After airline passengers complained about sometimes being stranded for hours on the tarmac without food and other amenities, due to unusual weather conditions, new federal regulations were adopted holding carriers responsible for such delays and requiring that passengers be able to deplane after three hours. But they don't apply to international carriers. And, as much of the Northeast was brought to a near-standstill this week by a thick blanket of snow, passengers aboard a Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. flight spent almost 12 hours on the ground yesterday at Kennedy International Airport in New York waiting for a gate, reports Bloomberg.…

Epstein Becker & Green will be closing its eight-year-old office in Miami after managing partner Michael Case led most of its attorneys and staff to Duane Morris. Casey says he couldn't pass up the chance to establish a labor and employment practice for his new firm in Miami and he also expects to benefit from a larger national platform, reports the Daily Business Review (sub. req.). He discussed the Duane Morris option in the elevator with his friend, Charles Papy, who serves as Miami managing partner as both headed to work in the Wachovia Financial Center, the article notes. Duane…

A judge has nixed a New York lawyer's argument that he shouldn't have to reimburse an ex-client $5,500 for unearned legal fees, due to a personal bankruptcy and a business name change, reports the Staten Island Advance. Michael DeFilippo must ante up and return the $5,000 retainer Sue Ruberto paid him to handle some work concerning her mother's estate in New York, because he didn't do the work, ruled Judge Philip Straniere, enforcing a small claims court judgment that Ruberto also won pro se. The Staten Island lawyer “obtained these legal fees, by ‘false pretenses’ or by ‘a false representation,’”…

Taking a look back over the year, we've picked out the stories that drew the most reader attention at ABAJournal.com. Below are the 10 most read Daily News posts of 2010: 1. Midyear Meeting 2010 Race & Gender of Judges Make Enormous Differences in Rulings, Studies Find 2. Work/Life Balance Why Lawyers Should Work No More than 40 Hours a Week 3. Family Law Law Student Charged with Contempt for Exposing Daughter to Christianity 4. Law Schools Profs Predict Law School Closings as More Grads Earn Less than Break-Even Pay 5. Legal Ethics Lawyer Disbarred for $3,500-an-Hour Fee and ‘Bizarre…

Convicted at age 22 of a murder he says he didn't commit, Jabbar Collins saw a bleak future ahead of him. Although he'd been working toward a general equivalency high-school diploma and trying to transfer to the John Jay College of Criminal Justice before his arrest, he was now facing more than 35 years behind bars, recounts the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) in a lengthy article. Although he had been mystified during much of his trial, he now saw only one hope of escape--becoming his only lawyer. So for the next 15 years, using only the materials available to…

The only state without a law school, Alaska needs one to help make legal services more available and affordable, a lawmaker contends. Rep. Scott Kawasaki is calling for both a law school and a medical school to be established at the University of Alaska, reports the Tundra Drums. "Alaska needs more skilled professionals in medicine and law," he says. "The costs for medical and legal services will only continue to grow unless Alaska makes changes today." The state would be a natural site for a law school focusing on environmental and tribal law, he suggests.

After the Deepwater Horizon blew up in an inferno of flames in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, many assumed the fire on the drilling rig was an inevitable result of the oil spilling out of the undersea well that its crew had mistakenly failed to seal. But in fact there were multiple safety devices and procedures that could still have prevented the fiery explosion or at least reduced the injuries and fatalities among the crew. And it appears that one of the main reasons why the safety devices and procedures didn't work is that those in charge of…

After her relationship with Jesse Almond deteriorated, Sandra Bogden sought a protective order against the 75-year-old Florida retiree. Judge Lorraine Kelly denied Bogden's request. But somehow a protective order was issued, perhaps because parts of two different orders got mixed together during the Pinellas County jurist's call that day in December 2009, reports the St. Petersburg Times. And Almond was arrested--four times--for violating it over a nine month period, by allegedly driving past the 40-year-old Bogden's home, calling her on her cell phone and visiting her workplace. The mix-up came to light when his lawyer, Lucas Fleming, ordered a transcript…

Updated: By giving each iPhone and iPad a so-called Unique Device Identifier or UDID, Apple Inc. has made it possible for advertisers secretly to track which applications individuals download and how frequently they use them, in violation of federal and state computer, consumer and privacy law, two federal lawsuits contend. “Some apps are also selling additional information to ad networks, including users’ location, age, gender, income, ethnicity, sexual orientation and political views,” says one suit. Filed last week in federal district court in San Jose, Calif. by Jonathan Lalo of Los Angeles County, it seeks class action status, reports Bloomberg.…

Although Toyota Motor Corp. and the plaintiffs agreed to keep secret the amount the automaker paid to settle a lawsuit over a fiery high-speed crash that killed a California Highway Patrol officer and three family members, a state-court judge held the settlement couldn't be confidential. Ruling earlier this week on a motion to seal the settlement by surviving relatives of the officer, Mark Saylor, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge said the public had a right to know about settlement, reports the Los Angeles Times. Dramatic audio of a cell phone conversation with one of the occupants as Saylor…