Associates at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy are heading to Harvard.
Karen SloanFebruary 10, 2011
The firm has agreed with Harvard Law School to launch what it believes is a first-of-its-kind associate development program. Mid-level associates will attend annual eight-day training sessions focused on business principles at the Cambridge, Mass., campus.
The program is called Milbank@Harvard.
It's not uncommon for law firms to send attorneys through intensive executive training courses at top academies such as the Wharton School and the University of Pennsylvania, but those programs often are geared toward leadership development for partners. Milbank's program will be open to all third- through seventh-year associates.
"We don't know of anyone who is doing something like this," said Milbank Vice Chairman Scott Edelman. "For one thing, it's going to involve every associate in the firm and a commitment over a period of years. It's not a one-year program."
Law firms have been moving away from affiliations with prestigious academic institutions, said Eric Seeger, a consultant with Altman Weil who specializes in law firm strategy. Firms are serious about instilling the skills they want associates to have, but most of those efforts are being handled internally, he said.
"It's good branding to be associated with Harvard. That has some value," Seeger said. "It might also have some recruiting and retention benefits."
Larry Richard, a consultant who runs the leadership and organization development group at Hildebrandt Baker Robbins, hasn't seen anything quite like Milbank@Harvard. There is a reason that most firms don't send mid-level associates off for business training, he said. Attorneys tend to be more receptive and motivated to learn new things early in their careers, and research shows that educational efforts are most effective when students are interested in their subject matter.
"They're talking about teaching things like economics and finance," Richard said. "Will every lawyer be interested in that? I don't know."
Still, sending associates to learn about business and client relations can't hurt, Richard said. The team atmosphere that results from bringing together associates from all offices may well prove the biggest benefit. "There is an indispensable role that face-to-face contact has in building connections," Richard said.
Team building indeed is one of Milbank's goals, Edelman said. So is increasing associates' investment in the firm. Some 40 associates will go though the program at a time, with 100 to 150 completing the training annually. Another goal is to turn associates into savvy businesspeople who understand what's important to clients, he said.
Faculty members from Harvard's law and business schools will teach the sessions, and Milbank partners will be involved. The program is being developed by the firm and Harvard law professor Ashish Nanda, executive director of the school's executive education program. Nanda in 2008 helped Linklaters develop the Linklaters Law and Business School, an extensive professional development program.
Learning about business principles in a Harvard classroom still won't be as effective as secondments with clients, which show associates how the client's business really functions, Richards said.
And including every associate may not be the best way to meet the individual needs of either attorneys or clients, Seeger said. "It surprised me that they will put all their associates through the program," he said. "Our experience is that a one-size-fits all experience is not the most efficient."
Perhaps another surprising element is the financial investment the program represents for Milbank. It includes not only the cost of the program but the time associates will spend away from client matters.
That was a significant consideration for Milbank, Edelman said, but the firm already holds four five-day conferences for associates during their first seven years with the firm.
Law firms have been rolling back spending on attorney development, according to a 2010 survey by the National Association for Law Placement. More than half of the survey respondents reported that their firm's professional development budgets decreased by 10% or more between 2008 and 2010.
Milbank associates are embracing the program, Edelman said. "Associates are really charged up about it and excited about doing it."
Monday, February 13, 2012
Again, from the "Can Anyone Here Play This Game" File
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO
Civil Action No. 09-cv-00894-JLK
CONNIE PERRY,
KENT MENGE,
CHUCK WEDDEL,
Plaintiffs,
v.
AT&T OPERATIONS, INC.,
Defendant.
________________________________________________________________________
ORDER STRIKING MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT
AND RELATED BRIEFING
________________________________________________________________________
KANE, J.
This overtime compensation action is before me on Plaintiffs Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. 47). Plaintiffs contend they were non-exempt employees who regularly worked more than 40 hours a week and were not compensated for their overtime hours in violation of the § 207(a)(1) of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FSLA) and Colorado Wage Order 24, Colo. Code Regs. § 1103-1. Plaintiffs submit affidavits attesting to the fact that they were “forced” to work more than 40 hours per week and that they were not compensated for their excess hours, and argue that Defendant’s failure to keep adequate records of the hours worked by employees precludes its ability to rebut Plaintiffs’ evidence and entitled them to judgment as a matter of law. I have spent considerable time with the parties’ briefs and disagree. In both form and substance, Plaintiffs’ summary judgment theory of relief and their briefing are inadequate. Plaintiffs characterize both their Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and state law wage claims in only the most general terms,1 support those claims with legal conclusions, non sequiturs, and minimal and unpersuasive legal authority,2 and pepper their briefs with miscitations and grammatical errors.3 Most importantly, a wage claim plaintiff based on reasonable estimates of uncompensated overtime hours even when an employer presents sworn testimony in rebuttal. To the contrary, the trial court in Doty ruled for plaintiffs only after a trial on the merits where the court, as the trier of fact, weighed the evidence, as I am specifically precluded from doing on summary judgment. If anything, Doty supports a denial of Plaintiffs’ motion, so that the parties’ competing evidence may be weighed by the trier of fact.
1 In their Complaint (Doc. 1), Scheduling Order (Doc. 19), and summary judgment briefing, Plaintiffs claim Defendant has violated their rights under “29 U.S.C. § 201, et seq.,” the elements of which Plaintiffs contend are set forth at 29 U.S.C. § 207(a) (1) and “29 U.S.C. § 785.12 (1997).” Mot. Summ. J. (Doc. 47) at 9-10. FLSA Section 207(a) is the Act’s general prohibition that “no employer shall employ any of his employees . . . for a workweek longer than forty hours unless such employee receives compensation for his employment in excess of the hours above specified at a rate not less than one and one-half times the regular rate at which he is employed.” After some consternation I realized the citation to “29 U.S.C. § 785.12 (1997)” was likely a citation to a thirteen-year-old version of 29 C.F.R. § 785.12, which provides that employers must pay overtime for work “performed away from the premises or the job site,” a subject about which Plaintiffs argue elsewhere in their briefing but not in the section of page 10 of their opening brief where the regulation is cited. 2 In their reply in support of the undisputed facts they averred in their opening brief, for example, Plaintiffs respond to Defendant’s denial that AT&T managers ever emailed or “quequed” with Plaintiffs after hours by asserting “whether or not Plaintiffs corresponded with their managers via queque [or email] after hours, AT&T was still on constructive notice that Plaintiffs were working overtime hours.” Reply Br. at p. 6, ¶¶ 16-17 (Doc. 58)(emphasis mine.) Not only does the conclusion not follow from the premise, but it is a legal one insufficient to support a claim even under a Rule 12(b)(6) standard, let alone the standard governing motions for summary judgment under Rule 56. See Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007), applied in Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. 1937 (2009). 3 In arguing their entitlement to summary judgment, for example, Plaintiffs cite Doty v. Elias, 733 F.2d 720, 725 (10th Cir. 1984), for the proposition that “Courts have been very
differential [sic] to employees when examining evidence that employer’s [sic] try to use to negate the employee’s reasonable estimate of uncompensated overtime hours.” Pls.’ Mot. Summ. J. (Doc. 47) at 17. Besides the inclusion of distracting grammatical/typographical errors, the case Plaintiffs cite in no way supports the proposition they purport to make, namely, that district courts have in the past, or that this court should, in this case, grant summary judgment to.
It is not the time-consuming burden of this court to proofread and correct errors, or, in the case of the miscitation of 29 U.S.C. § 785.12, to determine what the correct citation was intended, simply to understand what represented parties are trying to communicate in their briefs.
Plaintiffs’ briefs read like trial briefs full of argument on disputed points of fact. Plaintiffs contend, for example, that they have “proven” each of the elements of a wage act claim, asserting AT&T managers had “actual knowledge” that Plaintiffs were working overtime and maintaining those managers’ sworn affidavits to the contrary “are not credible.” Mot. Summ. J. (Doc. 47) at 9; Pls’ Reply at 15. This is not the stuff of summary judgment, it is the antithesis of it. The essence of Plaintiffs’ argument on summary judgment is that the Department of Labor has already investigated AT&T and issued a report finding AT&T to have maintained, for a period of time that has since expired, inadequate records of employee hours worked and that two of the three Plaintiffs were owed overtime compensation for work performed from the date they were hired in April 2007 to September 2007, and that these findings somehow relieve Plaintiffs of any burden on summary judgment other than to present evidence from which the existence and number of additional overtime violations since can be inferred. This is incorrect. Under old, but apparently still applicable Supreme Court precedent, where an employer in a wage act case has kept inaccurate or inadequate records, “an employee has carried out his burden [of making out a claim for unpaid minimum or overtime wages under the Act] if he proves that he has in fact performed work for which he was improperly compensated and if he produces sufficient evidence to show the amount and extent of that work as a matter of just and reasonable inference.” Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co., 328 U.S. 680, 687 (1946). If this burden is met, however, “the burden then shifts to the employer to come forward with evidence of the precise amount of work performed or with evidence to negative [sic] the reasonableness of the inference to be drawn from the employee’s evidence.” Id. at 687-88. On the record before me, Plaintiffs’ initial burden is the subject of strenuous objection and denial in sworn affidavits by the managers charged with supervising them and overseeing their work, and those same managers offer emphatic, and emphatically disputed, testimony to support their burden of negating the reasonableness of the inference to which Plaintiffs claim they are entitled. It is, in short, completely unreasonable to conclude in this case that a reasonable trier of fact could find only in favor of Plaintiffs on their claims. Under these circumstances, Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment would be subject to denial on the merits even if I were to consider the briefing as filed. See Robertson v. Board of County Comm’rs, 78 F. Supp.2d 1142, 1160 (D. Colo. 1999)(Babcock, J.)(finding in favor of wage claim plaintiffs in part after weighing evidence on the merits), aff’d, 166 F.3d 1222 (10th Cir. 1999)(unpublished).
Before concluding, I pause also to reflect on Defendant’s submissions. Defendant’s submissions constitute an effort to rebut Plaintiffs’ allegations regarding overtime compensation due and their managers’ awareness that (1) those hours were, in fact, worked, and (2) that Defendant avoided having to compensate Plaintiffs for them by creating an atmosphere where employees felt claiming overtime would reflect poorly on their performance and job security and therefore did not request or seek approval for overtime compensation. Because they are sworn statements essentially denying and completely recasting almost every fact alleged, it is hard to arrive at a conclusion other than that someone or other is perjuring him or herself under oath. Defendant is admonished that should any of the testimony it has proffered to rebut Plaintiffs’ Motion is
ultimately be shown to have been false when made, not only Defendant but also the individual witnesses/affiants and Defendant’s counsel, may each be subjected to sanctions to and including a referral to the United States Attorney. The same holds true for Plaintiffs and Plaintiffs’ counsel.
Based on the foregoing, the Motion for Summary Judgment and briefs in support and in opposition thereto are STRICKEN with leave to refile. If Plaintiff chooses to refile its Motion, it should do so on or before January 13, 2011. Defendant’s refiled Response shall be due on or before January 21, 2011, and any Reply shall be due on or before January 28, 2011. The Court is aware that Magistrate Judge Shaffer has set this case for a Final Pretrial Conference on February 1, 2011. The parties are strongly encouraged to confer on the issue of settlement before the Pretrial Conference date and to let Magistrate Judge Shaffer know whether further settlement negotiations would be helpful. I express no view on the advisability of settlement one way or the other, but it does appear that the case is one that must be tried, to whatever assessable risk to the parties as such a trial may portend.
Dated January 6, 2011.
s/John L. Kane
SENIOR U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO
Civil Action No. 09-cv-00894-JLK
CONNIE PERRY,
KENT MENGE,
CHUCK WEDDEL,
Plaintiffs,
v.
AT&T OPERATIONS, INC.,
Defendant.
________________________________________________________________________
ORDER STRIKING MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT
AND RELATED BRIEFING
________________________________________________________________________
KANE, J.
This overtime compensation action is before me on Plaintiffs Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. 47). Plaintiffs contend they were non-exempt employees who regularly worked more than 40 hours a week and were not compensated for their overtime hours in violation of the § 207(a)(1) of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FSLA) and Colorado Wage Order 24, Colo. Code Regs. § 1103-1. Plaintiffs submit affidavits attesting to the fact that they were “forced” to work more than 40 hours per week and that they were not compensated for their excess hours, and argue that Defendant’s failure to keep adequate records of the hours worked by employees precludes its ability to rebut Plaintiffs’ evidence and entitled them to judgment as a matter of law. I have spent considerable time with the parties’ briefs and disagree. In both form and substance, Plaintiffs’ summary judgment theory of relief and their briefing are inadequate. Plaintiffs characterize both their Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and state law wage claims in only the most general terms,1 support those claims with legal conclusions, non sequiturs, and minimal and unpersuasive legal authority,2 and pepper their briefs with miscitations and grammatical errors.3 Most importantly, a wage claim plaintiff based on reasonable estimates of uncompensated overtime hours even when an employer presents sworn testimony in rebuttal. To the contrary, the trial court in Doty ruled for plaintiffs only after a trial on the merits where the court, as the trier of fact, weighed the evidence, as I am specifically precluded from doing on summary judgment. If anything, Doty supports a denial of Plaintiffs’ motion, so that the parties’ competing evidence may be weighed by the trier of fact.
1 In their Complaint (Doc. 1), Scheduling Order (Doc. 19), and summary judgment briefing, Plaintiffs claim Defendant has violated their rights under “29 U.S.C. § 201, et seq.,” the elements of which Plaintiffs contend are set forth at 29 U.S.C. § 207(a) (1) and “29 U.S.C. § 785.12 (1997).” Mot. Summ. J. (Doc. 47) at 9-10. FLSA Section 207(a) is the Act’s general prohibition that “no employer shall employ any of his employees . . . for a workweek longer than forty hours unless such employee receives compensation for his employment in excess of the hours above specified at a rate not less than one and one-half times the regular rate at which he is employed.” After some consternation I realized the citation to “29 U.S.C. § 785.12 (1997)” was likely a citation to a thirteen-year-old version of 29 C.F.R. § 785.12, which provides that employers must pay overtime for work “performed away from the premises or the job site,” a subject about which Plaintiffs argue elsewhere in their briefing but not in the section of page 10 of their opening brief where the regulation is cited. 2 In their reply in support of the undisputed facts they averred in their opening brief, for example, Plaintiffs respond to Defendant’s denial that AT&T managers ever emailed or “quequed” with Plaintiffs after hours by asserting “whether or not Plaintiffs corresponded with their managers via queque [or email] after hours, AT&T was still on constructive notice that Plaintiffs were working overtime hours.” Reply Br. at p. 6, ¶¶ 16-17 (Doc. 58)(emphasis mine.) Not only does the conclusion not follow from the premise, but it is a legal one insufficient to support a claim even under a Rule 12(b)(6) standard, let alone the standard governing motions for summary judgment under Rule 56. See Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007), applied in Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. 1937 (2009). 3 In arguing their entitlement to summary judgment, for example, Plaintiffs cite Doty v. Elias, 733 F.2d 720, 725 (10th Cir. 1984), for the proposition that “Courts have been very
differential [sic] to employees when examining evidence that employer’s [sic] try to use to negate the employee’s reasonable estimate of uncompensated overtime hours.” Pls.’ Mot. Summ. J. (Doc. 47) at 17. Besides the inclusion of distracting grammatical/typographical errors, the case Plaintiffs cite in no way supports the proposition they purport to make, namely, that district courts have in the past, or that this court should, in this case, grant summary judgment to.
It is not the time-consuming burden of this court to proofread and correct errors, or, in the case of the miscitation of 29 U.S.C. § 785.12, to determine what the correct citation was intended, simply to understand what represented parties are trying to communicate in their briefs.
Plaintiffs’ briefs read like trial briefs full of argument on disputed points of fact. Plaintiffs contend, for example, that they have “proven” each of the elements of a wage act claim, asserting AT&T managers had “actual knowledge” that Plaintiffs were working overtime and maintaining those managers’ sworn affidavits to the contrary “are not credible.” Mot. Summ. J. (Doc. 47) at 9; Pls’ Reply at 15. This is not the stuff of summary judgment, it is the antithesis of it. The essence of Plaintiffs’ argument on summary judgment is that the Department of Labor has already investigated AT&T and issued a report finding AT&T to have maintained, for a period of time that has since expired, inadequate records of employee hours worked and that two of the three Plaintiffs were owed overtime compensation for work performed from the date they were hired in April 2007 to September 2007, and that these findings somehow relieve Plaintiffs of any burden on summary judgment other than to present evidence from which the existence and number of additional overtime violations since can be inferred. This is incorrect. Under old, but apparently still applicable Supreme Court precedent, where an employer in a wage act case has kept inaccurate or inadequate records, “an employee has carried out his burden [of making out a claim for unpaid minimum or overtime wages under the Act] if he proves that he has in fact performed work for which he was improperly compensated and if he produces sufficient evidence to show the amount and extent of that work as a matter of just and reasonable inference.” Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co., 328 U.S. 680, 687 (1946). If this burden is met, however, “the burden then shifts to the employer to come forward with evidence of the precise amount of work performed or with evidence to negative [sic] the reasonableness of the inference to be drawn from the employee’s evidence.” Id. at 687-88. On the record before me, Plaintiffs’ initial burden is the subject of strenuous objection and denial in sworn affidavits by the managers charged with supervising them and overseeing their work, and those same managers offer emphatic, and emphatically disputed, testimony to support their burden of negating the reasonableness of the inference to which Plaintiffs claim they are entitled. It is, in short, completely unreasonable to conclude in this case that a reasonable trier of fact could find only in favor of Plaintiffs on their claims. Under these circumstances, Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment would be subject to denial on the merits even if I were to consider the briefing as filed. See Robertson v. Board of County Comm’rs, 78 F. Supp.2d 1142, 1160 (D. Colo. 1999)(Babcock, J.)(finding in favor of wage claim plaintiffs in part after weighing evidence on the merits), aff’d, 166 F.3d 1222 (10th Cir. 1999)(unpublished).
Before concluding, I pause also to reflect on Defendant’s submissions. Defendant’s submissions constitute an effort to rebut Plaintiffs’ allegations regarding overtime compensation due and their managers’ awareness that (1) those hours were, in fact, worked, and (2) that Defendant avoided having to compensate Plaintiffs for them by creating an atmosphere where employees felt claiming overtime would reflect poorly on their performance and job security and therefore did not request or seek approval for overtime compensation. Because they are sworn statements essentially denying and completely recasting almost every fact alleged, it is hard to arrive at a conclusion other than that someone or other is perjuring him or herself under oath. Defendant is admonished that should any of the testimony it has proffered to rebut Plaintiffs’ Motion is
ultimately be shown to have been false when made, not only Defendant but also the individual witnesses/affiants and Defendant’s counsel, may each be subjected to sanctions to and including a referral to the United States Attorney. The same holds true for Plaintiffs and Plaintiffs’ counsel.
Based on the foregoing, the Motion for Summary Judgment and briefs in support and in opposition thereto are STRICKEN with leave to refile. If Plaintiff chooses to refile its Motion, it should do so on or before January 13, 2011. Defendant’s refiled Response shall be due on or before January 21, 2011, and any Reply shall be due on or before January 28, 2011. The Court is aware that Magistrate Judge Shaffer has set this case for a Final Pretrial Conference on February 1, 2011. The parties are strongly encouraged to confer on the issue of settlement before the Pretrial Conference date and to let Magistrate Judge Shaffer know whether further settlement negotiations would be helpful. I express no view on the advisability of settlement one way or the other, but it does appear that the case is one that must be tried, to whatever assessable risk to the parties as such a trial may portend.
Dated January 6, 2011.
s/John L. Kane
SENIOR U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE
You Had Better Be Realizing This if You Are Considering Law School
This is the salary range for 2009 law school graduates entering full time law positions:
Two Questions About This
"Donation to Help Struggling Student"
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Donation-Help-Struggling-Student-/130478083877?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e61198f25
1. Is it legit or a cool con?
2. What does this say about a number of people going to law school?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Donation-Help-Struggling-Student-/130478083877?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e61198f25
1. Is it legit or a cool con?
2. What does this say about a number of people going to law school?
LSAT Takers Signify What?
January, 2011:
December LSAT test-takers drop 16.5% from last year; first time test-takers down 22% Here are the figures for the December LSAT as reported by the Law School Admission Council:
There were 42,096 test takers for the December 2010 administration. This figure is down 16.5% (8,348 test takers) from the December 2009 LSAT administration.
Year-to-date (Jun-Dec), testing volume is 129,414. While this figure is down 10.0% compared to last year, it is the second largest YTD testing volume (second only to last year).
Like June and October, there was an increase in the percentage of repeat test takers for this administration compared to the same administration last year. There has been a steady increase in December repeaters over the past several years. For December 2010, 47% had previously taken the test. This is up from 44% of test takers in December 2009.
The volume of first-time test takers in December 2010 was down approximately 22% from December 2009.
December LSAT test-takers drop 16.5% from last year; first time test-takers down 22% Here are the figures for the December LSAT as reported by the Law School Admission Council:
There were 42,096 test takers for the December 2010 administration. This figure is down 16.5% (8,348 test takers) from the December 2009 LSAT administration.
Year-to-date (Jun-Dec), testing volume is 129,414. While this figure is down 10.0% compared to last year, it is the second largest YTD testing volume (second only to last year).
Like June and October, there was an increase in the percentage of repeat test takers for this administration compared to the same administration last year. There has been a steady increase in December repeaters over the past several years. For December 2010, 47% had previously taken the test. This is up from 44% of test takers in December 2009.
The volume of first-time test takers in December 2010 was down approximately 22% from December 2009.
No Matter How You Feel on the Issue, READ
This is the reason we teach legal writing:
https://ecf.cand.uscourts.gov/cand/09cv2292/files/09cv2292-ORDER.pdf
https://ecf.cand.uscourts.gov/cand/09cv2292/files/09cv2292-ORDER.pdf
And I Just Yelled at Them
By Rumanna Hussain & Frank Main
June 3, 2010
A Cook County prosecutor was hospitalized this morning after being choked in a hallway of the 26th and California criminal courthouse, allegedly by an assistant public defender, authorities said said.
The 50-year-old assistant state’s attorney was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital and was in good condition, a hospital spokeswoman said.
The incident happened after an argument spilled out from Judge Clayton Crane’s courtroom on the sixth floor, authorities said.
The two disagreed over when to set the next court date on a post conviction hearing for convicted murderer Derrick Neal.
“We could just set a date on Aug. 5. I don’t see a problem. . .,” the public defender said, according to a transcript of the hearing.
The prosecutor responded, “I didn’t say there was a problem. I’m trying to be convenient to everybody, including myself and the court.”
The prosecutor “left the courtroom and was in the hallway when the public defender came up to him and resumed the argument. That led to a physical fight where the public defender had to be pulled off of the state’s attorney,’’ Cook County Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Patterson said in a statement. It took two deputies to separate the men, he said.
The public defender put the prosecutor in a “choking headlock,’’ police said. The public defender allegedly told a bystander he did it because he was “sick of him mocking him,” the bystander said.
Someone called 911 from the courthouse at 11:09 a.m. and the victim was taken by ambulance to Mount Sinai, police said. A sheriff’s deputy also suffered a minor injury.
Patterson said the incident remains under investigation and no charges had been filed as of this afternoon.
The suspect works in the legal resources division of the Cook County Public Defender’s office, handling post-conviction appeals and appellate court matters, sources said.
June 3, 2010
A Cook County prosecutor was hospitalized this morning after being choked in a hallway of the 26th and California criminal courthouse, allegedly by an assistant public defender, authorities said said.
The 50-year-old assistant state’s attorney was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital and was in good condition, a hospital spokeswoman said.
The incident happened after an argument spilled out from Judge Clayton Crane’s courtroom on the sixth floor, authorities said.
The two disagreed over when to set the next court date on a post conviction hearing for convicted murderer Derrick Neal.
“We could just set a date on Aug. 5. I don’t see a problem. . .,” the public defender said, according to a transcript of the hearing.
The prosecutor responded, “I didn’t say there was a problem. I’m trying to be convenient to everybody, including myself and the court.”
The prosecutor “left the courtroom and was in the hallway when the public defender came up to him and resumed the argument. That led to a physical fight where the public defender had to be pulled off of the state’s attorney,’’ Cook County Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Patterson said in a statement. It took two deputies to separate the men, he said.
The public defender put the prosecutor in a “choking headlock,’’ police said. The public defender allegedly told a bystander he did it because he was “sick of him mocking him,” the bystander said.
Someone called 911 from the courthouse at 11:09 a.m. and the victim was taken by ambulance to Mount Sinai, police said. A sheriff’s deputy also suffered a minor injury.
Patterson said the incident remains under investigation and no charges had been filed as of this afternoon.
The suspect works in the legal resources division of the Cook County Public Defender’s office, handling post-conviction appeals and appellate court matters, sources said.
It Is Not Just Law Schools Snooping on Facebook
Divorce attorneys catching cheaters on Facebook
By Stephanie Chen, CNN
(CNN) -- Before the explosion of social media, Ken Altshuler, a divorce lawyer in Maine, dug up dirt on his client's spouses the old-fashioned way: with private investigators and subpoenas. Now the first place his team checks for evidence is Facebook.
Consider a recent story of a female client in her 30s, who came to Altshuler seeking a divorce from husband. She claimed her husband, an alcoholic, was drinking again. The husband denied it. It was her word against his word, Altshuler says, until a mutual friend of the couple stumbled across Facebook photos of the husband drinking beer at a party a few weeks earlier.
It was the kind of "gotcha moment" Altshuler knew would undermine the husband's credibility in court. His firm presented the photos to the judge, and the wife won the case in April, he said.
"Facebook is a great source of evidence," Altshuler said. "It's absolutely solid evidence because he's the author of it. How do you deny that you put that on?"
Social media stalking skills have become invaluable to the legal world for divorce cases in particular. Online photo albums, profile pages, wall comments, status updates and tweets have become gold mines for evidence and leads. Today, divorce and family law firms routinely cull information posted on social media sites -- the flirty exchanges with a paramour, unsavory self-revelations and compromising photographs -- to buttress their case.
Posting hugging and kissing photos online can show a happily married relationship, or it can expose a secretive affair. At least 80 percent of attorneys surveyed by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers cited a growth in the number of cases that used social media over the last five years. The study was released earlier this year.
Divorce attorneys say social media sites have opened windows for infidelity because it's become easier to rekindle romance with an old flame or flirt with a stranger. And the posted, shared, and tagged evidence of infidelity is precisely the type of evidence attorneys look for online.
"You need to familiarize yourself with privacy settings to ensure there is no way personal information can be accessed," said Adam Ostrow, editor in chief of Mashable.com, a social media guide.
Facebook -- where attorneys find most of the evidence and leads -- has gradually relaxed privacy settings over the last year. Attorneys say that enabled some members' personal details to be leaked without the user realizing it, attorneys say. On May 26th, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged the problem and, in a blog, announced new tools making it easier for users to tighten privacy settings and block outside parties from seeing personal information.
"It's becoming all but impossible to protect your information unless you spend hours and hours figuring it out," said Lee Rosen, a divorce attorney in North Carolina, who added he reaped the benefits of the tricky privacy controls in a recent case.
Rosen was investigating a North Carolina husband in his 40s accused of cheating on his wife. The husband failed to set privacy controls on his Facebook wall, an area where users can post information. Rosen noticed a suspicious message from the husband's younger female co-worker. The post was the hunch he needed to steer him in right direction.
Rosen reports about a quarter of his divorce cases use information found on social media sites.
Finding the Facebook profiles is so simple that Rosen says anyone could do it. He goes to a site called Flowtown.com, a site intended for marketers but is useful for attorneys, too. Type an e-mail address and the site generates various social media profiles. If that fails, Rosen hires a private investigator.
At National Digital Forensics, Inc., a North Carolina company that mines digital sites for information, requests for social media searches from divorce lawyers have surged, says president and senior digital investigator Giovanni Masucci. The social media detective work requires different snooping skills, he says.
"For example, someone may be cheating, but they are married," Masucci explained. "If their status on the web page says single, that's a major red flag."
Masucci estimated about half the social media cases they investigate expose some kind of cheating.
The happy reality for divorce attorneys is that most clients are bound to be on Facebook or another social media site. Facebook is more popular than ever, drawing in 400 million users, the company reports on its website. Each user creates an average of 70 pieces of content monthly and has an average of 130 friends.
The most common way to gather information on Facebook relies on the battling couple's mutual online friends who still have access to the spouse's profile. Many times the spouse will "de-friend" a partner but forget about their shared friends, who can play detective and access information on their profile.
Another way of exposing damaging information is searching the profiles of the suspected "other man" or "other woman", says says Marlene Eskind Moses, a divorce attorney in Tennessee.
"It's amazing how people tell their life stories," said Moses, who represented a Tennessee woman who believed her husband was cheating on her. After the wife found herself blocked from her husband's Facebook page, she found the profile page of the other woman whom she suspected in the affair.
On that woman's profile page, a public album of photos taken on a romantic getaway appeared. Scenic shots of South Carolina's mountains. Her husband and another woman embracing in front of an art gallery. Portraits of the couple with their faces nuzzled close together.
Elizabeth K. Englander, professor of psychology at Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts, says people divulge information on social media because they believe no one will ever see the information they post.
"The sense online is sort of like the mob effect," Englander said. "You feel like you're one in a million, and so who will ever notice you?"
But when someone does notice, that's when some divorce attorneys pounce. Information copied from social media sites can sway the outcome of alimony payment disputes and custody fights, attorneys say. Some parents have even lost a child because of the behavior they exhibited online, the lawyers say.
The ultimate goal, after all, is to catch a spouse in a lie. Sometimes it's a wife claiming she can't afford child support payments but subsequently purchased expensive jewelry and posted photos of the items on Facebook. Or if a husband who claims he doesn't have anger problems while his social media profile is loaded with expletives. Once there is evidence of a person caught in an obvious lie, attorneys say, it undermines the rest of their credibility with the judge.
Attorneys advise users of Facebook and other social media who are headed toward a divorce or custody battle to edit their profiles, be cautious about updating statuses and double check to see who is really a "friend."
Or to make things easier -- at least until the trial is over or a settlement is reached -- just get off Facebook completely.
By Stephanie Chen, CNN
(CNN) -- Before the explosion of social media, Ken Altshuler, a divorce lawyer in Maine, dug up dirt on his client's spouses the old-fashioned way: with private investigators and subpoenas. Now the first place his team checks for evidence is Facebook.
Consider a recent story of a female client in her 30s, who came to Altshuler seeking a divorce from husband. She claimed her husband, an alcoholic, was drinking again. The husband denied it. It was her word against his word, Altshuler says, until a mutual friend of the couple stumbled across Facebook photos of the husband drinking beer at a party a few weeks earlier.
It was the kind of "gotcha moment" Altshuler knew would undermine the husband's credibility in court. His firm presented the photos to the judge, and the wife won the case in April, he said.
"Facebook is a great source of evidence," Altshuler said. "It's absolutely solid evidence because he's the author of it. How do you deny that you put that on?"
Social media stalking skills have become invaluable to the legal world for divorce cases in particular. Online photo albums, profile pages, wall comments, status updates and tweets have become gold mines for evidence and leads. Today, divorce and family law firms routinely cull information posted on social media sites -- the flirty exchanges with a paramour, unsavory self-revelations and compromising photographs -- to buttress their case.
Posting hugging and kissing photos online can show a happily married relationship, or it can expose a secretive affair. At least 80 percent of attorneys surveyed by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers cited a growth in the number of cases that used social media over the last five years. The study was released earlier this year.
Divorce attorneys say social media sites have opened windows for infidelity because it's become easier to rekindle romance with an old flame or flirt with a stranger. And the posted, shared, and tagged evidence of infidelity is precisely the type of evidence attorneys look for online.
"You need to familiarize yourself with privacy settings to ensure there is no way personal information can be accessed," said Adam Ostrow, editor in chief of Mashable.com, a social media guide.
Facebook -- where attorneys find most of the evidence and leads -- has gradually relaxed privacy settings over the last year. Attorneys say that enabled some members' personal details to be leaked without the user realizing it, attorneys say. On May 26th, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged the problem and, in a blog, announced new tools making it easier for users to tighten privacy settings and block outside parties from seeing personal information.
"It's becoming all but impossible to protect your information unless you spend hours and hours figuring it out," said Lee Rosen, a divorce attorney in North Carolina, who added he reaped the benefits of the tricky privacy controls in a recent case.
Rosen was investigating a North Carolina husband in his 40s accused of cheating on his wife. The husband failed to set privacy controls on his Facebook wall, an area where users can post information. Rosen noticed a suspicious message from the husband's younger female co-worker. The post was the hunch he needed to steer him in right direction.
Rosen reports about a quarter of his divorce cases use information found on social media sites.
Finding the Facebook profiles is so simple that Rosen says anyone could do it. He goes to a site called Flowtown.com, a site intended for marketers but is useful for attorneys, too. Type an e-mail address and the site generates various social media profiles. If that fails, Rosen hires a private investigator.
At National Digital Forensics, Inc., a North Carolina company that mines digital sites for information, requests for social media searches from divorce lawyers have surged, says president and senior digital investigator Giovanni Masucci. The social media detective work requires different snooping skills, he says.
"For example, someone may be cheating, but they are married," Masucci explained. "If their status on the web page says single, that's a major red flag."
Masucci estimated about half the social media cases they investigate expose some kind of cheating.
The happy reality for divorce attorneys is that most clients are bound to be on Facebook or another social media site. Facebook is more popular than ever, drawing in 400 million users, the company reports on its website. Each user creates an average of 70 pieces of content monthly and has an average of 130 friends.
The most common way to gather information on Facebook relies on the battling couple's mutual online friends who still have access to the spouse's profile. Many times the spouse will "de-friend" a partner but forget about their shared friends, who can play detective and access information on their profile.
Another way of exposing damaging information is searching the profiles of the suspected "other man" or "other woman", says says Marlene Eskind Moses, a divorce attorney in Tennessee.
"It's amazing how people tell their life stories," said Moses, who represented a Tennessee woman who believed her husband was cheating on her. After the wife found herself blocked from her husband's Facebook page, she found the profile page of the other woman whom she suspected in the affair.
On that woman's profile page, a public album of photos taken on a romantic getaway appeared. Scenic shots of South Carolina's mountains. Her husband and another woman embracing in front of an art gallery. Portraits of the couple with their faces nuzzled close together.
Elizabeth K. Englander, professor of psychology at Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts, says people divulge information on social media because they believe no one will ever see the information they post.
"The sense online is sort of like the mob effect," Englander said. "You feel like you're one in a million, and so who will ever notice you?"
But when someone does notice, that's when some divorce attorneys pounce. Information copied from social media sites can sway the outcome of alimony payment disputes and custody fights, attorneys say. Some parents have even lost a child because of the behavior they exhibited online, the lawyers say.
The ultimate goal, after all, is to catch a spouse in a lie. Sometimes it's a wife claiming she can't afford child support payments but subsequently purchased expensive jewelry and posted photos of the items on Facebook. Or if a husband who claims he doesn't have anger problems while his social media profile is loaded with expletives. Once there is evidence of a person caught in an obvious lie, attorneys say, it undermines the rest of their credibility with the judge.
Attorneys advise users of Facebook and other social media who are headed toward a divorce or custody battle to edit their profiles, be cautious about updating statuses and double check to see who is really a "friend."
Or to make things easier -- at least until the trial is over or a settlement is reached -- just get off Facebook completely.
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