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.

Tyler Hamilton

Happy Monday. Get your week going with a dose of legal links below:

• Local lawyer and blogger named in a lawsuit (along with more than 70 others) for blogging about a lawyer’s missteps in trial.
• Maryland judges’ pensions remain intact, despite cuts elsewhere.
• Benjamin Polakoff, a former lawyer with Shapiro Sher Guinot & Sandler, sets off on his own.
• Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., is asking the American Bar Association to push harder for law school transparency on job prospects for students.
• Baltimore attorney Paul Mark Sandler writes in the National Law Journal that lawyers should be vigilant about keeping jurors offline.
• Supreme Court may hear case on tuition breaks for illegal immigrants.
• Why did cyclist Tyler Hamilton (above)  come clean?

New Baltimore City State’s Attorney Gregg Bernstein made his courtroom debut during a week packed with high-profile legal news. Here are the five most-read stories by The Daily Record’s legal affairs reporting team.

1. Nordstrom found negligent in 2005 knife attack – by Danny Jacobs
A Montgomery County jury has awarded nearly $1.6 million to two women who were stabbed while shopping at a Nordstrom almost six years ago.

2. Bernstein opens trial of Baltimore officers accused of kidnapping – by Danny Jacobs
Gregg Bernstein introduced himself to jurors Wednesday as the Baltimore City state’s attorney. Then he introduced the three police officers accused of kidnapping and abandoning two Baltimore teenagers, pointing to each one for emphasis.

3. Divorce, punishment and protest bills pass – by Steve Lash
The General Assembly ended its 2011 session last week having passed legislation pertaining to parting, punishment and protest.

4. U.S. ordered to reveal identities of Currie’s unindicted co-conspirators – by Steve Lash
Federal prosecutors must hand over the names of state Sen. Ulysses S. Currie’s unindicted co-conspirators to the defense team in his bribery case, a judge said Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore.

5. Opponents file new lawsuit against Superblock plan – by Danny Jacobs
Opponents of the proposed Superblock redevelopment have filed another lawsuit to stop the project, this time alleging approved demolition plans would violate a historic preservation agreement.

Chicago attorney Lauren Serafin isn’t happy with her former fiance. But she’s not just getting mad, she’s trying to get even with Robert Leighton, also a Chicago attorney.

Serafin is taking their break up to court, asking for more than $62,000 in wedding costs.

The two were set to marry last summer, but Leighton called off their nuptials after a bachelor party in Las Vegas led to his alleged infidelity with another woman.

According to the complaint filed last week, Serafin is suing under an Illinois law that allows claims for breach of a promise to marry, which limits recovery to wedding costs.  She’s also seeking intentional infliction of emotional distress, which could win her compensatory and punitive damages.

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome back to the roundup on this frigid Monday morning. Here are some law links to peruse while you defrost.

• Is Bernstein biased?
• Copyright and patent litigation cases fell in Maryland last year.
• In a case that circles back to Maryland courts, the owners of the Atlanta Thrashers and the Atlanta Hawks (those are hockey and basketball teams, for the uninitiated) have sued the lawyers who wrote up a “fatally flawed” contract to buy out the interest of one of the team’s owners.
• According to a federal class action lawsuit, those Power Balance bracelets Shaq is promoting are a sham.
• Looks like the FBI may be investigating Baltimore’s towing business.
• Major U.S. law firms laid off 745 people in 2010 — far, far fewer than the year before.
• Communicating with clients is essential for lawyers. So, what to do when your client has multiple disabilities? For one lawyer, the answer has been hiring a certified deaf interpreter.
• Not so fast — that work e-mail you thought was private might be accessible to your employer.
• The Baltimore County Bar Association oral history project is getting underway.

The Huffington Post reported last month that the Susan G. Komen for the Cure has filed trademark infringement lawsuits against other charities that use “for the cure” in their names. The story alleges Komen spends a $1 million a year in donor funds on such litigation.

The foundation has more than 200 registered trademarks, and I didn’t even know you could protect a phrase like “for the cure,” hon.

Even though the HuffPost story was published in December, I first heard about it Monday night from Stephen Colbert. Enjoy his take here.

Happy new year! Back to work after an extended vacation? Don’t worry, so are most of the bloggers. Check out these law links to see what you’ve missed.

• When will they learn? Two lawyers sending nasty e-mails back and forth in Florida have been sanctioned by the state’s supreme court. That will teach these guys to hurl their insults in person instead of over e-mail.
• Will the filibuster rule get changed this week?
• Don’t neutral paint colors just scream strip club to you? Apparently not to these clubs in Fort Worth.
• Get a haircut and get a new job.
• In the new year, Chief Justice John Roberts asked for a little less partisanship when it comes to the court.
• “Witch” is officially a regulated profession in Romania.
• Recession hurt law firm diversity.

Still wish you were on vacation? Most of your co-workers out for week? Here’s some “work” you can do to pass the time:

• The strange (and sad) story of Ravens rookie Sergio Kindle takes another wrong turn.
• Morris L. Cohen, one of the nation’s leading law librarians, dies at 83. (HT: Above the Law)
• The title says it all: “Male nurse who was a former stripper failed to make out claims that he was subjected to a sexually hostile work environment.”
• OK, “Matlock” fans, stand up for your show’s egregiously-low ranking. (HT: Volokh Conspiracy)
• It’s still better than a lump of coal, right?

Good morning! Here are some law links for your pre-Solstice perusal:

• Judge drops thousands of John Doe porn sharers from industry copyright infringement case.
• In court, come dressed to impress, but remain who you are.
• A Post editorial says the problems in Prince George’s County stem from residents’ “apathy.”
• Tweens fight for their right to show their support for breast cancer research — but school officials say their “I [heart] boobies” bracelets are vulgar.
• A pro cyclist says she was disqualified from racing for taking a supplement that contained a banned substance, but it wasn’t on the label.
• TSA officer used scanners to find and lift travelers’ valuables.
• Security sells.

Alaska Elections Division Director Gail Fenumiai, right, and Assistant Attorney General Sarah Felix look over a ballot Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2010, in Juneau, Alaska.

Maybe it’s the journalist in me, but I have a low tolerance for spelling mistakes. Sure, we all make the occaisional mistake, but between dictionaries and spell check on computers, the errors should be few and far between.

I’m especially paranoid about when it comes to spelling people’s names. I had the fear of God put into me in college, where a misspelled proper name in a journalism class meant an “F” on the assignment, no questions asked. Plus, my story might be the only time a person’s name appears in the paper, so it’s the least I can do to make sure John Smith doesn’t spell his name “Jon Smythe.”

This brings me to Alaska’s contested U.S. Senate race. For those not familiar, incumbent Lisa Murkowski was defeated in the Republican primary by Tea Party favorite Joe Miller. Murkowski then decided to run as an independent, write-in candidate; as of Wednesday night, “Write-In Votes” leads Miller by more than 10,000 votes.

This is where the fun begins. Alaska election officials are now reviewing all of the write-in ballots, with Murkowski named in almost 90 percent of them as of Friday morning. “Murkowski” might become the “hanging chad” of the 2010 election season. So far, officials have seen “Murkowsky,” “Morkowski,” “Mirkowsky,” “Murkrowsky,” and “Marcouski” despite the candidate’s general election campaign devoted in large part to the spelling of her surname.

Personally, I think if you can’t spell correctly the name of a longtime Alaskan legislator who is also the daughter of a longtime Alaskan legislator, you need to pay more attention to current events. But my point is, expect lawsuits aplenty over the ballots and voter rolls in addition to the challenges already being made.

And, remember, should we get to this point, there is no hyphen in “recount.”