Because a defense expert retained by a New Jersey law firm consulted for 15 minutes in 2007 with the plaintiff's expert, before suit was filed in a legal malpractice matter, Bressler, Amery & Ross is conflicted out of continuing to represent the defendant, a state-court judge has ruled. The Bressler firm must also clean its files of any material related to expert Bruce Ackerman before passing the material on to the successor law firm defending Giordano Halleran & Ciesla in a $3.5 million legal malpractice claim brought by a former real estate client, reports the New Jersey Law Journal. Ackerman…

The president of the American Bar Association strongly criticized a controversial new Arizona immigration law in a written statement today. The law, which requires police to seek proof of an individual's immigration status if they have a reasonable suspicion that the person is in the country illegally, is seen by many as targeting minorities for racial profiling. The law also makes it a misdemeanor to fail to provide proof, if asked, that the person is legally in the United States. "This law encourages second-class treatment of individuals based on the color of their skin, and that is unacceptable," says ABA…

Meet our guests: Caffarelli Alejandro Caffarelli is a partner with Chicago’s Caffarelli & Siegel. He represents plaintiffs and management in employment disputes, and he is president of the National Employment Lawyers Association’s Illinois chapter. DiBianca Margaret (Molly) DiBianca is an associate at Young, Conaway, Stargatt & Taylor. The Wilmington, Del., lawyer trains management on best employment practices, and writes at the Delaware Employment Law Blog. Gradeless Rex Gradeless, a 2009 graduate of Saint Louis University School of Law, blogs at Social Media Law Student. You can also find him on Twitter—where he has more than 76,000 followers—using the handle “Rex7.”…

Saying that a defense motion fell "very short" of establishing a need to subpoena the president of the United States to testify in the upcoming political corruption trial of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a federal judge in Chicago has nixed a defense motion to require Obama's testimony. Although the issue could be revisited later, U.S. District Judge James Zagel said that what Blagojevich believed is material to the case not Obama's testimony, according to the Chicago Tribune. Earlier coverage: ABAJournal.com: "Oops. Ex-Illinois Gov’s Unredacted Filing Seeking Obama’s Testimony Is Posted Online"

Updated: Two commercial shrimpers have filed a federal lawsuit in Louisiana against the owner and operator of a oil rig that exploded and sank last week in the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in a massive oil leak, and similar actions are being filed in federal court in other states, too. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) reports that experts say the undersea well could be leaking as much as 25,000 barrels daily. That is five times the current government estimate that led to reports that damage from the Gulf spill likely would dwarf the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in…

Mike Sacks is guest-blogging at ABAJournal.com during his unique U.S. Supreme Court project, First One @ One First, which is to be first in line for politically salient arguments at the high court this term. Those of us dozing in the Doe v. Reed line at half past 5 on Tuesday morning received a rude awakening from a homeless man ranting at us about the interrelation of President Nixon, G. Gordon Liddy, ax murderers, and Internet privacy. "Just don't call him Jay Jay—he hates that!" concluded the man, referring to Liddy, as I fumbled for my glasses. By the time…

The Texas judge in the news for refusing to keep the courthouse open for a late-filed capital appeal is facing a record $100,000 fine for failing to disclose more than $2 million in assets. The Texas Ethics Commission fined Sharon Keller, presiding judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, in an order made public today, according to the Houston Chronicle, the Dallas Morning News and the San Antonio Express-News. The ethics commission said Keller failed to disclose interest in eight properties valued at $2.4 million in 2006 and at $2.8 million in 2007, as well as stock and other…

The former general counsel in the law firm of convicted Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein cried several times during a deposition yesterday, saying he had trusted the lawyer who lured him to a job that eventually paid $500,000 a year. David Boden testified in a deposition taken in the bankruptcy of Rothstein's law firm, Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler, report the Daily Business Review and the South Florida Sun Sentinel. At one point Boden stopped the deposition to compose himself, the story says, as he detailed his discovery that hundreds of millions of dollars were missing from law firm trust accounts. Boden said…

ABA President Carolyn B. Lamm says in a Law Day op-ed that lawyers need to adapt their practices and acquire new cultural understandings to adjust to law in the 21st Century. The legal profession is at “a transformative stage,” Lamm writes in a commentary on this year’s Law Day theme: "Law in the 21st Century: Enduring Traditions, Emerging Challenges." Lamm notes changes throughout the world as economic markets become global, populations become more mobile, and the Internet bridges distances. “The law, too, is changing,” she writes. “New technologies are increasingly having a profound impact on the legal profession and reshaping…

The plight of a law firm in Albany, N.Y., serves as a cautionary tale for other small-firm lawyers who are increasingly targeted in e-mail collection scams. Lombardi, Walsh, Wakeman, Harrison, Amodeo & Davenport is among hundreds of law firms that have been victimized in the counterfeit check scams, the New York Law Journal reports. The firm's troubles were compounded when a judge ruled last month that its malpractice insurer did not have to pay for the loss. Since 2007, the FBI has received hundreds of complaints from law firms claiming millions of dollars in losses in e-mail scams, according to…