A Texas appeals court has overturned an arbitrator’s $22 million award because of his social contacts with the Fish & Richardson lawyer whose client won the case. The court said JAMS arbitrator Robert Faulkner, a former federal magistrate judge, should have disclosed the relationship with the lawyer, Brett Johnson, report Thomson Reuters News & Insight and the Texas Lawyer blog Tex Parte. Faulkner and Johnson “acted as strangers” and introduced themselves at the beginning of the arbitration hearing, the court said in its June 28 opinion. But evidence showed the men had attended a Mavericks game and had dined together…

Law firms in California are hiring more employment law associates to help defend companies seeing a spike in wage-and-hour and disability litigation. Hiring partners interviewed by the Recorder expect to have plenty of employment work, despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision scuttling a huge class action by Wal-Mart workers. A big “kitchen sink” class action like the one in Wal-Mart Stores Inc. v. Dukes is unusual, according to partner Nancy Abell of Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker. Smaller, more manageable classes of plaintiffs are the norm, she said. The Recorder says these firms are seeing an uptick in work: •…

Michigan Chief Justice Robert Young Jr. says jurors will no longer be treated like kindergarteners under new rules adopted by his court. Now jurors may take notes, discuss the evidence throughout civil trials, and pass along questions for witnesses to the trial judge, report the Detroit News, the Detroit Free Press and Interlochen Public Radio. The rules (PDF posted by the Free Press) also allow lawyers to present “interim commentary at appropriate junctures” of the trial, and judges to sum up the evidence at the end of trial. Judges retain discretion, however, in deciding whether to allow most of the…

A prosecutor slated to become president of the North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys has filed an alienation of affection suit against another lawyer who is the godmother to her children. Johnston County, N.C., District Attorney Susan Doyle alleges her neighbor and one-time friend, Christi Stem, had an affair with Doyle’s husband, according to the Raleigh News & Observer, NBC17.com and WTVD. Stern is a family law lawyer in Smithfield. The suit alleges that Doyle and Stern had been friends for 17 years, and Doyle confided in her about marital problems in 2008 and 2009. The suit alleges Stern sent…

In the wake of new lawyer departures, SNR Denton may enforce a policy requiring one-year notice for senior equity partners. The latest lawyers to leave are regulatory head Chris Borg, who will join Reed Smith, and senior banking partner Michael Black, heading to Norton Rose, Legal Week reports. The firm is negotiating over release dates for the two London partners. A spokeswoman told Legal Week that the 12-month notice requirement does not represent a change in policy. The partner departures come amid a 36 percent drop in partner profits for 2010-11. The firm says it is budgeting for a turnaround…

Richard H. Poff, a congressman for 19 years and a member of the Supreme Court of Virginia from 1972 to 1988, has died after suffering from dementia for several years. He was 87. Word of Justice Poff’s death came in a statement late Tuesday afternoon from Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, who said, “Justice Poff served [...]

The ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20 today posted draft versions of its recommendations relating to lawyer marketing in the Internet Age on its website for review and comment. The recommendations propose changes to three provisions in the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct that address marketing and solicitation by lawyers. The proposals and an accompanying report (PDF) indicate that while legal ethics rules should accommodate the growing use of electronic communications by lawyers for marketing, the commission does not see the need to tear up the existing rules and start over. Rather, the commission is proposing specific revisions to the…

DNA testing on discarded clothing at the scene of a bank robbery in Texas has led to the arrest of a suspect in that robbery and two others. Jazzmyne Dunlap, 21, has been charged with robbing a bank in Arlington last October. She is a suspect in two other bank robberies—one in Fort Worth in March and another in Haltom City in April, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. Police said Dunlap abandoned her clothing in the bushes at a nearby day care center after the Arlington robbery. DNA testing on the clothing matched Dunlap, who had prior convictions for theft…

Richard H. Poff, a congressman for 19 years and a member of the Supreme Court of Virginia from 1972 to 1988, has died after suffering from dementia for several years. He was 87. Word of Justice Poff’s death came in a statement late Tuesday afternoon from Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, who said, “Justice Poff served [...]

A federal appeals court has upheld the insurance mandate in the Obama administration’s health care law. In a 2-1 opinion (PDF), the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a requirement for individuals to buy health insurance or to pay a tax penalty. The plaintiffs challenging the law—the Thomas More Law Center and four individuals—had claimed the mandate exceeded Congress' authority under the commerce clause. Judges Boyce Martin and Jeffrey Sutton upheld the law, while Judge James Graham dissented. Sutton is the first judge appointed by a Republican president to find the law constitutional, Politico reports. He was nominated…