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Law firm a low-cost alternative for small companies
Legal Business |
2010/06/28 08:45
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| pWhen clients call Washington attorney Sue Wang, the clock doesn't start ticking. /ppPhone calls aren't billed in six-minute intervals and each hour of work won't cost several hundred dollars. /ppWang and the four other lawyers in Clarity Law Group aim to reconfigure the billable-hour business model at law firms that she said tends to shut out small and start-up companies with shallow pockets. /ppPeople have been speaking about the death of the billable hour, but people had been saying that for years and they weren't really acting on it, said Wang, formerly of Latham amp; Watkins. /ppClarity Law Group is designed like a timeshare, where clients pay a set fee for access to the entire firm, Wang said. The firm also reduces costs by forgoing the standard luxuries at big-name firms like secretaries, wall art and swanky office space. /ppThe firm opened its Illinois office last October and secured its Washington license in April. /ppThe relationship between attorneys and clients is not a friendly one, said Kim Le, who works at Clarity. They're worried all the time about getting billed for every little thing, and that doesn't build a good, trust[ing] relationship. /ppWhile other firms around the country are also trying to lower the barrier of entry to legal services, Wang said the idea for Clarity came to her and her former University of Michigan law school roommate, Leah Goodman, while on a recent vacation in Greece. /ppAt Clarity, each client is assigned two attorneys who act as the primary counsel, but any of the lawyers may be called on depending on the legal needs. It's a hybrid model between big-firm contractors and in-house counsel, Wang said. /p |
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Woman pleads guilty to burglaries while pregnant
Legal Business |
2010/06/24 02:01
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| An Ohio woman who authorities say burglarized homes while her children waited in her car and at times used her 5-year-old son to help with break-ins has pleaded guilty to various charges. Samantha Brewer, of the Cincinnati suburb of Cleves, pleaded guilty Wednesday to burglary, attempted burglary and child endangering.pA prosecutor says most of the crimes occurred while 26-year-old Brewer was taking her sons, now 6 and 7, to or from school. Authorities say she sometimes used her younger son as a lookout and at least once put him inside a house through a window to unlock the door./ppBrewer was pregnant at the time of the April and May burglaries in Harrison. She says she gave birth to a girl on June 4 while in jail./ppShe blamed the burglaries on an addiction to pain medication./p |
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High court rejects appeal in rendition case
Legal Business |
2010/06/14 08:58
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pThe Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from a Canadian engineer who was caught up in the U.S. government's secret transfer of terror suspects to other countries./ppThe court did not comment Monday in ending Syrian-born Maher Arar's quest to sue top U.S. officials, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft. Arar says he was mistaken for a terrorist when he was changing planes in New York on his way home to Canada, a year after the 2001 terrorist attacks. He was instead sent to Syria, where he claims he was tortured./ppLower courts dismissed Arar's lawsuit, which asserts the U.S. purposely sent him to Syria to be tortured. Syria has denied he was tortured./ppThe Canadian government agreed to pay Arar $10 million and apologized to him for its role in the case./ppA Canadian investigation found that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police wrongly labeled Arar an Islamic fundamentalist and passed misleading and inaccurate information to U.S. authorities./ppThe inquiry determined that Arar was tortured, and it cleared him of any terrorist links or suspicions.
/p |
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NY appeals court tosses ruling on RNC surveillance
Legal Business |
2010/06/09 12:16
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| An appeals court has thrown out a ruling that ordered the release of documents related to NYPD surveillance of protesters at the 2004 Republican National Convention.pThe 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan found Wednesday that the district court overstepped its authority by trying to force the department to make the material public./ppMore than 1,800 people were arrested at the four-day convention at Madison Square Garden./ppThe New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on behalf of some of those detained. It claimed the arrests violated the protesters' civil rights./p |
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Ex-NFL star: Scott Rothstein's law firm owes money
Legal Business |
2010/05/21 09:09
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| Retired NFL star Warren Sapp is asking to recover over $100,000 in a trust account left by the law firm of a man who pleaded guilty to running a Ponzi scheme.pAttorneys for Sapp filed a federal court petition Monday in Scott Rothstein's criminal case. The attorneys say Sapp has interest in money the government is seeking in a forfeiture action./ppThe seven-time Pro Bowl defensive lineman had nearly $103,000 in a trust account with the law firm when it collapsed after financial fraud came to light./ppSapp's trust account is not connected to the billion-dollar Ponzi scheme Rothstein allegedly ran out of his Fort Lauderdale law office./ppA court hearing has been scheduled involving the petitions of Sapp and others seeking trust account funds./p |
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