When David Eduard Mills walks to the lectern on Nov. 1, he will be unlike any other advocate arguing before the Supreme Court of the United States this year. Most are veterans of the Supreme Court Bar. They have teams of partners, associates and staffers supporting their efforts. Their large law firms have deep-pocketed clients or government agencies providing the much-needed resources required to take a case to the nation’s highest court. By contrast, Mills is a 33-year-old solo practitioner who’s appealing an unpublished lower court decision. His only previous appearance before the Supreme Court was as a visitor watching…

New ethics trouble is brewing for a Michigan lawyer who helped two police officers win a controversial $8.4 million settlement from the city of Detroit in a whistle-blower case after they agreed to help keep the lid on racy text messages between the then-mayor and a top aide. As an appeal by the Attorney Grievance Commission proceeds over whether Mike Stefani should be reprimanded—as a hearing panel in an earlier ethics case recommended—or suspended over the way he handled the settlement, the attorney discipline authority is now bringing new charges against Stefani, the Detroit Free Press reports. They concern the…

A judicial candidate censured this week by a legal ethics agency in Nevada over her criticism of her opponent has won an emergency restraining order from chief federal judge of the local U.S. District Court. It not only requires that the censure be taken down from a public website maintained by the Nevada Standing Committee on Judicial Ethics and Election Practices but that it be replaced with the judge's order finding the censure unconstitutional, reports the Las Vegas Sun. In his ruling yesterday, Chief U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt said the censure by the committee violated Joanna Kishner's constitutional right…

Juvenile-justice advocates plan to test the reach of a U.S. Supreme Court decision barring life-without-parole sentences for youths who commit crimes other than murder. According to the Wall Street Journal, the May ruling in Graham v. Florida “has emboldened attorneys nationwide to push for shorter sentences for juveniles serving life sentences for murders.” The Reading Eagle reports that courts around the nation have been “flooded with appeals” since the ruling. In a case argued before the Missouri Supreme Court last week, a lawyer for a St. Louis teen convicted of killing a police officer at the age of 15 argued…

Actor Randy Quaid said Thursday he is not crazy as he elaborated on claims that he and his wife could fall victim to “Hollywood Star whackers” who are secretly responsible for the deaths of Heath Ledger and David Carradine. "I'm being embezzled by this monstrous ring of accountants, estate planners and lawyers who are mercilessly slandering me and trying to kill my career and, I believe, murder me in order to gain control of my royalties," he said in a statement he read for reporters outside an immigration office in Vancouver. Reuters, the Canadian Press and Post Media News have…

An amended complaint accuses Toyota of buying back cars with sudden acceleration problems and requiring the sellers to sign confidentiality agreements. The documents filed Wednesday also claimed Toyota’s own technicians experienced unintended acceleration problems, according to the Associated Press and Reuters. The amended suit seeks to hold Toyota responsible for a drop in resale value of the company's cars, the Wall Street Journal Law Blog reports. The complaint (PDF posted by the Wall Street Journal Law Blog) in the multidistrict litigation is now about 700 pages long, not including hundreds of pages of exhibits, the National Law Journal reports. Toyota…

A presidential commission investigating the Gulf oil spill has found that Halliburton provided a concrete mixture to seal the BP oil well that had failed three out of four laboratory tests. Lead investigator Fred Bartlit Jr. said the mixture was used despite the multiple failures, according to the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Am Law Daily. He was able to find evidence that only one of the test results—showing a test failure—was forwarded to BP before the concrete was poured. Bartlit is a name partner at Bartlit, Beck, Herman, Palenchar & Scott in Chicago. His law firm…

Corrected: A New York judge is permitting a lawsuit against a 4-year-old girl accused of racing her bicycle equipped with training wheels and striking an elderly woman. Judge Paul Wooten of Manhattan noted that Juliet Breitman was close to 5 years old when she and another 4-year-old friend allegedly raced their bikes and struck 87-year-old Claire Menagh, the New York Times reports. Menagh broke her hip and died three months later of unrelated causes. Wooten said that children under age 4 are presumed incapable of negligence, but there is no bright-line rule protecting children who are older from suit. Menagh’s…

Anna Nicole Smith’s boyfriend, lawyer Howard K. Stern, was convicted Thursday of giving false names and acting by fraud to obtain prescriptions for the former Playboy model and reality TV star. Stern was acquitted of seven other charges in a jury trial in Los Angeles, the Associated Press and Reuters report. Smith died of an accidental overdose in 2007 at the age of 39. As he left the courthouse, Stern said the acquittals were on charges related to the appropriateness of the medication. The conviction, he said, was related to his efforts to protect Smith’s privacy. The doctor who prescribed…

Harvard law professor and constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe offered a spirited endorsement of Elena Kagan in a 2009 memo that noted the law school dean had the ability to persuade “a bunch of prima donnas to see things her way.” The memo (PDF), leaked to conservative blogger Ed Whelan, bluntly advised against the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor to fill the seat of retiring Justice David H. Souter, a recommendation ignored by President Obama. The New York Times Caucus blog, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post all have stories. Tribe wrote that Kagan would be better able to persuade…