Today's Speaking of Justice features "A Georgia Lawyer" on of the Internets premier legal bloggers, Attorney Mark Zamora.

The subject of our special edition podcast is the FDA warning about "Total Body Formula" a popular nutritional supplement sold primarily in the Southeastern United States. 

As outlined in his blog at A George Lawyer, Attorney Zamora has been swamped with inquiries about why this product was recalled, symptoms of what these bad batches do to unsuspecting consumers and what people can do to determine if they have consumed one of the batches in question.

You can find more information about this FDA warning, what is being done to identify how these bad batches made it into the distribution system and consumers recourse in the event they consumed those bad batches.

A copy of the audio podcast is available here.

The FDA warning and recall site is available here.

Mark Zamora and A Georgia Lawyer can be found here.

McCain and Obama neck and neck in electoral votes

New York Judge wants CIA's torture documents

Freddie Mac starting to resemble Bernie Mac

Nevada jury awards inventor $388 million

Homeschool Victory

Jackson Browne has filed a lawsuit today against Senator John McCain and the Republican National Committee in the United States District Court in Los Angeles, California.  The lawsuit stems from a recent television commercial for Senator McCain's presidential bid that incorporates the song Running On Empty.

There have been similar lawsuits in the past from artists like John Mellencamp and Abba for unauthorized use. This suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles claims the songs use is a clear infringement of his copyright and will lead people to the conclusion that he somehow endorses McCain.

Browne, a life long avowed liberal " an advocate for social and environmental justice " is noted in the article to have already made prior donations to Senator Obama's campaign and he is clearly upset about the use of the song.

While on it's face this might seem like a politically motivated action by a life time liberal entertainer, it really is much more then that as our interview with Attorney Larry Iser reveals. The ongoing abuse of music and entertainment intellectual property in a post Napster era is an issue that flys under the radar, particularly on the internet where people just assume they can grab a song and use it for their own entertainment and commercial purposes. As you'll hear in the interview, this is part of a long running and consistent pattern of abuse of the copyright laws and the careless attitude of the McCain camp in this instance has caused some of the industry's leading IP lawyers to draw a line in the sand. This is not the last we will hear of this case.

Scott Drake, host of the Legal Broadcast Network daily affairs show, Speaking of Justice, talks with Jackson Browne's attorney...Larry Iser in Santa Monica. California 


Click here to listen to the full podcast with Larry Iser on the Jackson Browne Law suit against John McCain.

The story from the AP

Scott Drake talks with Randall Kiser from Decisionset, a litigation consulting firm. He co-authored a soon to be released study that found when plaintiffs pass up settlement and go to trial they usually get less money.

No area of the law is of greater importance to the plaintiff then the dynamics and process of deciding the value of an offer and measuring the risk/reward ratio of accepting what they view as a low offer, or risk going to trial. What makes this study so fascinating to trial lawyers and others is it shows the conflict that occurs when you have three parties essentially looking at the same offer, all with different levels of risk involved. The plaintiff has a risk, the trial lawyer has a risk and the defendant has a risk. That each has different agendas at times, particularly some trial lawyers, often sets in motion a disaster when real offers are rejected as a lawyer goes in search of a substantial pay day.

This is the first empirical study on this topic and it will also be discussed this week on Voices of the Law, the lawyer to lawyer talk show on The Legal Broadcast Network, featuring Attorney Jan Schlichtmann. We will update this post later once that podcast is available.

Listen Now

New York Times Article

The Study

Scott Drake interviews Temple law professor; Jan Ting. The Delaware Republican Party's 2006 U.S. Senate candidate has been expelled from his position in the state GOP for quietly supporting Barack Obama. While party loyalty is not unreasonable to ask on either side of the isle, this only drives home once again that this is going to be a particularly nasty election cycle with both sides taking no prisoner and tolerating no dissent among the ranks.

Listen Now

In what is sure to be a hard sell for the old guard, tradition bound profession of law, the Legal Broadcast Network is taking the wraps off it's 4 month long beta test of it's social and professional network for lawyers this week with the roll out of LB Networks.

Along with the reintroduction of our multi-media portal and the expansion of the number of affiliated channels to seven distinctive shows, with 3 more scheduled to launch in August, the long promised growth and expansion of The Legal Broadcast Network has commenced.

The expansion features three primary upgrades and enhancements that deepen the offerings for lawyers all of the world who visit The Legal Broadcast Network and help to make our portal and networking site a place where anyone interested in the law would want to visit daily. Some of the new revisions you'll be seeing this week:

The launch of The Legal Broadcast Network multi-media portal and front page. As our long time readers and listeners know, we have been on a three month rebuilding campaign for our portal, with the goal to bring you a portal that lets you quickly, easily and logically navigate the rapidly expanding offerings of The Network. Go to our front page at www.legalbroadcastnetwork.com and see the new media, the daily legal minute, links to all blogs, featured channels, advertising segments and subscription to our RSS feeds or news letter. This new look is only the beginning as we will be adding three channels per month between now and the end of 2008, along with expanded daily and weekly video broadcasts from the LB Networks studios in Phoenix, AZ.

The end of the beta test of our social and professional networking site for lawyers. While we are still cleaning up the cosmetic appearance and expanding functionality by adding discussion forums for law students, paralegals and others, you can finally go in, kick the tires and create a profile on the www.LBNnetwork.com social and professional network for lawyers. What makes our network unique is unlike most networking sites it is totally free to join, has a comprehensive multi-media capacity that allows you to upload audio, video and photos, a powerful blogging tool, personal RSS feeds for your content and an amazing search engine metric that gives you exceptional visibility in key word searches. I know the idea of a profile or media page is scary for a lot of lawyers, and unlike most of the other ventures we recognize this is going to be a slow and steady process of demonstrating why lawyers and others need to be part of a professional or social networking site. I'll be doing a series of blog posts and tutorials on why lawyers and others need to get involved in professional networking on the internet, but until then just take my word for it that FREE publicity and search word metrics is a very good reason to at least join and be part of our rapidly expanding media network.

Finally, the next element you will start to glimpse this week is the start of our daily video broadcasts from either Voices of the Law or Speaking of Justice. The Phoenix studio is being fitted for live broadcasts and video so that our studio staff and guests will have an audio broadcast and video of their conversations with LB network hosts on shows such as Speaking of Justice, Voices of the Law, Speaking of Settlements, Tax Law Conversations and other shows we will be unveiling next week.

So, make sure you are subscribed to our feeds and if you are an attorney get to our new LB Network page and set up your professional profile. The early bird gets the worm, or in this case the most web traffic, and what lawyer wouldn't want to be part of that, particularly when it costs you nothing to be part of it.

The slumping housing market has spoiled the friendly relationship between banks and builders as many end up in court. One of the most under-reported stories in the business and legal press is how the panic at commercial lenders has spread over the country, most if not all of them are sharply curtailing lending and looking to get out of large scale lending commitments they made during good times. It appears like a classic case of banks wanting to lend to anyone when times are good and then throwing customers under the bus the second the markets go south, but as with any story there are two sides to the crisis.

In what is certain to be a wave of litigation by borrowers attempting to stave off economic ruin due to the reaction of banks and lenders to plunging land values and credit worthiness of borrows, Speaking of Justice brings you one of the nations leading experts in lender liability litigation, John McGarvey.

Scott Drake, the host of Speaking of Justice, interviews John McGarvey...a partner at Morgan &  Pottinger in Louisville, Kentucky who was recently quoted in the WSJ on this issue. Lender liability defense is one of their many areas of practice.

The story in the Wall Street Journal

Listen Now

Other News...Connecticut sues Countrywide

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - Osama bin Laden's former driver is expected to ask the Pentagon jury that convicted him of a war crime to spare him from life in prison on Thursday, his defense lawyers said.

The story

Associated Press

The central allegation by all plaintiffs is that Abbott raised the price of its pioneering drug Norvir to illegally dominate the market.

When Abbott Laboratories Inc. hiked up the price of a popular AIDS drug by 400 percent in 2003, executives prepared for the inevitable public relations hit, but assured themselves the backlash would be brief.

Nearly five years later, the accusations against Abbott are still flying.

The North Chicago, Ill., drug company stands to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in several pending antitrust lawsuits. It settled only its first and likely its cheapest one last week.

The lawsuits, all filed in Oakland federal court, accuse Abbott of raising the price of the HIV-fighting Norvir to illegally stifle competition and boost sales of its own alternative, Kaletra. Embarrassing internal communications between executives plotting how to thwart their rivals in the lucrative HIV drug cocktail market have been made public in the process.

Read more

Something about ExxonMobil's Profits You Probably Won't Read in Media Reports

 

Stories we're following:

Builders sue banks that pull financing as construction projects lie unfinished

No preemption...California counties lose bid to overturn marijuana law

Economic models predict Obama win in November

The Whitehouse told the FBI to blame the anthrax attacks on Al Qaeda

 

Listen Now ~ Scott Drake talks with Robert Eringer about his book...."Ruse"....

For nearly ten years beginning in 1993, Robert Eringer lived a clandestine life of intrigue, conducting a spectrum of covert operations for the FBI's foreign counterintelligence division. His primary assignment: to lure American traitor Edward Lee Howard to capture.

About to be arrested by the FBI for spying for Moscow, CIA officer Howard defected to the Soviet Union in 1985. But then he wanted to tell his story to the world. Utilizing cover as a book publishing consultant, the author gained Howard's trust as his editor and confidant. As Eringer's skillfully orchestrated ruse progressed, he pierced not only Howard's inner circle of KGB cronies including the KGB's former chairman, making him an unwitting intelligence asset, but also Howard's Cuban intelligence contact network in Havana. Only at the eleventh hour did a highly politicized Justice Department order Howard's extraordinary rendition scrapped; he died mysteriously under ominous circumstances in Moscow in 2002. Nonetheless, the secrets Eringer gathered shed light on such sensitive espionage cases as the treachery of senior CIA turncoat Aldrich Ames and FBI traitor Robert Hanssen.

In addition to his counter-espionage docket, Eringer undertook assignments for the FBI's criminal division, including a ruse he devised to hasten the extradition from France of notorious convicted murderer Ira Einhorn. Ruse tells the unknown side of a significant piece of U.S. intelligence history, an unvarnished insider's view of the FBI between the end of the Cold War and the events of 9/11.

(WSJ) A new report released by Cornerstone Research and Stanford Law’s Securities Class Action Clearinghouse describes a noticable increase in securities litigation. The most popular area being the battered financial services sector. In the first six months of 2008, according to the study, the financial services sector produced 63 class-action filings, more than the total number from all of last year.

A heart medication sold by Mylan Laboratories in the US has had to be recalled, after it emerged that some doses may contain twice the intended dose of active ingredient. Digitek (digoxin) is used to treat heart failure and cardiac arrhythmias, and the risk of adverse events with the drug is so serious that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has take the unprecedented step of asking pharmacists to notify all patients who have been prescribed it. 

In a statement, Actavis Totowa, which manufacturers the product on a contract basis for Mylan, said that double strength tablets could pose a risk of toxicity, particularly in patients with renal failure.

Listen Now ~ Eric Pearson, a partner in the firm Heygood, Orr, Reyes, Pearson & Bartolomei in Dallas, talks about the recall with Scott Drake.

On this weeks Speaking of Settlements, the weekly podcast feature of The Settlement Channel, Mark Wahlstrom is joined once again by noted tax law attorney Robert Wood of the firm Wood & Porter of San Francisco, CA. The reason for having Rob back two weeks in a row is the news that the Treasury has issued final regulations on section 468B-6 trusts and I wanted to get copies and material to my audience as soon as possible.

Now, before anyone gets too excited, these regulations and final rules are NOT related to the more commonly discussed 468B trust that is used for litigation and mass torts. These rules are not related to those trusts or the pending issue before Treasury regarding the taxation of single claimant structures, as much as we would like to get that ruling after all these years of waiting.

No, this podcast is relative to the section of those trusts that govern a variety of other trusts, but specifically those related to section 1031 exchanges and the trust accounts used to manage those transactions. Now, before you go away and don't read this or check out the podcast, keep in mind that Allstate Life has their structured sale product, which is a vital element of the 1031 fall back or fall out market so knowledge of these provisions is of keen interest if you are involved in that market.

I know it's a small niche as of yet, but a lot more real estate and tax lawyers should be looking at the 1031 fallback or fall out market as a means of learning more about the structured sales arena and this novel tax deferral technique. So take a few minutes, click on this link, and learn a little more about 468B-6 trusts and the new rules on section 1031 exchanges. 

You can also read more on these regulations and obtain a copy of this ruling by going over to The Tax Law Channel and looking for the pdf copy of the regulations.

A federal appeals court agreed Tuesday with a lower court ruling that struck down as unconstitutional a 1998 law intended to protect children from sexual material and other objectionable content on the Internet.

The bigger issue on this story is not that the courts don't want to protect children from obscenity, but instead that the law was excessively restrictive and broad and essentially criminalized content that was legal when viewed by adults under the same community standards. COPA ( Child Online Protection Act ) has now been struck down in three successive decisions and as such should get a fitting and proper burial. While no one wants obscene or offensive material being viewed by minors, the fact is many safe guards now exist on most web sites to prevent such access or viewing.

The Legal Broadcast Network will be doing a series of podcasts and interviews on this decision in the next few weeks so be watching our front page or subscribing to our RSS feed so you can get those shows and interviews as they become available.

The story from the AP

The opinion...for your reading pleasure...

Today the Legal Broadcast Network rolled out their newest channel, that being The Summit Settlements Channel, the first of several unique or company specific channels and shows that allow settlement and financial professionals to "get in the game" of networking, broadcasting and internet marketing.

You can go check out the brand new channel for Summit by clicking here.

The option to join the site is only open to Summit brokers and staff but you can get an idea of the type of material that Stan Harlan and his brokers will be producing, some of the unique CE presentations that were created at their annual meeting, as well as a glimpse at some of the professional networking options that are available to Summit members.

Obviously, I had a big hand in this as I am both a member of the Summit Settlement general agency and also the chairman of The Legal Broadcast Network, but this is definitely not the last company specific channel we will be rolling out in 2008. What makes it unique in my mind are the following elements:

1. Summit has a full enabled blogging platform built into their channel. Virtually every broker who is part of Summit can create their own professional blog or commentary as part of their membership in this channel.

2. Summit has the ability to create, play and distribute video content on their own private branded network. All of the video created at Summit events, or by Summit members, can now be uploaded to their channel to share with other members or anyone searching for information on that topic.

3. Summit will be producing their own weekly audio podcasts, open to virtually any Summit broker or office, for distribution on their Channel as well as being distributed over the Legal Broadcast Network podcast feed.

4. Each Summit broker can create their own professional networking and media profile, with links to their web sites, publications, blogs, audio and video content, all at no cost.

5. The ability to create and participate in discussion groups and areas of interest to brokers.

In short, what Summit Settlements now has, and what other agencies will soon have are fully enabled audio/video and blogging networks that allow them to publish, broadcast and network material and ideas with brokers and clients. All of this at no cost to the individual brokers at Summit!

If your curious as to how The Legal Broadcast Network is able to leave other networks and broadcasters in the dust when it comes to performance and functionality, all inside the most powerful legal broadcasting network on the web, drop me an email and i'm more then happy to fill you in. In any event, welcome to the new world of marketing for settlement professionals.

(Business Week)  Merck & Co. will start cutting checks for former users of its withdrawn painkiller Vioxx next month after announcing Thursday that it will fund a $4.85 billion settlement expected to resolve roughly 50,000 lawsuits.

The decision marks the beginning of the end of the four-year legal saga, which began when cardiovascular side effects forced Merck to pull Vioxx off the market in 2004, triggering tens of thousands of lawsuits, sullying its once-spotless reputation and forcing out its then-chief executive.

The Vioxx case has cost Merck at least $6.38 billion, including more than $1.53 billion through March 31 on legal costs for defense research and individual trials, most of which it has won.

Vioxx, which was launched in 1999, brought Merck revenue of $2.5 billion at its peak in 2003and $1.3 billion in 2004. Merck has not been disclosing revenue from prior years.

On Thursday, Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based Merck said more than 97 percent of eligible claimants -- 48,550 out of 49,960 -- have enrolled in the settlement program, surpassing threshold levels the company required for the deal to proceed. Therefore, Merck said that on Aug. 4 it will waive its right to walk away from the deal reached with plaintiffs' attorneys last fall.

"I'm just glad that it's almost over," said Evelyn Irvin Plunkett of Palm Coast, Fla., who sued Merck in 2003 over the May 2001 heart attack death of her first husband, Richard "Dickie" Irvin. "It's just been a long, hard fight."

Plunkett's family had gone through a mistrial, then lost to Merck at a retrial and won the right to a third trial before being allowed to join in the settlement. She does not know how much she will receive.

Settlement amounts can run from the minimum of $5,000 up to a few million dollars. Payments will be decided by a complicated formula that factors in how serious a claimant's injury was, how much Vioxx was taken and how many other risk factors the person had.

"Long-term users of Vioxx who had a very severe injury will be well compensated," said lawyer Andy Birchfield, who served on the plaintiffs' steering and negotiating committees.

He said the number of plaintiffs participating shows the settlement is a good one.

Scott Drake and Vanderbilt law scholar Richard Nagareda on the Vioxx settlement and the future of mass torts from December

A Federal jury finds in favor of Mattel over the Bratz Doll.

Podcast ~ Scott Drake's interview with Nicholas Casey from the Wall Street Journal on the details of the lawsuit.

 Coming soon we'll discuss the Wyeth Prempro award reversal with Roberta Ashkin.

An Arizona court says illegal immigrants can be charged with human smuggling for smuggling themselves.

In this weeks edition of Speaking of Justice, Scott Drake is joined by Attorney Shannon Liss Riordan and national tax expert and host of The Tax Law Channel, Attorney Robert Wood to discuss the recent case of Dierdre Keily, an ex web content editor who worked for the well known and hugely popular travel web site, "Trip Advisor" which is a subsidiary of the even larger Expedia travel web site. 

 In this timely and fascinating case and analysis, Rob Wood and Shannon Liss Riordan look into the issue of large web sites and internet firms categorizing professional writers, editors and technical experts as "independent contractors" as opposed to treating them as employees. This exceptionally common practice saves internet based employers a huge amount of money in benefits, insurance and other costs, but is basically a systematic process of outsourcing and isolating their staff.

In her suit on behalf of Ms. Kiely, Attorney Liss Riordan  is challenging Trip Advisor's labor policies over "illegal contractor status"... the story can be read online in the Boston Globe , and this podcast goes into both the legal and tax issues facing employers when they attempt to carelessly categorize staff as independent contractors to avoid employee classification. If you are engaged in a business that uses independent contractors or if you work for an internet based business that insists on classifying you in this fashion, this podcast will be of interest to you.

This is an area of litigation that is going to explode in the coming years and lawyers, employers and tax experts need to pay careful attention to the laws in this area. 

Podcast ~ Scott Drake interviews independent contractor expert Rob Wood and  the attorney representing Kiely Shannon Liss Riordan

ABA Journal  Congress is expected to approve legislation today that updates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and expands government power to obtain broad foreign intelligence warrants.

Recent reports emphasize the bill’s protection for telecommunications companies that aided the government’s wiretap efforts. But a Wall Street Journal story (sub. req.) says provisions that allow intelligence officials to obtain more sweeping wiretap orders may be more important. They allow broad warrants to wiretap foreign targets whose communications pass through U.S. telecommunications networks.

The story says the law may lead to further expansions of the use of foreign intelligence in criminal cases here. Rules barring sharing of foreign intelligence with U.S. prosecutors have been relaxed since Sept. 11, resulting in dozens of criminal cases. Critics say prosecutors have used permissive wiretap regulations under the law to obtain evidence that would be more difficult to get because of Fourth Amendment protections.

The story mentions two criminal cases based on information obtained under the law. One accuses a

California computer engineer of providing material support to his brother, a member of a terrorist group in the Philippines. The other resulted in what turned out to be mistaken accusations against lawyer Brandon Mayfield, who was initially arrested in connection with the 2004 Madrid train bombings. The government later released Mayfield and apologized for the error.

Podcast  "The Cost of Counter-Terrorism"  Scott Drake and Stanford Law Scholar Laura Donohue