A disbarred lawyer told a federal court in Manhattan on Wednesday that he was “profoundly sorry” for running a $397 million Ponzi scheme. Lawyers for 77-yar-old Arthur Nadel, who pleaded guilty on Wednesday, are seeking a sentence of 12 to 16 years in prison, the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) reports. Prosecutors are seeking a sentence of about 20 to 24 years. The plea agreement also calls for Nadel to forfeit $162 million, Reuters reports. “I will carry this burden with me every day for the rest of my life,” Nadel told the court. Ocala, Fla., retiree David Walters told…

The chairman of the Houston-area transit system is denying that two agency lawyers were fired because they objected to the destruction of records involving top rail system officials. Metro board chairman David Wolff “emphatically denied” that Metropolitan Transit Authority chief counsel Pauline Higgins and a second lawyer were fired because of the shredding, the Houston Chronicle reports. Higgins' lawyer, Rusty Hardin, says his client was fired because she raised concerns about the handling of an open-records request for the documents, the Houston Chronicle reports in a separate story. Wolff said, however, that none of the destroyed records was subject to…

University of Maryland officials have asked the state attorney general whether former law dean Karen Rothenberg can be asked to return $350,000 for a sabbatical that apparently was never taken. In the meantime, university officials asked Rothenberg to return another $60,000, the Baltimore Sun reports. The university contends Rothenberg failed to follow proper procedure when submitting research payment requests for the smaller amount. In fiscal 2007, Rothenberg made a total of $787,000 in compensation that included the sabbatical payments, the Baltimore Sun reported in an earlier story. The sabbatical payments were approved by UMB President David Ramsay, the newspaper says.…

A Utah judge has been reprimanded for pulling out a gun in his courtroom in a moment of horseplay. An investigation found that Judge Garry Sampson of Lehi was “acting in a joking manner” when he pointed a handgun at a bailiff who had threatened to toss water at the judge, KSL.com reports. Sampson presides over traffic cases and other misdemeanor offenses. Sampson has agreed never to bring his gun to court again.

Noted constitutional casebook author Laurence Tribe is headed to the U.S. Justice Department. The Harvard Law School professor and U.S. Supreme Court litigator will take a leave of absence to focus on increasing legal access for the poor, the Washington Post reports. The story is based on information from two anonymous sources. News of the move comes after Justice officials attended a conference that focused on large caseloads handled by public defenders, particularly in states facing tight budgets. Many public defenders represent 100 or more defendants, according to a report by the Constitution Project.

Although a 40-year-old trainer drowned by a 12,000-pound dominant male orca whale at SeaWorld this week is the third human death linked to this individual animal, experts are debating whether Tilikum intended her homicide when he grabbed her hair as she stood in shallow water and dragged her into the deep end. “This was not an insane, uncontrollable act,” marine conservationist Richard Ellis of the American Museum of Natural History says in a WLS-TV/DT article to which the Associated Press contributed. “This was premeditated.” Other experts, however, say Tilikum may simply have been playing with Dawn Brancheau's braided hair and…

In a litigation tactic that reportedly has never been tried before to combat a global malicious software attack, Microsoft Corp. won a sealed temporary restraining order in an ex parte "John Doe" federal court action in Virginia this week. It allowed the company to shut down, without prior notice to the defendants, more than 270 Web addresses linked to the Waledac botnet. By cutting off communications between the command and control centers of the alleged scheme and the tens of thousands of drone computers infected with malicious software that they remotely operate for their own purposes, the company has walled…

As law firms struggled in a difficult economy last year, Weil Gotshal & Manges had the advantage not only of being a big name in a hot practice area but having a blockbuster client. The firm has billed some $300,000 a day on the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy case, racking up a total bill, over 16 months, of nearly $150 million, reports Legal Week. That total bill represents a slowdown from the blistering page in the earlier half of 2009, however: Last year, the firm billed 86,000 hours on the Lehman matter from February through May and had requested a total…

Updated: The global information technology practice group chair at White & Case is leaving to join Latham & Watkins, his soon-to-be former firm has confirmed in an e-mailed statement to the ABA Journal. Steven Betensky "is an excellent lawyer,” says Dimitrios Drivas, the head of White & Case’s global intellectual property practice. “We wish him all the best for the future.” Earlier this month, the firm lost 14 partners in its London and Middle East offices. And a 15th partner, mining and metals chair Tanneke Heersche, left the firm's Johannesburg office this week to join Canada-based Fasken Martineau, the American…

New revelations of safety problems with Toyota automobiles have breathed new life into claims by a Minnesota man who was sentenced to eight years in prison when his 1996 Toyota Camry shot up an interstate ramp and plowed into another vehicle, killing three people. Koua Fong Lee has long insisted that he did what he could to stop the car. Jurors hearing the case in 2007 didn't buy the claim, but the "Toyota defense" may be more believable, the Associated Press reports. Relatives of Lee's victims and the case's prosecutor all now believe the case merits another look. If Lee's…