On the Record

What a game! Pitchers and catchers report in two weeks! Law blog roundup!

Here are some news items to get the week started.

– It was the best of times; it was the worst of times — for lawyers.

– L.A. Dodgers pitch a defense in case of injured San Francisco Giants fan.

– How do you predict the court will rule on this objection?

– General Motors fought Ford, even as Eli battled Brady.

– Are ceilings in corporate legal offices still made of glass?

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Welcome to the weekly law blog roundup on a day when we honor Martin Luther King Jr.

o Judge lets civil rights lawsuit against New York Police Department proceed.

o ACLU sues Indianapolis officials for allegedly preventing homeless people from selling a newspaper.

o Voter-identification law draws protest in South Carolina.

o Former New Mexico state worker says she was fired for alleging discrimination against Latino drivers.

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Memo to managing partner: You know that clause in the employment contract that bars your associates from notifying clients when they leave the firm? And then imposes a 43.56 percent lien on any fee for work the lawyer performs for your former clients? If only it were ethical. Or at least, enforceable…

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The Consumer Protection Division’s Home Builder Registration Unit entered into settlement agreements with 27 home builders who have agreed to pay penalties totaling $26,000 to settle allegations that they operated without being registered, failed to disclose required information to the unit in their registration applications, or otherwise violated Maryland’s building laws, the Office of the Attorney General announced Tuesday.

Among the companies included in the agreements are NVR Inc., trading as NV Homes and Ryan Homes; and Rachuba Home Builders LLC. The settlements prohibit the companies from acting as home builders in the state unless they first register with the Home Builder Registration Unit and they comply with other Maryland laws governing home builders.

Other settlements were with the following builders:

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A group of blind people are suing a paintball park after they were denied entrance and a disbarred lawyer was sentenced to serve a year and a day in prison for tax evasion and other charges. Those stories and more in this week’s legal affairs top 5.

1. Blind people sue paintball park – by Ben Mook

In what their lawyer believes is the first case of its kind in Maryland, a group of blind people are suing a paintball park for refusing to let them play.

Blind Industries and Services of Maryland, two of its instructors and one of its students filed the lawsuit against Route 40 Paintball Park in U.S. District Court in Baltimore on Monday. They claim that Route 40 Paintball’s actions violated Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as the Maryland White Cane Law, a state law that protects people from discrimination based on blindness.

2. Woman trucker wins case against Giant – by Steve Lash

Maryland’s top court has unanimously reinstated a $644,000 award in damages and another $545,000 in attorneys’ fees and costs to a female supermarket-truck driver who was fired after refusing to undergo a medical exam not required of “similarly situated” male drivers and filing a gender discrimination complaint.

The Court of Appeals’ reversed a ruling that Julia M. Taylor, who suffers from a debilitating menstrual condition, had failed as a matter of law to show that Giant Food LLC had acted out of bias.

3. Repeated e-discovery violations can by costly to a client – by Ben Mook

Few cases in Maryland in recent years have highlighted the importance of accounting for emails and other electronic documents during discovery — and the ramifications for not doing so — more than Victor Stanley Inc. v. Creative Pipe, Inc. et al.

The case, filed in 2006, was an otherwise straightforward trademark and copyright infringement dispute over municipal park fixture designs. Calvert County-based Victor Stanley Inc. prevailed this fall with a verdict for monetary and injunctive relief. Creative Pipe has filed an appeal.

4. Disbarred lawyer Stanley Needleman sentenced for tax evasion – by Daily Record Staff

Former lawyer Stanley Needleman was sentenced Thursday to a year and a day in prison for tax evasion and structuring bank deposits to avoid reporting requirements.

Needleman, 69, also must serve three years of supervised release following his incarceration, pay $543,695 to the IRS and $117,319 to the state for tax losses, and forfeit nearly $500,000. All the money will come from $1.15 million in cash the Drug Enforcement Administration seized in April from two safes in Needleman’s basement.

5. CSA: State must honor witnesses’ rights – by Steve Lash

A Maryland appellate court has criticized Baltimore prosecutors and a judge for ignoring rules designed to protect reluctant witnesses who must be jailed to make sure they appear for trial.

The intermediate Court of Special Appeals said prosecutors and the judge failed to follow the rules before or after jailing Roslyn Broadway to ensure her appearance at a murder trial next month.

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Paul E. Schurick was found guilty in the election robocall case this week, and a UMUC professor won a large settlement in a discrimination case. Those stories and more in this week’s legal affairs top 5.

1. Jury finds Schurick guilty on all 4 counts – by Steve Lash

A Baltimore jury convicted Paul E. Schurick on conspiring and attempting to sabotage Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley’s re-election last fall with Election Day 2010 robocalls telling Democrats in the city and Prince George’s County that victory was at hand and they did not have to go to the polls.

Schurick, 55, faces up to 12 years in prison on the four counts. Judge Lawrence Fletcher-Hill set sentencing for Feb. 16 in Baltimore City Circuit Court.

2. UMUC professor gets $430K settlement in discrimination case – by Danielle Ulman

Maryland’s Board of Estimates approved a $430,000 settlement Wednesday with a man who said his supervisors at the University of Maryland University College discriminated against him because of his heritage.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Does Stephen Glass deserve a chance at redemption?

The former journalist sent shock waves through the  journalism world in the ’90s when it was discovered that he fabricated many of his stories (you can read all about it here). But it’s been more than a decade and Glass has been trying for much of that time to gain admittance to the bar.

He graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown University’s law school in 2000. When he passed the New York Bar Exam that year, he applied for admittance  in 2002. He later withdrew his application after the good people of New York told him he would likely not gain admittance because of moral character issues.

The setting has now shifted to California, where Glass applied for admittance to the bar in 2007 but was denied. The state Supreme Court has recently agreed to hear the case. A couple judges along the way agreed that Glass should be admitted to the bar, but the committee of bar examiners has appealed the decisions.

So, what say you? Has Stephen Glass rehabilitated himself enough to deserve a chance to practice law? Or do you think he won’t ever be reformed?

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Good Monday to you. Here’s some legal news to keep you informed.

• Jack Johnson’s actions confuse the grandmothers of Prince George’s County. (Johnson is set to be sentenced Tuesday.)
• An unlicensed Silver Spring Lawyer has been ordered to stop lawyering.
• Second Mile will freeze its assets to settle a civil case brought by a man identified as Victim 4 in the indictment of former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. Local attorney Howard Janet is representing Victim 6.
• The Baltimore Crime blog is annoyed about the cast of characters paraded before a judge in Friday’s hearing in Paul Schurick’s robocalling trial.
• This one’s a little bit old, but if you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you. The basic lesson is don’t put people’s brains in jars, OK?
• Turns out working for a rock star isn’t all champagne wishes and caviar dreams. Tommy Lee (above) is being sued for being a cheap boss.

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Baltimore-born Paul B. Luskin has tangled with the law once again.

This time, Luskin, who was imprisoned in 1988 for the botched murder-for-hire attempt on his ex-wife (complete with a flower deliveryman as the shooter), has been permanently disbarred in Florida.

The Florida bar gave Luskin the boot after he posed as an attorney following his release from prison.

Luskin was released from prison in 2002 after his dramatic confession to the crime in U.S. District Court in Baltimore in 2000 persuaded Judge J. Frederick Motz to cut nearly 10 years off his 35-year sentence.

Following his release, Luskin (who is the nephew of Jack Luskin, locally known as the “cheapest guy in town” for his appliance and electronics stores) started up a Fort Lauderdale business called Federal Criminal Research. The South Florida Sun Sentinel is reporting that he was paid $1,600 to write an appellate brief for a federal inmate, which the inmate later called “worthless.”

A bar spokeswoman said Luskin had participated in the unlicensed practice of law, a big no-no.

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