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Wednesday, March 05, 2008

New York Times: Big Wins for Clinton in Texas and Ohio; McCain Clinches Race as Foe Concedes

Big Wins for Clinton in Texas and Ohio; McCain Clinches Race as Foe Concedes

Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in Columbus, Ohio, on Tuesday. More Photos >

Published: March 5, 2008

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton defeated Senator Barack Obama in Ohio and Texas on Tuesday, ending a string of defeats and allowing her to soldier on in a Democratic presidential nomination race that now seems unlikely to end any time soon.

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Mrs. Clinton also won Rhode Island, while Mr. Obama won in Vermont. But the results mean that Mrs. Clinton won the two states she most needed to keep her candidacy alive.

Her victory in Texas was razor thin and came only after most Americans had gone to bed. But by winning decisively in Ohio earlier in the evening, Mrs. Clinton was able to deliver a televised victory speech in time for the late-night news. And the result there allowed her to cast Tuesday as the beginning of a comeback even though she stood a good chance of gaining no ground against Mr. Obama in the hunt for delegates.

"No candidate in recent history — Democratic or Republican — has won the White House without winning the Ohio primary," Mrs. Clinton, of New York, said at a rally in Columbus, Ohio. "We all know that if we want a Democratic president, we need a Democratic nominee who can win Democratic states just like Ohio."

On the Republican side, Senator John McCain swept to victory in Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas and Vermont and claimed his party's nomination, capping a remarkable comeback in his second bid for the presidency.

Mr. McCain's main remaining rival, Mike Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, announced he was dropping out minutes after the polls closed and pledged his cooperation to Mr. McCain. Aides to Mr. McCain said he would head Wednesday morning to Washington to go to the White House and accept the endorsement of President Bush, his one-time foe, and begin gathering his party around him.

Mr. McCain, of Arizona, delivered his victory speech in subdued tones to a boisterous crowd of supporters in Dallas.

"Now, we begin the most important part of our campaign," he said, "to make a respectful, determined and convincing case to the American people that our campaign and my election as president, given the alternatives presented by our friends in the other party, are in the best interests of the country we love."

Mr. McCain proceeded to offer a preview of attacks for his Democratic rival. "I will leave it to my opponent to propose returning to the failed, big-government mandates of the '60s and '70s to address problems such as the lack of health care insurance for some Americans," he said. "I will campaign to make health care more accessible to more Americans with reforms that will bring down costs in the health care industry without ruining the quality of the world's best medical care."

Mrs. Clinton's twin victories in Ohio and Texas gave her, at the least, a psychological boost after a tough month in which she watched Mr. Obama, of Illinois, roll up victory after victory and build a lead in delegates. There was virtually no chance that Mrs. Clinton could have survived had she lost Ohio and Texas; her husband, former President Bill Clinton, said last month that his wife needed to win both states.

Mrs. Clinton was already planning ways to capitalize on her performance; she was scheduled to appear Wednesday on all the morning news programs. But she will continue to find herself in a difficult position mathematically. Given the way the Democratic party allocates delegates, it remained unclear whether Mrs. Clinton would close Mr. Obama's lead on that front.

Even before the polls closed, Mr. Obama's aides said that given their lead in delegates over Mrs. Clinton, it was not possible for her to catch up in the few remaining contests.

Mr. Obama came out shortly before midnight to speak to a crowd in San Antonio, and laid out the argument his campaign would make in the days ahead.

"No matter what happens tonight," he said, "we have nearly the same delegate lead that we did this morning, and we are on our way to winning this nomination."

But Mrs. Clinton's supporters, exultant over the victory, tried to cast the results in Ohio and Texas as a turning point.

Mrs. Clinton took the stage in Columbus before a sea of waving white-and-blue "Hillary" signs and immediately portrayed her victory in Ohio as an indication of her electability in a general election. And she reprised a line of criticism against Mr. Obama that appeared to have gained her some traction in this contest.

"Americans don't need more promises," she said. "They've heard plenty of speeches. They deserve solutions, and they deserve them now."

As she spoke, the crowd responded with chants of "Yes, she will!" — apparently an orchestrated response to Mr. Obama's trademark "Yes, we can!"

Turning one of Mr. Obama's themes against him, she said, "Together, we will turn promises into action, words into solutions and hope into reality."

Marjorie Connelly and Megan Thee contributed reporting from New York, and John M. Broder from Columbus, Ohio.

Saludos
Rodrigo González Fernández
DIPLOMADO EN RSE DE LA ONU
www.Consultajuridicachile.blogspot.com
www.lobbyingchile.blogspot.com
www.el-observatorio-politico.blogspot.com
Renato Sánchez 3586
teléfono: 5839786
e-mail rogofe47@mi.cl
Santiago-Chile
 
Soliciten nuestros cursos de capacitación   y asesorías a nivel internacional  en lobby y están disponibles para OTEC Y OTIC en Chile

Above the Law's David Lat Booted From Facebook

from legal watch blog

 

Above the Law's David Lat Booted From Facebook

Everyone in the blawgosphere knows that David Lat is Above the Law. Everyone, that is, except Facebook, which apparently has its own laws that even a blogger of Lat's stature can't transcend. Facebook recently banished David Lat from its site, without explanation, according to Daniel Solove at Concurring Opinions.  Fortunately, the suspension didn't last long -- as of this afternoon, Lat reports that Facebook responded to Lat's appeal and reinstated his account.

Lat's sudden suspension has triggered a discussion among legal bloggers over what type of process is due customers of Facebook prior to ejection from the site.  This isn't the first time that a user's expulsion from a Web site has generated controversy. Last year, a Second Life user challenged the site's suspension of his account, with the judge invalidating the Terms of Service as an unconscionable contract of adhesion.  But given Lat's status as an A-list  law blogger, his experience has attracted more discussion from the legal blogosphere. 

Dan Solove frames the issue this way:

As more of our lives become dependent on Web 2.0 technologies, should we have some sort of rights or consumer protection? Is Facebook the digital equivalent to the company town?

Solove notes that currently, Facebook does not have any obligation to even explain why it terminated Lat under its Terms of Use.  On the one hand, Solove recognizes that Facebook owns the site, and it can set the rules.  But on the other hand, he argues that people put "a lot of labor and work into their profiles on the site" and that it takes time and effort to build and maintain a network of friends. Moreover, Facebook encourages people to use its service in this manner and reaps the financial benefits of extensive use. Thus, Solove wonders whether Facebook users "should be granted any kind of rights or protections" when they use the site.

Professor Larry Ribstein says asking private businesses to act like public utilities is asking for trouble.  Ribstein believes that contract law and the free market adequately protect Facebook users -- and that if Facebook wants to attract and retain customers, it will grant them rights "up to the point that they are profit-maximizing for Facebook." Ribstein also suggests that Facebook's knee-jerk expulsions may be the result of Facebook's increased liability exposure caused by the actions of its users.

As a David Lat fan, I hate the fact that Facebook kicked him out, albeit temporarily. And as a Facebook user myself, I don't relish the thought that my account and all of my contacts could be expunged without notice and for no apparent reason. 

At the same time, what I hate more than any of this is the potential regulation of Web 2.0 applications that even in Internet years, are still in their infancy. Eventually, I think we'll see these services evolve, with the emergence of high-end sites geared exclusively for professionals, that will likely offer the kind of extensive procedural and privacy protections that more sophisticated users will demand. Like Professor Ribstein, I'm confident that the market will eventually address the issue of consumer protection if we give it a chance. It's just unfortunate that one of the growing pains had to be the suspension of David Lat.

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Posted by Carolyn Elefant on March 3, 2008 at 12:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Why Not Web 2.0 Reviews for Law Schools?

Avvo, once considered an upstart lawyer-ranking service, is gaining traction with more established law firms.  Two weeks ago, Avvo announced that international law firm Davis Wright Tremaine had claimed Avvo profiles for its Washington attorneys.  And in this week's Internet Law & Strategy, Joseph Campos, marketing partner and chair of the corporate/securities law group at mid-size Seattle firm, Stanislaw Ashbaugh takes  a new look at client input systems like Avvo.

Campos writes that Web 2.0 business models have created a new paradigm: clients and lawyers rating lawyers for the benefits of clients and lawyers. While Campos sees risks in the paradigm, he also identifies opportunities that can come through embracing what clients have to say.  (As an aside, not all lawyers are sold on Avvo.  For example, today New York Personal Injury Lawyer Eric Turkewitz voiced an objection to what he characterizes as the service's onerous terms of use).

But leaving aside the controversies over Avvo, could the model of Web 2.0 evaluations work in other contexts... law school rankings, for example?  I pondered that thought after reading this post by Nate Oman at Concurring Opinions which proposes an alternative to U.S. News law school rankings.  Oman's post got me thinking about another alternative:   a Web 2.0 ranking system for law schools.  Each school and its respective professors would have a profile -- and students and alumni could register and offer rankings.  Professors could also evaluate each other, thereby ensuring a good mix of expert peer review and student feedback.  A Web 2.0 system would also force law schools to maintain good relations with alumni to prevent  a disgruntled grad from trashing the school or a particular professor five or ten years down the road.

So, if any of you law professors or students are reading, what's your opinion of "Avvo for Law Schools?"

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Posted by Carolyn Elefant on March 3, 2008 at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Saludos
Rodrigo González Fernández
DIPLOMADO EN RSE DE LA ONU
www.Consultajuridicachile.blogspot.com
www.lobbyingchile.blogspot.com
www.el-observatorio-politico.blogspot.com
Renato Sánchez 3586
teléfono: 5839786
e-mail rogofe47@mi.cl
Santiago-Chile
 
Soliciten nuestros cursos de capacitación   y asesorías a nivel internacional y están disponibles para OTEC Y OTIC en Chile

fron legal watch blog


'Web of Deceit' Implicates Lawyers

Hat tip to Martha Neil at the ABA Journal for her story alerting us to the spreading scandal in Detroit that could eventually implicate at least a dozen lawyers. We first learned details in January, when The Detroit Free Press published text messages suggesting a romantic relationship between Detroit's married mayor, Kwame M. Kilpatrick, who is a lawyer, and his chief of staff, Christine Beatty (who has, since the scandal broke, started law school). But documents ordered released last week by the Michigan Supreme Court shed new light on the scandal and raise questions about the roles of several other lawyers.

As the Associated Press recounts, the documents show that the city quietly settled a lawsuit it once vowed to fight, perhaps not for the best of reasons. After a jury in September awarded $6.5 million to two police officers who said the mayor forced them out of their jobs, the city initially said it would appeal. But then it changed course and privately settled the case for $8.4 million, within hours of learning that the officers' lawyer, Michael Stefani, had copies of the text messages and planned to make them public. The settlement included a side deal, not filed with the court, in which Stefani agreed to turn over the text messages to Kilpatrick's lawyer.

That revelation has drawn scrutiny to nearly a dozen Detroit-area lawyers on charges raging from perjury and obstruction of justice to violations of legal ethics rules, as Crain's Detroit Business details in an article yesterday. They include several lawyers employed by the city, outside lawyers who worked for the city and the mayor, and even the lawyer who represented the two police officers. The judge who presided over the officers' trial described the situation as "a web of deceit," adding: "The advice about 'Follow the money' just becomes 'Follow the lawyers.'"

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Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on March 4, 2008 at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Martha's Vineyard, a Case With a View

It is debatable whether George Washington ever chopped down a cherry tree, but we can be certain he was never dragged into court over it. Not so the Martha's Vineyard property owner and his unfortunate landscaper who must pay $90,000 after chopping down 10 of his neighbor's trees. Boston lawyer Terry Klein, at his blog Decisionism, urges anyone considering chopping a neighbor's tree to read yesterday's Massachusetts Appeals Court decision, Glavin v. Eckman.

So who knew that Massachusetts has a law imposing treble damages on anyone who cuts down a neighbor's tree? Certainly not Bruce Eckman. His view of the ocean from the pricey Aquinnah section of this resort island off the Cape Cod coast was obstructed by trees inconveniently located on the lot of his neighbor, James A. Glavin. In 1996, Eckman asked Glavin for permission to cut the trees, but the neighbor said no. Five years later, apparently unable to endure his obscured view any longer, Eckman hired a landscaper and gave him his marching orders: cut down any trees that blocked the view. The landscaper complied and thus this litigation.

Complicating it all was that these weren't just any 10 trees. These were large, mature oak trees. In fact, the trees were a key part of the reason Glavin purchased the lot, which adjoined another lot on which he'd built his vacation home five years earlier. The trees, as the court explained, "were ideally situated to provide shade and serve as a backdrop to a pond that Glavin planned to restore."

That Massachusetts law against cutting your neighbor's trees is silent on how to measure the damages should such cutting occur. Courts generally use either the value of the cut timber or the diminution of property value. But Glavin argued that neither would compensate him. He asked for, and the jury awarded, damages based on what it would cost him to restore the trees. This came to $30,000, the jury concluded, and the trial judge tripled that to $90,000. This was OK, the Appeals Court said, given that "any diminution in market value arising from the wrongful cutting was of less importance than was the destruction of the special value that the land and its stand of mature oak trees held for Glavin."

If there is anyone comparable to George Washington in this tree-chopping tale, it may be the landscaper, who chose not to appeal the jury's verdict against him. It is almost as if the landscaper chose to say, "I cannot tell a lie."

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Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on March 4, 2008 at 09:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After Huge Verdict, Lawyer Joins Niro Firm

Chicago plaintiffs' lawyer Raymond P. Niro was a frequent topic among bloggers in recent months as his offer of a reward to unmask the anonymous author of the blog Patent Troll Tracker eventually led the author to unmask himself. Now Niro has news of a different sort, announcing yesterday that lawyer Lee F. Grossman has joined his firm, Niro, Scavone, Haller & Niro.

Like Niro, Grossman has had a string of victories representing plaintiffs in patent and trademark suits, most recently in November when he won a $21 million verdict against Sears, Roebuck and Co. after a jury found that the retail giant misappropriated the trade secrets of a Wisconsin carpenter and the family business he started in his basement three decades ago. Niro, of course, is the lawyer who IP Law & Business called the original patent troll. His own verdicts in 2007 included $84.6 million against Thomson Corp. and $12.1 million plus a 12 percent royalty against Sybase.

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Saludos
Rodrigo González Fernández
DIPLOMADO EN RSE DE LA ONU
www.Consultajuridicachile.blogspot.com
www.lobbyingchile.blogspot.com
www.el-observatorio-politico.blogspot.com
Renato Sánchez 3586
teléfono: 5839786
e-mail rogofe47@mi.cl
Santiago-Chile
 
Soliciten nuestros cursos de capacitación   y asesorías a nivel internacional y están disponibles para OTEC Y OTIC en Chile