Virginia Lawyers Weekly is pleased this week to start a new annual feature: A compendium of the prior year’s “Million Dollar Settlements.” The survey reports settlements of $1 million or more that were featured in the newspaper’s Verdicts & Settlements Reports column. We published 42 million-dollar settlements for 2008. That’s a substantial jump ...

Specialty packaging company Chesapeake Corp. will close on a sale of its business units in April under a plan approved by a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge. The Richmond-based company that operates mostly in Europe filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month. It is planning to sell its subsidiaries as ...

STAUNTON—A woman charged just last month in the 1967 slayings of two young co-workers at an ice cream shop has died. Sharron Diane Crawford Smith, 61, died Monday night, Staunton Police spokeswoman Lisa Klein said. An official cause of death was not released, but prosecutors had said Smith, who was ...

User-generated content, open-source sharing, social media – these are just some of the buzzwords surrounding the Web 2.0 trend. In previous weeks, we’ve looked at how to enhance the presence of your firm’s Web site and also how to branch out into blogging. Now, in the final installment of the Web ...

A physician who spends only 25 to 30 percent of his time in direct patient care can still qualify to testify as an expert in a medical malpractice case, the Supreme Court of Virginia ruled earlier this month. The doctor could serve as an expert because he had an active ...

The Old Dominion Bar Association and Virginia Women Attorneys Association have endorsed the same four candidates recommended by other bar groups earlier for a seat on the Virginia Court of Appeals. The ODBA found Loudoun County Circuit Judge Burke F. McCahill and Leesburg sole practitioner Alexander N. Levay Jr. to be ...

Charles W. Gunn Jr. Charles W. “Bunny” Gunn Jr., a retired Lexington attorney best known as advocate for the mentally disabled during 15 years in the House of Delegates, died Jan. 13. He was 86. A native of Tallahassee, Fla., Mr. Gunn served in the U.S. Navy in North Carolina, the Caribbean ...

A plaintiff suing over the death of a family member now has more flexibility in advancing his claim against medical providers based on a new ruling from the Supreme Court of Virginia. The Jan. 16 decision addresses a lawsuit that alleges that a patient’s mistreatment caused both personal injury and wrongful ...

Correction: Virginia Lawyers Weekly incorrectly reports that Supreme Court Justice LeRoy F. Millette Jr. and Court of Appeals Judge Cleo E. Powell were elected to full terms last week. Millette and Powell were among a group of about 60 judges expected to get routine appointments at presstime on Thursday. However, ...

Stephen T. Conrad’s legacy may be a requirement that insurance companies notify Virginia claimants when they send settlement funds to the claimants’ lawyers. But Conrad’s former clients are unlikely to recoup most of their losses from his larcenous practices. Conrad is the disbarred attorney from Prince William County now serving an 11-year ...