very important leave, and when employees abuse FMLA it can wreak havoc on workplace productivity, leaving not only the employer, but also coworkers to suffer.”

While the Deepwater Horizon blowout finally appears to be contained, there’s still a steady flow of new details coming out related to the events leading up to and following the blowout and explosion.

Witnesses testified at a recent hearing held by the U.S. Coast Guard and the federal agency overseeing deepwater drilling that new mechanical and electrical problems plagued the rig. Among other things, crew members were unable to activate emergency systems that might have prevented the rig from burning and sinking to the ocean floor, says Houston attorney Mark Lanier, founder of The Lanier Law Firm.

“The evidence is clear that BP and Transocean were grossly negligent and clearly responsible for the deaths, injuries and financial losses caused by the explosion and rush of oil that’s devastating the Gulf Coast,” says Lanier. “As more facts are revealed, the culpability of these companies and others will only grow."

Now, the Houston Chronicle also is reporting that BP executives say they don't expect to be found grossly negligent, but a letter from Texas officials indicates otherwise. From the article:

According to a letter from Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Attorney General Greg Abbott, BP General Counsel Jack Lynch said in a conference call the company would be found grossly negligent. That would mean BP would face fines of up to $4,300 per barrel spilled under federal environmental laws, instead of the $1,100 per barrel for spills where the party isn't negligent.

And in a recent Reuters article looking at shareholder lawsuits against BP, Lanier had this to say about the company:

"BP was telling the world that they are really a safe company," said Houston-based plaintiffs' lawyer Mark Lanier. "What was being told to the public -- including the shareholders -- was a fraudulent facade."

As the Boy Scouts of America recently celebrated its centennial in Washington, D.C., Houston lawyer and Scout historian Nelson R. Block was on hand for a book signing at the Smithsonian Museum of American History.

Block, a shareholder at Winstead PC, is co-editor of Scouting Frontiers: Youth and the Scout Movement’s First Century. Scouting Frontiers features 15 of the best papers from a 2008 symposium on Scouting history held at Johns Hopkins University, which included such diverse topics as Muslim Scouting in Wales, the growth of Scouting in Israel and Scouting in India and Australia.

Texas Lawyer newspaper recently spoke with Block about his book and the event, which helped kick off the 10-day National Scout Jamboree.

Block has been the pro bono attorney for the Sam Houston Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America for 20 years, and his work in Scouting history has been honored by Scout associations in the United States and Great Britain.

Now, more than ever, buyers of legal services are influenced by social media tools. Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Wikipedia are playing important roles in the everyday lives of law firms and the way that information is shared by members of the legal community. And here’s more proof…

Greentarget Strategic Communications, ALM Legal Intelligence and Zeughauser Group conducted a survey of 164 in-house counsel to analyze new media adoption among buyers of legal services.  Some interesting results from the Corporate Counsel New Media Engagement Survey include:

•  Nearly 70 percent of respondents aged 30 to 39 expect their consumption of business and legal industry news through social media platforms to increase within the next six months.


•  43 percent of in-house counsel identified blogs as among their leading sources of news and information.


• 50 percent of in-house counsel see a future in which a high-profile blog will influence a client’s decision to hire a law firm.


• In-house counsel usage of the big three new media platforms- LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter- is growing for both professional and personal reasons.


• 51 percent of in-house counsel said they would receive content from their law firms via new media platforms provided the content is relevant to their businesses.

At Androvett Legal Media & Marketing, we have expertise regarding the benefits law firms could obtain through the professional use of social media.  For more information and to visit our white paper regarding this topic, click here.

Dallas-based Southwest Airlines has long been viewed as a maverick in the aviation industry, still (!) offering passengers free peanuts and employing flight attendants who aren’t afraid to call you “hon.”

While Southwest is the envy of other airlines when it comes to passenger goodwill and loyalty, it can’t seem to catch a break when it comes to oversized- or inappropriately dressed passengers. Earlier this year, actor/director Kevin “Silent Bob” Smith lit up the Internet when he was forced to deplane after Southwest flight attendants told him he was too large for a single seat.The opposite occurred last week when a reed-thin 110-pound passenger flying standby was removed from a plane to make room for an obese 14-year-old who required two seats.

While Southwest is on firm legal ground, Dallas aviation attorney William Angelley says the airline could have handled the situation better. “They probably should have asked for volunteers in order to make a seat for this 14 year old,” William Angelley of  Hightower-Angelley LLP tells MyFoxDFW’s Peter Daut.

The incident occurred during boarding for a Southwest flight from Las Vegas to Sacramento. A 110-pound passenger, who was flying standby, had settled into her seat when the airplane crew asked her to deplane to make room for a 14-year-old passenger who needed two seats due to the individual’s weight.

“It’s a very sensitive issue and it’s a very real issue because the airlines have seats of certain size,” Angelley, a former Navy pilot, tells Daut. “They can’t retool these aircraft – it would be cost-prohibitive to do that.”

Angelley, who has commercial pilot ratings for both airplanes and helicopters, says Southwest Airlines acted well within its rights in removing the woman to make way for the larger passenger, who arrived late. Southwest Airlines tells Daut that the incident was atypical.

Angelley gained first-hand experience in aviation as a pilot in the United States Navy. Angelley began his career in Dallas defending aviation insurance companies, maintenance facilities and manufacturers. Using the expertise he gained during these years, he later began representing individuals and families upon joining a New York-based firm specializing in plaintiffs’ aviation litigation. He worked in the firm’s New York and Los Angeles offices and was promoted to partner during his time there. During the course of his career, Angelley has been involved in numerous commercial, military and general aviation cases.

In Curious CIPRO Patent Defense, Bayer Lawyers Say That's Their Point

There was little surprise when lawyers for preaching drifter Brian David Mitchell indicated they plan to enter an insanity plea when his trial for the high-profile 2002 kidnapping of Utah youth Elizabeth Smart begins in November. After all, the insanity defense is a time-worn tool in criminal-defense circles. But such an approach is practically unheard of civil litigation, and that’s what makes pharmaceutical giant Bayer’s appeal seeking to defend the validity of its patent on the antibiotic, Cipro, so curious.

As BNET writer Jim Edwards notes in his recent blog post, Cipro lawyers are throwing two Bayer executives under the bus in a unique way, saying the two concealed or failed to disclose important evidence because they suffered from a laundry list of mental impairments

As Edwards explains: “In an appeal filing in a California state court, Bayer purportedly claims that two executives who may have concealed evidence showing its patents on Cipro were invalid must be mistaken because they suffer from ‘depression,’ ‘confused thinking,’ were elderly, had a ‘cerebral hemorrhage’ and ‘Parkinson’s or related degenerative disease involving extreme mental degeneration.’”

The novel defense was identified in an appeal filed by plaintiffs’ attorney Dan Drachler and his team from Zwerling, Schachter & Zwerling that has its own unique twist.

The appeal was initially filed under seal, based on an order in the original California court that was designed to protect “sensitive” business information. But at Drachler’s insistence, the seal was vacated July 2, allowing Bayer’s “insanity” defense and the full accounting of the millions of dollars involved in “pay to delay” agreements with generic manufacturers including Barr (now Teva) to come to light.

The full unredacted filing can be found here, with the formerly sealed information highlighted.

As a nationally respected life coach and family law attorney, Dallas attorney Mary Jo McCurley has plenty to say about tackling life’s challenges and finding success and fulfillment along the way.

Now, McCurley, a partner in McCurley Orsinger McCurley Nelson & Downing, has teamed with four other women’s health experts to publish “A Happy, Healthy You: A Woman’s Guide to Happiness, Health & Harmony.” Together with two medical doctors, a psychologist and an exercise physiologist, these women share their knowledge on how women over 35 can make the second half of their lives better than the first.

Some of the points the women discuss in their new book:

• The importance of “owning” your life, and what a positive, optimistic approach can mean.
• How to protect yourself from conditions like osteoporosis, heart disease and breast cancer.
• The importance of movement and its life-improving effects.
• How relationships can affect your health.
• The spiritual journey you take as you age gracefully – and successfully

"This book is about more than possibilities," says co-author Mary Jo McCurley. "It's about making life choices that make us younger than our years and help us, with each new day, to look forward to what life has to offer. It is within our control to be happier, healthier, and more in harmony with our world."

That your e-mail inbox isn’t completely hobbled by the daily tsunami of spam e-mail messages can be traced back to a little-known inventor named Robert Uomini and his company, InNova Patent Licensing LLC. InNova holds U.S. Patent No. 6,018,761, which covers technology that enables computers to weed out all those bogus Viagra messages and great deals on discount watches. The patent was awarded to Mr. Uomini, an inventor and mathematician, nearly 15 years ago when Internet e-mail was still in its formative stages.  

This week, InNova filed a lawsuit against 36 companies accused of violating the patent. Patent-infringement attorney Christopher Banys of The Lanier Law Firm, lead counsel for InNova, recently told The American Lawyer magazine that e-mail as we know it would stop working without InNova’s patent. From the article:  “Banys told us it's impossible to overestimate the importance of InNova's patented system. ‘If we didn't have this technology in e-mail, the volume of spam online would make it virtually unusable,’ he said.”

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in Marshall, names some of the world’s most recognizable companies as defendants, including Apple, JC Penney Co., Google, Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Inc., Frito-Lay, Inc., Bank of America Corporation and more. Why so many companies? From The American Lawyer: “InNova spent more than a decade trying to persuade operating companies to acknowledge the value of Uomini's patent before deciding it had no choice but to sue.”

The case is InNova Patent Licensing, LLC v. 3Com Corporation, et al., No. 10-cv-251.

Founding partners Deborah Hankinson and Jeffrey Levinger of the Dallas-based civil appellate firm Hankinson Levinger LLP earned yet another top ranking to add to their list of achievements.

They were recognized as two of Texas’ top appellate lawyers in the Chambers USA 2010 legal directory.

Chambers USA is an annual U.K. based publication that recognizes the top business law firms and leading individual attorneys in the United States.  Their selection for this prestigious honor was based on in-depth interviews with both peers and clients.

The publication stated that the “incredibly talented” Deborah Hankinson “is recommended for her intimate knowledge of judiciary procedures and her seasoned approach” while Jeffrey Levinger is cited as a “highly experienced, talented and knowledgeable appellate specialist.”

This honor is just one of their latest as both have been named among Texas’ top lawyers in the Texas Super Lawyers list since it was first published in 2003 and have both been recognized in The Best Lawyers in America.

Additionally, Ms. Hankinson has been listed as one of D Magazine’s Best Women Lawyers in Dallas and is ranked by Texas Lawyer newspaper as one of the state’s “Go-To” appellate attorneys. And Mr. Levinger, who serves as Chairman of the State Bar of Texas Committee on Pattern Jury Charges, was named to “The Defenders,” an elite list of North Texas’ top business defense attorneys published by the Dallas Business Journals earlier this year.

McKool Smith has added two veteran litigators and a former federal bankruptcy clerk in the firm’s rapidly growing Houston office.  It’s another signal that law firms without a banking clientele or traditional expertise in bankruptcy matters can experience rapid growth through the bankruptcy sector. As The Wall Street Journal reported in April, larger full-service law firms are increasingly running into conflicts of interest and can’t bring litigation against banks and other financial service firms that are current or former clients, a situation further complicated by consolidation in the banking business. Those ethics rules have opened the door for midsize trial firms such as McKool Smith

Writes the WSJ’s Nathan Koppel: Big blue-chip law firms are losing potentially lucrative assignments to smaller firms even as the industry sees a spike in lawsuits against banks stemming from the financial crisis. The reason for the change: ethics rules that govern conflicts of interest for lawyers and their firms. Law firms usually can't sue or investigate banks that they have represented, unless the clients take the unusual step of waiving the conflict. Thus, many small to midsize firms, which count fewer banks as defense clients, are filling a growing demand for conflict-free lawyers able to file lawsuits against banks.

Consolidation in the banking business has made it only harder for law firms to handle lawsuits against banks. It is increasingly difficult, lawyers said, for firms to find a major bank they haven't represented at some point. As a result, they are bumping up against the conflict-of-interest rules formulated by the American Bar Association and state bar groups.

“The addition of these three excellent lawyers is part of our overall goal to become one of the top bankruptcy shops anywhere in the country,” says Hugh M. Ray , a veteran bankruptcy attorney who joined McKool Smith in October of last year to establish the practice and manage the firm’s Houston office. “With bankruptcies and related litigation on the rise, and more and more law firms facing client conflicts in bankruptcy-related work, we expect to grow our group significantly in the coming months.”

Christopher D. Johnson, Ruth A. Van Meter and Nicholas Zugaro collectively bring more than 30 years of bankruptcy experience to McKool Smith, having represented Chapter 11 debtors, official unsecured creditors committees, creditors, and Chapter 7 trustees in significant cases heard in federal bankruptcy courts across the nation.

When divorce, child custody and other family law matters turn nasty, family law attorney Brad LaMorgese says the allegations rarely involve the kind of he-said she-said allegations alone like they did just a few years ago. Today, juries considering family law cases routinely consider text messages, social media postings and other electronic communications.

In fact, rude, taunting and threatening text messages have become the weapon of choice among parties going through divorce. The Washington Post noted last month how text messages are incleasingly used by estranged lovers and those trying to harass.

Harassment is "just easier now, and it's even more persistent and constant, with no letting up," says Claire Kaplan, director of sexual and domestic violence services at the University of Virginia, which became the focus of national attention in May with the killing of 22-year-old lacrosse player Yeardley Love.

Estranged spouses increasingly harass each other with direct messages sent at all hours, and their current flames often jump in by sending salacious photos meant to enrage the ex. "Needless to say, text messages provide useful evidence," says LaMorgese of McCurley Orsinger McCurley Nelson & Downing. "Texting can show a track record of harassment, rude behavior or activities that are not reflective of good parenting. The contents of these messages can be pivotal in property division and child custody cases." Such messages are on the rise and expected to become even more pervasive simply because wireless technology makes this form of communication so easy.

The Chicago Tribune reports that even by colorful Chicago criminal court standards, former Illinois governor Rod Blagojovich and his defense team schooled in what the Trib describes as a “razzle-dazzle legal style of Chicago's Criminal Courts Building” are taking things to a new level outside the courtroom. Writes the Tribune: Blagojevich has been on a barnstorming publicity blitz ever since his 2008 arrest and subsequent ouster from office, and prosecutors have raised hardly a peep as they likely kept a close look out for potentially incriminating statements he might utter on talk shows and "The Celebrity Apprentice." Now the former Illinois governor is a criminal defendant, but in many ways he continues to act more like a candidate for public office rather than a candidate for a long prison term.

Blogo's tongue wagging outside the courtroom finally led prosecutors to seek a gag order, a move that was ultimately denied by U.S. District Judge James Zagel. Facing hours of incriminating wiretap recordings and a list of co-defendants turned witnesses in his high-profile public corruption trial under way in Chicago, attorney Renee Skinner says one of Blagojevich’s central weapons will be his legal team’s ability to connect with the carefully chosen jurors who will ultimately decide his case. “Jury selection is an enormously important part of any trial,” says Skinner, of Fish & Richardson in Dallas, who frequently conducts mock trials, jury research and witness preparation in advance of trials. “Before trial testimony even begins, cases can be won and lost in the selection of jurors. And once a trial is under way, successful lawyers know that that connecting with jurors is the number one goal.”

Ah, summertime…roadtrips, blistering heat and tire blowouts. Despite all of their techological advances summer heat still does a doozie on tires, something that’s already become devastatingly clear this summer, when car crashes caused by blowouts claimed the lives of people in two separate California incidents. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune notes: Tires can fail during periods of excessive heat. Due to increased friction, high-speed driving, excessive cornering and frequent braking during periods of very high temperatures can cause the tire to heat up beyond their design ratings. Once this happens, a blowout can occur.

The consumer website Angie’s List recently asked its auto experts for advice on tire safety. Among the experts’ tips are maintaining proper pressure and routinely rotating tires. Houston attorney Wesley Todd Ball of Houston’s Farrar & Ball LLP offers some additional advice aimed at keeping drivers and passengers safe. “Before any long trip, perform a detailed inspection of each of your tires, including the spare,” says Ball, who recently won a $32.8 million verdict in a tire failure lawsuit.

“Look the tire over and run your hands along the tread, checking for foreign objects, separations or bulges, which are evidence of a failure sure to come,” says Ball. “And use the top of a penny to inspect for proper tread depth. If part of Lincoln’s head is covered, your tread depth is good.”

For a Supreme Court nominee who failed to win Senate confirmation more than two decades ago, Robert Bork has managed to have a profound and lasting impact on the Court and its makeup. Who knew back in 1987 that Bork’s contentious hearing and failed confirmation would mark such a turning point for the way justices are nominated and the kind of candidate who rises to the top? 

Ryan Clinton, a former Assistant Solicitor General for the State of Texas and an appellate attorney with Dallas’ Hankinson Levinger, says Bork left a long list of teaching moments for presidents and nominees alike. Nominees learned that candid and controversial comments would not be rewarded during the confirmation process. Presidents learned to select nominees with little or no paper trails that might otherwise shed some light on their viewpoints.

Post Bork, nominees have sought to avoid showing their cards on specific issues by falling back on the mantra that they cannot comment on particular issues or past Supreme Court cases because those matters might one day come back before the court. Clinton says he expects to see the same strategy from Kagan.

“As with all nominees since Robert Bork, the Senators questioning her will attempt to pin her down on some of the more controversial matters that come before the High Court, but Kagan will do her best to dodge those attempts,” Clinton says. “Barring some unforeseen revelation or meltdown, however, she will most likely be confirmed — as have all Supreme Court nominees who have reached this point, with the notable exception of Judge Bork.”

Kagan has been thoroughly vetted, and thanks to the Internet, just about everything she has written or said about anything has been unearthed, Mr. Clinton says. “The biggest chink in her armor is the fact that she doesn’t have judicial experience,” he says. “But you could do much worse than a U.S. Solicitor General, a former Harvard Law School dean, a former clerk to Thurgood Marshall, and a high-ranking official in the White House.”

It’s hard not to covet the iPhone, a device that has almost single handedly changed the way we think about smartphones, not to mention the fundamental ways we now communicate. Now, improvements like true multitasking unveiled in the iPhone 4 released this week raise the bar even higher in terms of form and function.

But PC Magazine raises this interesting question: Did Apple designers trade safety for functionality by placing the antennae on the outside of the device in order to enlarge the phone’s battery? The magazine explains:

Over time, cell phone antennas have migrated to the bottom of the phone, to minimize the SAR (specific absorption rate) of radiation that a phone produces, and is absorbed by the head. No study has ever conclusively found – or ruled out – that SAR and cancers are not connected, and the Federal Communications Commission requires phones to be tested and the results published. San Francisco recently became the first city in the nation to propose that SAR data be published alongside the phone.

The Apple iPhone 4 produces  a maximum of 1.17 mW/g of SAR radiation at the ear, more than the iPhone 3GS and original iPhone, but less than the 3G, at 1.38 mW/g. Moving the antenna closer to the ear was "unfortunate," said Spencer Webb, president of AntennaSys, an independent antenna consultant and designer for mobile and other products. "And that's the best I can say."

Papool Chaudhari of Reyes Bartolomei Browne, a lawyer representing an inventor of a technology designed to minimize cell-phone radiation, went further. "I think Apple chose to sacrifice safety for better call reception," Chaudhari said in a statement. "By placing the antenna outside the housing, Apple hopes to solve the dropped-calls problem, but at what cost?"

NY Times columnist Maureen Dowd weighed in over the weekend, wondering whether some day we'll view cell phone health risks the same way we think of cigarettes today. We don’t yet really know the physical and psychological impact of being slaves to technology. We just know that technology is a narcotic. We’re living in the cloud, in a force field, so afraid of being disconnected and plunged into a world of silence and stillness that even if scientists told us our computers would make our arms fall off, we’d probably keep typing.

Chaudhari, who is involved in two patent infringement actions against 10 manufacturers, including Sony, Samsung and Nokia, notes that many have complained about dropped calls on earlier versions of the iPhone and says that Apple's decision to move the new phone's antenna outside the casing means the iPhone 4 emits more radiation near users' heads than does the previous 3GS.

This Friday, June 25, workplaces are being encouraged to "go furry" as four-legged friends have the opportunity to accompany their owners to the 12th annual Take Your Dog to Work Day. First celebrated in 1999, Take Your Dog to Work Day was created by Pet Sitters International to celebrate the great companions dogs make and to encourage their adoption from humane societies, animal shelters and breed rescue clubs.

And although having Sparky or Fifi tag along may make the work day more enjoyable, labor and employment attorney Audrey Mross of Dallas' Munck Carter says there are other important considerations, including building management, which by law is required to allow service animals, but may prohibit others. Owners must take into account the logistics, including sanitation, noise and feeding. Additionally, owners must consider their co-workers and any allergies or fears of certain breeds. "On top of that, you need to be prepared for people to go beyond just dogs," Mross says. "If one person brings in a basset hound, someone else might want to match that with his pet boa."

The opportunities for discord, conflict and comedy are limitless: dog bites boss, dog bites boss's dog, dog urinates in cubicle, dog raids break room snack closet. To prepare your best friend for this potentially difficult professional situation, the Stafford County Sun has this practical advice:

To prepare your dog for a successful day at the office, he should be comfortable in new environments and greeting strangers. That means providing lots of practice before the big day by taking him along with you everywhere dogs are welcome such as to parks, dog-friendly restaurants with outdoor seating and pet stores. When you're out and about, teach your dog to sit while being petted rather than jumping up on the greeters. This will be especially important when you take him or her to the office. Good manners will go a long way and your boss and co-workers might even invite him back again.

If your co-workers bring their dogs to work too, make sure your dog and the others are dog-friendly before allowing any interactions. The last thing you'd want to do is have a public dog fight! That would be a sure-fire way to put the kibosh on next year's event! If all the dogs are friendly and have been well-socialized, interactions should be done on leash, fully supervised, kept short and sweet (5-10 minutes at a time) and ended on a positive note. Calling your dog back to you and giving him a reward for coming when called is a great way to end a short play session.

Despite last week's announcement that BP is setting aside $20 billion for the victims of the Gulf oil spill, many of the company's investors face concerns that they may be last in line for any earmarked funds or left out altogether. BP's share price hovered around $60 at the time of the spill, but since has been cut in half.
One group is attempting to protect its interests with a class-action lawsuit that says BP mislead investors about the company's ability to safely conduct it's day-to-day drilling operations and properly respond to such an oil spill. Attorneys from the New York law firm of Zwerling, Schachter & Zwerling are representing the investor group in the federal lawsuit filed in Louisiana, which covers anyone who bought BP shares from late February 2008 through mid-May 2010.
Attorney Robert Schachter, lead counsel for the investor group, tells BBC radio his clients don't aim to put BP out of business. Instead, they want the company to be responsible for statements they made before the disaster, indicating BP had learned from its mistakes - including the 2005 explosion at a BP plant in Texas City, Texas - and had the ability to handle just such an oil spill. Robert Schachter on the BBC 5 Live Program
Zwerling Schachter has handled similar cases against BP, including representing another group of investors following a 2006 oil leak that shut down BP's operations in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. That case ended with a multimillion-dollar settlementand helped earn recognition for Schachter as one of the country's top authorities on investor lawsuits.
In the current case, Schachter represents shareholders not just in the U.S., but around the world, as The Guardian reported: But Robert Schachter, partner at Zwerling, Schachter & Zwerling, said that several British institutional investors had contacted him about joining the class action his New York-based firm recently filed. He said he was confident that at least one British investor would be named as a plaintiff next month in order to make it more likely that British institutions would share in any payout.

Last week's natural gas pipeline explosion in North Texas that killed one worker and injured several others is now the subject of a lawsuit filed by attorneys from Houston's The Lanier Law Firm. The blast at Georges Creek Ranch between the towns of Cleburne and Granbury sent a pillar of flames into the air and thick black smoke that could be seen from 30 miles away. It left a deep crater extending more than 100 yards.

The lawsuit is filed on behalf of Corey Gautreaux, a Louisiana native who suffered severe burns and other bodily injuries in the June 7 tragedy. He was working with a crew from Dewey, Okla.-based C&H Power Line Construction to install electrical utility poles when a natural gas line owned by Houston's Enterprise Products Partners exploded. One of Mr. Gautreaux' co-workers, James Robert Neese, was killed, leaving behind a wife and seven children.

According to the Dallas Business Journal, the lawsuit accuses Enterprise Products of causing Gatreaux' injuries and the death of a co-worker by failing to properly mark the gas lines and by not warning the plaintiff about other similarly situated gas lines in the area. Gautreaux is accusing the gas line owner of gross negligence and is seeking damages for, among other claims, past and future physical pain, mental anguish, medical expenses, lost wages, benefits and physical disfigurement.

In an interview with WFAA TV Ch. 8, attorney Judd Waltman with the Lanier Law Firm in Houston spoke on behalf of Mr. Gautreaux and described the events that led up to the explosion. "Corey says he saw the event and heard what he describes as a loud 'thump' and saw debris and dirt flying out of the hole," Waltman said. "Immediately after that, the line ignited into a giant fireball coming toward him. He turned at that point to run as fast as he could for his life."

Now, Enterprise Products will face a trial in Harris County's 295th District Court in Houston. Earlier this month, a Harris County jury awarded $82.5 million to the family of a worker who was killed in a 2007 explosion at a natural gas processing plant near the same location.

For those who make a living in the oil industry along the Gulf Coast, the financial impact of the federal government's recently announced moratorium on deepwater drilling operations promises to have a rapid and profound impact. A recent Houston Business Journal article looks at companies that will be affected by the ban and paints a picture of how the dollar figures quickly add up. Consider: 33 rigs affected by the 180-day ban charge day rates between $250,000 and $500,000 a day, adding up to somewhere in the conservative neighborhood of $10 million a day in losses.

The article also highlights how the drilling moratorium will have an impact beyond lost revenue: "Thousands of workers are off the job, dozens of rigs will sit idle and companies now are invoking force majeure clauses to get out of drilling contracts," said Jason Itkin, co-founder of the Houston-based Arnold & Itkin LLP."

The government, fortunately, has realized the pending crisis of workers off the job, and is considering making BP pay their lost wages. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is quoted in a recent Houston Chronicle article: "BP is responsible for all the damages that flow from the BP oil spill," Salazar told a Senate panel Wednesday. "And these are some of the consequences from that oil spill."

Itkin agrees. His firm represents numerous workers and companies affected by the Deepwater Horizon explosion and ongoing oil spill. "All of these workers and companies affected by the moratorium may have a case against BP," he says. "Simply because the company decided that safety on the Deepwater Horizon wasn't as important as its bottom line."

It's no secret by now that our expanding use of social media networks has created a perilous and evolving landscape for businesses, institutions and regular folks. What's surprising is the myriad ways that online networks create concerns and conflicts that never existed just a few years ago. While Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg believes "the age of privacy is over" and there should be no distinction between a person's professional and private lives, the working world clearly has not and may never reach that degree of comfort.

Just last week the Dallas Morning News detailed how the Lewisville school district is considering a new policy that would forbid teachers and other school district workers from criticizing the district or even identifying themselves as employees of the district in their profiles and postings on social media sites. The paper also notes that the Texas Association of School Boards is drafting new policy language that addresses how employees should use social networking sites, even on their own time and on their own computers.

Meanwhile, according to the New York Times, 27 states now have some form of regulations to limit so-called SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) retaliations against consumers who post negative comments online. Federal legislation, currently in the House Subcommittee on Courts and Competition Policy, would all an individual who thinks he is being bullied by litigation for speaking out or petitioning on a public matter to seek to have the lawsuit dismissed. Finally, a report by Arezow Doost of KTVT/CBS 11 highlighted the growing trend in which businesses are using the legal system to fight negative reviews and comments on social networking sites. The broadcast notes the efforts of a Plano eye surgeon to uncover the source of a website posting critical of his services. Interviewed in the news report about this growing area of litigation, Dallas attorney Michael McCabe of Munck Carter says there are limits to freedom of speech, even on the Web. "If you make defamatory statements, that won't be protected by freedom of speech," says McCabe. "Can you be sued for it? Yes, if you are out there making defamatory statements online you very well might be sued for it."

FCPA Attorney Vivienne Schiffer says companies can no longer turn blind eye to overseas business practices.

The Justice Department is aggressively going after violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by hiring more prosecutors and employing unconventional techniques like undercover stings and wiretaps. The Washington Post recently reported that in the last 10 years, the number of FCPA probes going on at any one time jumped from eight to more than 130. Much of the increase in federal law enforcement scrutiny has occurred in the last year, when federal agents brought more FCPA indictments than the last seven years combined.

Writes the Washington Post: the days of doing business with a wink and a nod are over and even decisions made years ago may result in serious punishment. The effort is motivated in part by the principle that business shouldn't be conducted one way in modern countries and another way in developing nations.

No longer does the Justice Department rely solely on tips from whistle-blowers or business competitors to build cases. Today, officials are turning the tools of organized-crime investigations to anti-bribery. They are setting up sting operations, as took place in a recent investigation in which defendants from the United States, Britain and Israel allegedly tried to bribe a country's defense minister to provide access to outfit the country's presidential guard. While the FCPA is subject to a five-year statute of limitations, the government is effectively stretching that period in some cases by tacking on conspiracy charges where appropriate. So companies are looking beyond the past five years to determine their vulnerability.

Ms. Shiffer, an attorney in Thompson & Knight's Houston office, says this shift in Justice Department priorities is likely to force executives to become more focused than ever on what distant salespeople and consultants are doing to acquire new business.  "Given that 2009 was a record year for FCPA enforcement, the administration is signaling that American companies transacting any cross-border business should review and reinforce their anti-corruption policies," she says. Since 2004, the Justice Department has levied $1.5 billion in fines in more than two dozen FCPA cases, and more than 80 individuals have been charged. "It appears that charging individuals is a deliberate enforcement strategy and corporate punishments are also severe, whether or not the company and its officers even knew of the violations. ‘Paper programs' that sit on the shelf without effective implementation are not sufficient."

Summer arrived early in Dallas this year with temperatures breaking the 100 degree mark by the first week of June. The relatively early heat wave counldn't have come at a worse time for residents of The Chevelle apartments in the Oak Lawn neighborhood just north of downtown.

As noted by WFAA TV Ch. 8 reporter Cynthia Vega, air conditioning at the complex stopped working as temperatures hovered around the dangerously high century mark. With tenants spending sleepless nights outside on porch stoops and grumbling over the property owner's slow response, Vega turned to noted Texas landlord lawyer Darrell Cook, founder of Darrell W. Cook & Associates, to explain the rights tenants have in such situations.

Cook, who frequently works with property owners but is not involved in this case, knows from experience what does and does not work in these contentious landlord-tenant conflicts. His advice for tenants: don't wait for the courts to step in, but instead go directly city code enforcement officers. City code requires apartment landlords to keep property under 85 degrees, and code enforcement officers can work with city attorneys to obtain a restraining order to force landlords to quickly make emergency repairs.

Finally, Cook, the founder of www.dallaslandlordlawyer.com, advises that tenants who withhold rent during such disputes lose their bargaining power.

File this one under: Be careful who you sue for trademark infringement.

A federal district judge's ruling has closed a chapter on a long and hotly contested trademark fight between retail giant Liz Claiborne's Lucky Brand Dungarees and Miami-based Marcel Fashion Group. Judge Laura Taylor Swain's final judgment uphold's an earlier verdict against Claiborne and goes further, tacking on nearly $300,000 in punitive damages.

According to the Associated Press: In the decision, Judge Laura Taylor Swain ruled Lucky Brand's name along, with its use of the phrase "get lucky" and other references to "lucky" violate a trademark for Marcel Fashion Group's "Get Lucky" clothing line. Swain's ruling does not prevent Liz Claiborne from continuing to use the Lucky moniker. But Ann Schofield Baker, head of McKool Smith's national trademark litigation practice who represented Marcel in the case, said if Liz Claiborne continues to use of the name and slogan it would be a continued violation of Marcel's trademark.

The jury's verdict and the court's Final Judgment turned the tables on Lucky Brand and Liz Claiborne, which were the parties that originally brought the suit against Marcel Fashion and its licensee, Ally Apparel, for trademark infringement in 2005 over their GET LUCKY line of apparel. The jury cleared the GET LUCKY line of any trademark infringement after finding that Marcel Fashion had been using the trademark "GET LUCKY" continuously since 1985, years before Lucky Brand was even formed.

"This is a complete victory for the little guy," says Ezra Mizrachi, President of Marcel Fashion. "Lucky Brand and Liz Claiborne tried to put the GET LUCKY apparel line out of business with this lawsuit, but instead, the jury decided that they are the ones who committed trademark infringement."

The punitive damages award follows on the heels of the Court's award of sanctions against Lucky Brand and Liz Claiborne for their repeated and flagrant discovery violations during the litigation. Schofield Baker sums up the case this way: "Lucky Brand brought this suit, but at the end of the day, it breached a prior settlement agreement between the parties, committed trademark infringement and unfair competition by using the Lucky Brand trademark, and was smacked with sanctions and punitive damages. My clients feel completely vindicated and look forward to expanding the GET LUCKY licensing program."

A Dallas County jury delivered a real eye-opening verdict in a labor & employment/discrimination trial against one of the most prestigious learning institutions in Texas.

Double board certified in internal medicine and infectious disease medicine, Dr. Naiel Nassar has the kind of impeccable credentials that made him a hot commodity in the medical research institutions. Recruited by the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center's HIV clinic, he became one of its top physicians. Dr. Nassar also happens to be Muslim and an Egyptian native.

Dr. Nassar's racial and religious background, and the treatment he received from UT Southwestern mangers, took center stage earlier this month at a federal trial in Dallas over the hospital's discrimination and retaliation. Attorney Charla G.Aldous of the Aldous Law Firm in Dallas and Brian Lauten of the Dallas law firm Sawicki & Lauten represented Dr. Nassar in his claims against UT Southwestern.

The jury in U.S. District Judge Jane Boyle's court took just 45 minutes to find that the hospital discriminated and retaliated against Dr. Nassar because of his race and religion, and awarded him $3.6 million in damages.

Writes LawyersandSettlements.com: At trial, jurors heard evidence that Dr. Nassar became a target of systemic discrimination under Dr. Beth Levine, Chief of Infectious Disease Medicine, beginning in 2004. Attorneys alleged that Dr. Levine made numerous discriminatory comments about Dr. Nassar and other physicians of various racial and religious backgrounds.

Trial testimony also showed that Dr. Levine delayed promoting Dr. Nassar based on his race and religious beliefs. Subsequently, Dr. Nassar resigned from UT Southwestern to take a new position at Parkland Hospital. In a letter of resignation to Dr. J. Gregory Fitz, Dean of the UT Southwestern School of Medicine and Executive Vice-President for Academic Affairs. Dr. Nassar made it clear that he was resigning because of ongoing racial and religious discrimination.

Drs. Levine and Fitz then worked to block Dr. Nassar from taking the new position at Parkland Hospital by refusing to give him a favorable recommendation and warning Parkland not to hire him. Because of these coordinated efforts to undermine his offer from Parkland, Dr. Nassar was forced to take a position at a hospital and medical school in California.

The verdict in Naiel Nassar, M.D. v. University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, et al., No. 3:08-cv-1337, was reached May 26, 2010, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

The first two weeks of May 2010, respectively ranked as Nos. 1 and 2 in terms of the most patents granted in a single week by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. That trend shouldn't be surprising says Jane Politz Brandt, a partner and co-chair of the Intellectual Property Practice Group at Thompson & Knight. Speaking at the Texas Lawyer Intellectual Property Law Roundtable in Dallas, Ms. Brandt noted that the rising number of patents issued is reflective of the current process at the USPTO.  

"The patents being issued today may have been filed as far back as 2007, before the present economic environment. Before the current financial crisis, many U.S. companies were making heavier investments in research and development, and you saw a higher number of patent applications," she says. "Aaron Levine noted that it takes four or five years for those applications to gain approval. Steve Kennedy commented that this is indicative of the problem that many see in the Patent Office - the process simply takes too long."

Ms. Brandt notes the lag time for patent approval is a particular problem for small companies. "These companies many have an outstanding product, something that's truly beneficial to society, but the process can lead to frustration and failure, especially for those seeking venture capital."

Earlier this week, Representatives John Conyers Jr., a Michigan Democrat and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Lamar Smith of Texas, the ranking Republican on the committee, introduced the Patent and Trademark Office Funding Stabilization Act. The bill seeks to address some major complaints about the USPTO, including a patent application backlog of more than two years.

The bill would allow the USPTO to impose a temporary 15 percent increase on its patent fees, and it would prohibit Congress from diverting patent fees away from the agency. In addition, the bill would allow the USPTO to hire new patent examiners and improve patent quality. Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have long tried to reach consensus on a more wide-ranging patent bill, which would allow new challenges to granted patents and would make it tougher for patent holders to prove willful infringement and collect huge damages. That bill, introduced in March 2009, is awaiting full Senate approval, but there remain several disagreements about the legislation. Similar bills introduced in 2005 and 2007 also went nowhere.

When Gilberto Villegas was seriously injured in a 2008 industrial accident while working at APM Terminals' marine terminal at the Port of Houston, the international container terminal operating company offered to pay Villegas only $35,000 compensation for his injuries. Harris County jurors had a different idea regarding AMP Terminals' responsibility for Villegas' injurires. After six days of testimony, jurors handed down a $1.55 million verdict against AMP earlier this month.

Writes Lexis/Nexis: Villegas suffered injuries to his neck and other areas on May 29, 2008 while he was working as a ship repairman at APM Terminals' marine terminal at the Port of Houston. He was standing in the bed of a pickup truck when a yard truck driver working for APM Terminals collided with his vehicle.
APM Terminals argued that its driver was not at fault because the pickup truck was parked in the middle of an intersection. The company also argued that there was only a minor impact because the yard truck driver was traveling at 1 or 2 mph at the time of the accident. Villegas' lawyers advised him to press his case despite claims by the company, APM Terminals, that it was not at fault. Lawyer Jason Itkin said the company's highest settlement offer was $35,000. "We're proud to have stood by our client and proud to have gotten him the compensation he deserved," Jason Itkin said

Villegas' attorneys alleged that the driver APM Terminals authorized to operate the yard truck was not licensed. In a complaint filed in the case, Jason Itkin and Cory Itkin of Houston trial law firm Arnold & Itkin LLP alleged the company "knew or should have known that (the driver) was an incompetent, reckless driver, and/or unlicensed driver at the time of the entrustment."  Although Villegas required neck surgery after the accident, APM argued that he had suffered neck pain prior to the accident.

"As recent events have shown us all, maritime workers face some of the most dangerous working conditions anywhere," says Jason Itkin, co-founder of Arnold & Itkin. "That's why it's so important for companies to provide safe work sites and make sure their employees are following proper safety protocols."

"On behalf of the entire Villegas family, we would like to thank the jury for holding this company accountable," says Cory Itkin. "Without the jury's help APM would have gotten away with this and swept Mr. Villegas and his case under the rug."

Those new, relaxed privacy settings implemented by Facebook should be raising serious concerns for the more than 400 million members who use the popular social media network. Granted, Facebook includes plenty of narcissists who have no problem with attention from strangers, but until now the rest of us could enjoy some expectation that their posts and photos could be limited to a group of self-selected friends.

Computer forensics and data security expert Erin Nealy Cox, managing director of Stroz Friedberg's Dallas offices, says users are now far less able to control who views information about their friends, photos, group memberships and dialogue, as well as Facebook's ability to share this information with advertisers, serach engines and other social media networks. "Millions and millions of Americans have grown accustomed to sharing personal information on Facebook," Ms. Nealy Cox says. "Many people have jumped in with the belief that they can control access to their information. These changes should spur all Facebook users to carefully review their account settings."

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Yobie Benjamin recently tested Facebook's new privacy filter and came away less than impressed. His conclusion: Despite his best efforts to jump through all of Facebook's new hoops and keep his Facebook activities private, his postings remained available for the world to see.

Benjamin writes: In reality the problem is the overly complex privacy settings Facebook has implemented. Facebook's privacy policy was created by an army of lawyers to avoid litigation and regulatory scrutiny. It was not created for you or the 10-year old next door. There is no good reason why Facebook privacy settings should be so hard to understand.
Facebook or any other company cannot promise consumer privacy protections and then ignore them and make all the information you want to be private - PUBLICLY AVAILABLE. I can't say why this was done but my guess is it's to allow third parties such as advertisers to harvest personal information and create more targeted ads and services. If you make promises to your customers, keep them. Otherwise, they leave.

Dallas lawyers Richard A. "Dick" Sayles and Mark S. Werbner have earned a multimillion dollar patent infringement verdict against one of the world's biggest tech companies. The case, tried in the Eastern District of Texas in Marshall, Texas, hinged on allegations by Commil USA LLC that Cisco Systems Inc. had stolen patented technology relating to wireless devices. The Marshall News Mesenger reports that jurors deliberated about 3 hours before ruling in favor of Commil and ordering Cisco to pay $3.7 million in royalties. 

The Commil USA technology contained in U.S. Patent No. 6,430,395 (the '395 patent) was developed by three Israeli engineers, Yaron Soffer, Nitzan Arazi and Haim Barak, who later formed Commil with a group of investors. The technology in the '395 patent allows wireless devices to move from point to point on a computer network without signal interruption. Prior to this groundbreaking invention, network users experienced frequent signal disruptions leading to data losses, dropped calls and other errors.

Although the '395 patent applies to many network platforms, including Wi-Fi, the three engineers initially developed products based on Bluetooth technology. When Wi-Fi eclipsed Bluetooth in the marketplace, Commil was forced to close its doors and the company's assets were purchased by Commil USA. The lawsuit was filed after Commil USA discovered its technology was being used by a Cisco subsidiary to produce its own Wi-Fi product line.

"We took this case to trial on behalf of hard-working inventors everywhere - whether they're highly trained engineers or garage tinkerers," says Commil USA CEO Jonathan David. "The jury was right to find that Cisco infringed our valid patent, and we believe there will be additional opportunities to determine whether additional damages should be awarded as this case continues through the legal process."

In June, Sayles won the largest patent verdict to date of $1.67 billion in an infringement case that pitted his client, Pennsylvania-based Centocor Ortho Biotech Inc., against giant Abbott Laboratories.