Wrongful death law firm

Home Daily News Court: Law firm accused of having an on-site… Law Firms By Debra Cassens Weiss Posted June 14, 2018, 7:05 am CDT Africa Studio/Shutterstock.com. A Florida law firm accused of having a bar on its premises to encourage employees to work longer hours isn’t liable for the death of an intoxicated paralegal, a Florida appeals court has ruled. The Gladstone Law Group isn’t liable because paralegal Susan Salerno was killed by a train while while walking home—an accident that occurred outside the scope of her employment, according to the June 6 decision by the Fourth District Court of Appeal. The decision upheld dismissal of the case, the Daily Business Review reports. Salerno was a paralegal for both the Gladstone Law Group, a foreclosure law firm, and Del Mar Financial Service, a legal documentation support firm. The employers knew or should have known that Salerno was an alcoholic because she was required to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, the … [Read more...] about Court: Law firm accused of having an on-site bar not liable for death of intoxicated paralegal

Home Daily News Widow of BigLaw partner loses en banc petition… Trials & Litigation By Stephanie Francis Ward Posted September 21, 2018, 3:01 pm CDT Willy Barton./Shutterstock.com The Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday denied a petition to rehear a wrongful-death finding involving GlaxoSmithKline and a former Reed Smith partner who died by suicide while taking a generic version of the prescribed antidepressant Paxil. Wendy Dolin, who was Stewart Dolin’s wife, alleged that GSK failed to warn people that the drug could cause suicide deaths in older users, Bloomberg Big Law Business reports. She sought $12 million in damages. A federal jury awarded her $3 million in 2017. The defense appealed to the 7th Circuit, which overturned the verdict in August. The panel found that the wording on the drug labels was mandated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and Dolin’s labeling claim under Illinois law was pre-empted by federal law. The … [Read more...] about Widow of BigLaw partner loses en banc petition in wrongful-death lawsuit

Soft skills do not get much attention in law firms. That was my experience when I was practicing in small, medium and larger firms, and it still is the case today. Law firms are focused on leveraging, billable hours, business development and profits per partner. I am often informed by practitioners that “time in law firms is far too precious to prioritize attention to things like soft skills … whatever those are.” Soft skills also are not taught in law schools. The hard skills of strong legal analysis, proficient statutory construction, effective legal writing and persuasive legal argument get priority to produce “practice ready” lawyers, or so the theory goes. Ever-increasing and evolving substantive law puts pressure on law schools to teach what is tested on bar exams, and pass rates matter a lot to law school administrators. Even hard skills can get short shrift in that kind of competitive academic environment. When I was a teaching fellow at a Top 15 … [Read more...] about Law firms shouldn’t overlook value of soft skills

In Schlather, Stumbar, Parks & Salk, LLP, et al. v. One Beacon Ins. Co., No. 5:10-cv-0167, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 147931 (N.D.N.Y. Dec. 22, 2011), the court held that an insurer breached its duty to defend when it withdrew from the defense of an underlying legal malpractice action against its insured, notwithstanding the fact that a “known claims” exclusion extinguished the duty to indemnify, because the applicability of the exclusion was not clear based on the allegations in the underlying complaint. The underlying legal malpractice complaint alleged that an attorney at the insured law firm dismissed the client’s wrongful death action without notifying the client of the dismissal.  When the client learned of the dismissal, she sent letters to the law firm that criticized the performance of her attorney and stated that the client did not consent to the dismissal.  More than a year after receiving the letters from the client, the law firm … [Read more...] about Law Firm Entitled to Damages for “Loss of Peace of Mind” After Insurer Withdrew from Defense Based on “Known Claims” Exclusion

The Wilner Firm and Farah & Farah, both based in Jacksonville, filed 1,250 frivolous suits on behalf of “personal-injury plaintiffs” who had died before the suits were filed, people who never authorized the suits, people who never lived in Florida, nonsmokers, and people whose cases had already been tried, the judges said. First Coast News and Law360 (sub. req.) covered the order.The defects were first discovered in 2012 after the court sent questionnaires to the named plaintiffs. A special master was then appointed to investigate.The 588 personal injury actions filed for dead plaintiffs should have been filed as wrongful-death or survival actions, the court said. Yet the complaints never suggested the plaintiffs had died. To the contrary, the court said, the lawyers “insisted that they were in contact with their clients.”The court surmised that 572 suits weren’t authorized because the plaintiffs didn’t return a court questionnaire. In 15 of the … [Read more...] about 2 law firms sanctioned $9.1M for ‘immense waste of judicial resources’ in tobacco litigation