The National Law Journal's L.A. Legal Pad

McCourt divorce trial opens in Los Angeles

The contentious divorce trial of Frank and Jamie McCourt opened in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom on Monday.

Attorneys for the parties hauled more than 20 boxes of documents and dozens more binders of exhibits into a packed courtroom where Los Angeles County, Calif., Superior Court Judge Scott M. Gordon is presiding over the case. Dennis Wasser of Wasser, Cooperman & Carter led a team of five attorneys on behalf of Jamie McCourt; six lawyers appeared for Frank McCourt, including Stephen Susman, a partner at Houston's Susman Godfrey.

The trial could hinge on a point made by Susman when he said former family law attorney Jamie McCourt was attempting to become "the first successful spouse to invalidate an agreement that she proposed" and the "first divorce lawyer to claim she did not understand her own post-nuptial agreement."

Control of the Los Angeles Dodgers could rest on the outcome of the case.

Full story at NLJ.com.

Fish & Richardson named Pro Bono Firm of the Year

Fish & Richardson has been named the 2010 Pro Bono Law Firm of the Year by the San Diego Volunteer Lawyer Program, Inc. (SDVLP), a non-profit organization whose mission is to provide free legal services in civil matters to indigent individuals, families and groups.

In addition to Fish & Richardson, SDVLP is honoring Scott Carr of Javelin Web & Media, with the Community Service Award and Richard Hicks, retired/emeritus attorney, with the Pro Bono Attorney of the Year Award. The awards will be presented on Thursday, September 16 at an awards dinner at the Westin Gaslamp Quarter in downtown San Diego.

Fish attorneys have worked with SDVLP in providing pro bono services for 12 years. In 2009 the firm handled a lengthy federal civil rights case to which several San Diego-based staff members devoted significant time, including Denning and firm associate Olga May and paralegals Donna Rousseau and Angela Castagnola. Other Fish attorneys have also volunteered with SDVLP over the years, including Justin Barnes, Desa Burton, Nicholas Martini, Joseph Reid and Nancy Stagg.

Todd Miller, a principal with Fish, serves on the SDVLP board of directors and as the firm’s Southern California pro bono and training director. Each of Fish’s ten U.S. offices have a principal-level attorney responsible for seeking out and staffing local pro bono opportunities.

Full story here.

Appeals court rules mandatory 30-day warning program for each new red-light camera installation

The Orange Superior Court Appellate Division ruled in a July 23 decision that the statutory requirement of a 30-day warning program before a locality can issue tickets to motorists caught on automated cameras going through red lights applies each time a camera is installed at a new intersection.

The panel sided with Danny Byongun Park, a motorist ticketed for running a light at a Santa Ana intersection where no red light camera warning program had been instituted, and rejected the city's argument that the statutory requirement was satisfied when the city installed its first red light cameras six years earlier.

This is the second published decision aimed at Santa Ana’s red light camera program, the first being People v. Khaled, where the Appellate Division ruled that the use of photographs and a police officer's declaration to prove a motorist ran a red light was in violation of the Evidence Code.

Full story at Metropolitan News-Enterprise.

Dirk Burley new L.A. associate for Dykema

Dykema has announced that Dirk Soung Burley has joined the firm’s Litigation Department as an Associate, resident in the Los Angeles office.

Mr. Burley’s practice focuses on general commercial litigation matters. Most recently he was a law clerk for the Honorable Arthur L. Alarcon in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Prior to that clerkship, he was a law clerk for the Honorable Melinda Harmon in the Southern District of Texas. As a clerk in the District Court and Court of Appeals, Mr. Burley assisted federal judges in resolving over a hundred separate matters involving constitutional issues, patents, trademarks, copyrights, unfair business competition, contract disputes, product liability, ERISA litigation, civil rights employment litigation, tax litigation, and bankruptcy litigation.

Mr. Burley earned a diploma in Financial Management from the Association of Certified Charter Accountants. Prior to entering law school, he worked in infrastructure financing in Southeast Asia and studied cinema at the International School of Cinema in Paris.

A resident of Long Beach, Mr. Burley studied on scholarship and received a B.A. from the Oxford University, Corpus Christi College and a J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. He was articles editor for the Constitutional Law Quarterly and technical editor for the Hastings International Law Review.

Mistrial declared in Nguyen case

The Orange County Register reports that as of Friday night the jury in the Tan Nguyen case was unable to reach a verdict. U.S. District Judge David O. Carter polled the jurors shortly before 5 p.m. and then declared a mistrial.

Nguyen faced charges of lying to investigators about a controversial letter sent to Latino voters in 2006 warning that they could be jailed for voting illegally. Nguyen also allegedly sought to blame a campaign worker for the mailing sent out to support his failed challenge of Loretta Sanchez.

The prosecution has not decided whether it will retry the case. It must decide by the Sept. 13 status hearing.

Full story here.

Todd Spitzer no longer an ADA

Todd Spitzer has been fired.

According to Spitzer himself, he was let go because of the way he handled an information request with the county Public Administrator/Public Guardian Office. Public Administrator/Guardian John Williams issued a statement on Saturday that, while not naming Spitzer specifically, said an assistant district attorney had tried to obtain information to which he was not entitled.

Spitzer said he had contacted the office regarding a domestic-violence and elder-abuse situation, and wanted to be sure it was being investigated. Williams, in his statement, said the unnamed assistant district attorney used his title as prosecutor and claimed to know the public administrator personally in order to get the information. "This conduct is unacceptable and cannot be tolerated," Williams said.

Spitzer was considered to be District Attorney Tony Rackauckas' likely successor.

Full story at OCRegister.com.

Mistrial in Skilled Healthcare trial denied

Humboldt County Judge Bruce Watson ruled on Friday that he found no evidence of juror misconduct in the class action lawsuit against Skilled Healthcare and therefore no grounds for a mistrial.

The motion was filed earlier this month in response to a juror's apparent lie about her previous employment on court documents, thus alleging bias. Plaintiffs' attorneys filed declarations from other jury members dismissing the bias claim.

Watson also issued a permanent injunction that orders all Skilled Healthcare facilities to comply with the minimum staffing requirements mandated by California statute. Effective immediately, each of the 22 facilities implicated in the suit is to maintain 3.2 nursing hours per-patient, per-day. A third party will be appointed to monitor that each facility complies with the law, and any costs associated with that will be paid by the defendants, according to court documents.

Full story here.

Presbyterian court rules Spahr violated faith constitution

A Presbyterian church court in Napa ruled today that although the Rev. Dr. Jane Adams Spahr did not disrupt the "peace, unity and purity of the church" by performing more than a dozen same-sex marriages during the brief period when gay marriage was legal in California, she did violate the faith's constitution and her ordination vows.

Spahr's defense team said during the trial that although the faith's constitution strictly defines marriage as being between a man and a woman, there is no explicit prohibition on same-sex marriage. The panel disagreed.

The two-page decision, however, did praise Spahr for her ministry to gays and lesbians and called upon the church "to reexamine our own fear and ignorance that continues to reject the inclusiveness of the gospel of Jesus Christ."

Spahr says she will appeal.

Full story here.

Fees in Madera Unified election law suit drastically lessened

Superior Court Judge James Oakley has reduced the amount of legal fees sought by attorneys over an election law suit filed against the Madera Unified School District.  According to officials, lawyers initally billed the district for $1.2 million, which was later increased to $1.8 million.

The district did not contest the suit, but feared it would have to cut funds for books and lunches in order to pay the fee.

Oakley reduced the amount to $162,500 for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, law professor Joaquin Avila and the firm of Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher, which sought the fees.

Click here for details.

Los Angeles countersues to shut down medical marijuana clinics

Nearly 30 lawsuits have been filed challenging Los Angeles' ordinance to limit the number of medical marijuana dispensaries to 41. In turn, the city has filed a countersuit asking Superior Court Judge Anthony J. Mohr to back its decision.

Under the city's present ordinance, dispensary owners must undergo a background check, their stores must be 1,000 feet from schools, parks and other gathering sites, and their marijuana must be independently tested.

The city sent letters to 129 clinics, warning them that they may be shut down, but says they won't seek to close any of them until the judge rules. Judge Mohr has set a Sept. 21 hearing to determine constitutional issues.

Full story here.