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Attorney John Okuley lost it. Not in court, but on the road. He said he got out of his car to confront a bicyclist who made an obscene gesture at him. A bystander started recording the scene, and that’s when the lawyer lost it. In the fracas that followed, Okuley destroyed the bystander’s cell phone. A disciplinary panel didn’t believe his claim that he was trying to preserve evidence. Bicyclist Down The Ohio Supreme Court suspended Okuley for one year, with six months stayed....

What’s up in the Bronx? For the second time in two years, another Bronx prosecutor’s drunken driving arrest is making headlines around New York. In the latest incident, New York City police stopped assistant prosecutor Rafael Urena at a checkpoint in Manhattan about 3:40 a.m. Saturday, the New York Post reports. When officers explained to Urena they wanted to use a Breathalyzer, the 26-year-old attorney allegedly retorted, “Yeah, I know what it is....

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Environmental Protection Agency this week, reports BNA Bloomberg. The court’s ruling upheld the EPA’s air quality standard for nitrogen dioxide and rebuffed the industry petitioners’ contentions that the EPA’s standard came about through a flawed process. The EPA, upon determining the harmful effects of greenhouse gas emissions, was bound to enact regulations. But the opponents of the regulations raised every possible issue, from flawed research to poor interpretation of the law....

In Howard v. County of San Diego, No. D055419, the Fourth District dealt with plaintiffs’ suit against a county claiming that the county inversely condemned their property when it allegedly refused to process plans for a metal barn on their property, because its location was in the footprint of a potential road. In reversing the trial court’s grant of county’s motion for judgment on the pleadings and dismissal of the complaint, the court held that the trial court erred in refusing to grant leave to amend because an issue of fact exists as to whether the county’s decision was “final” and whether any further attempt by plaintiffs to exhaust their administrative remedies would be futile....

People v. Wong, B212580, concerned a challenge to a defendant’s conviction for multiple crimes, including embezzlement, while working as the Southern California Director of Community and Government Relations of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, and other crimes while as a Commissioner of the Los Angeles World Airports. In affirming the convictions, the court held that substantial evidence supports the jury’s finding that the embezzlement charges were timely and, that there was sufficient evidence to support his bribery conviction....

What are the best law firms for women? The National Association for Female Executives (NAFE) and Flex-Time Lawyers recently announced that they have identified the 50 top firms for women lawyers through an intensive study of retention and promotion of female lawyers at firms with at least 50 attorneys. When compared to the launch of the Best Law Firms for Women initiative in 2007, the 2011 Firms have increased female representation at the Counsel (41 percent), Non-Equity Partner (28 percent), and Equity Partner (19 percent) levels....

This would’ve been helpful information, perhaps, for Benjamin Paul Baldassarre and Ashley Lauren Carroll, who police claim had been using a drone to distribute drugs throughout their Riverside, California neighborhood. The FAA already grounded craft beer-dropping drones, and California’s Bureau of Cannabis Control clipped the wings on prospective pot deliveries via drone. But that didn’t deter Baldassarre and Carroll from using a drone to deliver narcotics from their backyard to waiting customers in a nearby parking lot....

An Oklahoma burglary suspect was charged based on some evidence that he allegedly left behind after neglecting to flush his victim’s toilet. Charles Marqull Williams, 20, was charged with first-degree burglary in Oklahoma County District Court on Wednesday, on the strength of DNA that he left on a piece of used toilet paper, The Oklahoman reports. Didn’t know there was DNA in doo-doo? Probably neither did Williams. No. 2 DNA Made Williams No....

In a malicious prosecution action against plaintiffs’ former attorney, judgment dismissing the action is affirmed where: 1) the trial court did not err in granting the special motion to strike the action for malicious prosecution based upon defendant’s probate petition for fees, as plaintiffs cannot establish a favorable termination of the matter on the merits; and 2) the court did not err in dismissing plaintiffs’ malicious prosecution suit based on defendant’s own malicious prosecution complaint against them because, although the evidence supports a finding that defendant acted maliciously and without probable cause in suing his clients, defendant’s voluntary dismissal of the suit was a technical disposition and not a termination on the merits in plaintiffs’ favor as required....

The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals may have drawn “the final curtain” over the decades-long patent war between W.L. Gore & Associates and C.R. Bard Inc. and upheld one of the largest patent awards it has ever affirmed. In a 2-1 decision on Friday, the Federal Circuit affirmed a $186 million jury verdict and post-trial rulings that doubled the verdict against Gore, the maker of Gore-Tex, which was accused of willfully infringing a Bard patent on vascular stents....

We’re going to take a page from Fight Club today. The first rule of a materialman’s lien is that you must serve a preliminary, 20-day notice to foreclose on the lien. The second rule of a materialman’s lien — you guessed it — is that you must serve a preliminary, 20-day notice to foreclosure on the lien. We don’t like to get repetitive unless there’s a good reason, so you already know that some unfortunate materialman failed to serve the notice and got the short end of the collections stick....

Trial court judgment is affirmed where the court correctly sustained a demurrer to plaintiff’s cause of action for breach of fiduciary duty as the allegations of the complaint do not establish that defendants had a fiduciary duty to plaintiff, since awareness of a medical lien was not enough to create a fiduciary duty. Trial court’s grant of summary judgment for defendant on a conversion cause of action is reversed where defendants presented no evidence that they had an attorney lien entitling them to deduct their litigation costs from the settlement recovery....

When it comes to the law business, pop culture still really hasn’t caught up with reality. Most movies and television programs still depict all lawyers as well-to-do and/or well-off, financially. However, in the real world, lawyers span the gamut, financially, and many work two jobs. For those attorneys that need, or just want, a little extra money on the side, finding a smart side hustle might just lead to more money in your legal practice too....

Martino Recchia was homeless, living on the streets of Los Angeles, and caring for 20 birds when animal control officers showed up at his tent to investigate complaints about the animals in 2011. Officers found 18 pigeons, a crow, and a seagull in boxes and cages in his home on a sidewalk, all in various states of health, according to reports. The city decided to seize all of the animals, giving Recchia 10 days to request a hearing to regain custody....

This probably doesn’t happen in North Dakota. But in Florida, a billboard ad announcing: “Your wife is hot! Better get your A/C fixed!” set off an all out ad war that resulted in a trademark infringement suit which finally settled out of court last week. Now we can all take a deep breath, right? The attorneys and owners of the rival air conditioning companies did plenty of huffing and puffing these last few months....

Nobody tells a story like a good storyteller. Kurt Vonnegut, the acclaimed American author, had a structure for crafting stories. He said one is the Cinderalla story, and another is the Man in a Hole. “People love that story,” he said. That about sums it up for corporate counsel, especially when they have to present company successes and failures. Storytelling Structures At times, it can be intimidating to give presentations – for example, when you have to tell the board some bad news....

Court of appeals’ reversal of defendant’s conviction for child endangerment and related crimes is reversed and remanded as, while a showing of actual bias is not required for judicial disqualification under the due process clause, neither is the mere appearance of bias sufficient, and in light of Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., Inc., __ U.S. __ (2009), this case does not present the “extreme facts” that require judicial disqualification on due process grounds....

For ESPN analyst and former NBA star Jalen Rose, a DUI has netted him 20-day jail sentence. Rose pled guilty to the DUI in May after he was stopped when he veered off a road in West Bloomfield Township in Michigan, reports NPR. He said he had drunk around six martinis. At the time, his blood-alcohol level was at 0.12%, above Michigan’s legal limit. Nobody was injured during the incident, NPR reports....

A former state supreme court justice received a two-year prison sentence for his part in a scandal that took down the entire West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. Allen Loughry was also sentenced to three years supervised release, fined $10,000, and ordered to pay $1,200 in restitution. Loughry was convicted for crimes that stemmed from using a government credit card to pay for personal travel. Stealing gas is a low-level street crime, but it gets worse when you lie to authorities about it....

In an action claiming that the Department of Commerce (DOC) violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) by failing to document aspects of the North American Competitiveness Council’s meetings, dismissal of the action is reversed where plaintiff had standing to pursue the action because the DOC was subject to an array of FACA obligations concerning the Council and its sub-groups that were entirely within its power to discharge, and thus the DOC had the power to redress the failure to disclose the information at issue....