Earnings increase in top 100 but remains 'Nervousness'

Thursday, 29 September 2011 by John Hyde

Fee income in the UK top 100 law firms, which increased by 4% in the first quarter over the same period in the year 2010, according to figures from Deloitte.

But the business advisory firm warned that the figures mask, the continued weakness in the British market and strong variations in the performance of different companies.

The company Q1 legal sector survey shows that one-sixth of the company July enjoyed a sales growth of more than 12% in the three months to 31, but a similar proportion of 4% or more suffered a decline.

Grow business with international presence tends to be higher on the back of more lively markets overseas.

Higher revenues were generated by a combination of increased productivity and fee earner workforce, which rose by 3.1% and 2.8% or.

Jeremy black, partner in Deloitte professional services group, said: "the increase in the fee revenues are up but mask should not the fact that conditions are generally difficult."

' Litigation has quite good but low M & A-activity means that companies remain lackluster sales.

"It is a general feeling of nervousness about the Outlook for the coming months domestic demand, which are expected to be weak and continue to pressure on prices."

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US lawmakers ask FTC to investigate Facebook over privacy concerns

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US lawmakers ask FTC to investigate Facebook over privacy concerns
Michael Haggerson at 2:46 PM ET

[JURIST] US Congressmen Edward Markey (D-MA) and Joe Barton (R-TX), co-chairs of the Congressional Privacy Caucus, sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) [official websites] on Wednesday asking the FTC to investigate allegations that Facebook [website] is tracking users' activities even after they have logged out of the website [text, PDF]. Australian blogger Nik Cubrilovic [official website] broke the initial news [blog post] of Facebook tracking users and has since posted an update [blog post] stating that Facebook has since "changed as much as they can change with the logout issue." Nonetheless, the Congressmen cited a statement from Facebook Director of Engineering, Arturo Bejar, that fully fixing the logout issue "will take a while" in petitioning for a FTC investigation. They believe that Facebook's conduct possibly falls within 15 USC § 45 [text], section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act [text, PDF], which protects citizens from "unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce." The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) [advocacy website] sent a letter to the FTC calling for an investigation into Facebook's conduct [letter, PDF; press release] as well. EPIC contends that Facebook is tracking user data so that it may sell the data to third-parties. EPIC also has a complaint about Facebook's facial recognition system [text, PDF], which automatically "tags" users when others upload photos of them, currently pending before the FTC.

The Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information [official website, in German] also filed a complaint over Facebook's facial recognition system in August, arguing that it violates European data protection laws [JURIST report]. In December South Korea stated that Facebook was not in compliance with the nation's data privacy laws [JURIST report]. The South Korean authorities especially took issue with Facebook's alleged policy of gathering users' data without first obtaining consent from them. The Canadian Office of the Privacy Commissioner [official website] announced in January 2010 that it would launch a probe [JURIST report] into complaints that the website was violating users' privacy. In August 2009 five Facebook users brought suit against Facebook in California, alleging that the social networking violated their privacy [JURIST report].

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Federal judge refuses to enjoin most of Alabama immigration law

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Federal judge refuses to enjoin most of Alabama immigration law
Dan Taglioli at 11:45 AM ET

[JURIST] A judge for the US District Court for the Northern District of Alabama on Wednesday refused to block key parts of Alabama's recently passed immigration law. Chief Judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn, in a 115-page memorandum opinion [text, PDF], ruled that the federal government's challenge to the Beason-Hammon Alabama Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act [HB 56 text] had not met the requirements for a preliminary injunction [AP report] on a majority of the act's provisions. Blackburn did enjoin enactment of certain specifications, but included only the four sections that would 1) make it a crime for an illegal immigrant to solicit work, 2) make it a crime to transport or harbor an illegal immigrant, 3) allow discrimination lawsuits against companies that dismiss legal workers while hiring illegal immigrants and 4) forbid businesses from taking tax deductions for wages paid to workers who are in the country illegally. In her evaluation of the requirements for judicial injunction of a legislative act, the judge the concluded:

that there is a substantial likelihood that the United States will succeed on the merits of its claim that Sections 11(a), 13, 16, and 17 of H.B. 56 are preempted by federal law. The court further finds that the United States will suffer irreparable harm if these sections of H.B. 56 are not enjoined, the balance of equities favors the entry of an injunction, and its entry would not be adverse to the public interest. Therefore, the Motion for Preliminary Injunction will be granted as to these sections.

Among the portions of the law that escaped the preliminary injunction are provisions that require immigration status checks of public school students and of suspects pulled over by police, allow police to hold suspected illegal immigrants without bond, bar state courts from enforcing contracts involving illegal immigrants, make it a felony for an illegal immigrant to do business with the state and make it a misdemeanor for an illegal resident not to have immigration papers. State decisions on whether to begin enforcing these provisions have not yet been announced [Reuters report], but last month's temporary injunction on the whole act [JURIST report] is set to expire at the end of this month. Republican Governor Robert Bentley [official website] said he would fight to get the full law upheld and the state's attorney general said officials were weighing whether to appeal immediately or wait until the judge issues her final decision.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website], joined by several rights groups, appeared before the court last month [JURIST report] to make arguments against the law's enactment, at which point Blackburn issued the temporary injunction to forestall enactment of the challenged provisions while she evaluated their contention with federal statute. Religious groups and representatives of several rights groups including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) [advocacy websites] have stated that the Alabama law is the most extreme of the recent state anti-immigration laws influenced by controversial Arizona SB 1070 [JURIST news archive]. Alabama lawmakers have defended the legislation, which was signed into law [JURIST reports] in June. Since that time, 16 countries filed briefs [JURIST report] in the Alabama district court against the controversial law, arguing that it provides unfair treatment to citizens of those countries currently residing in Alabama and sanctions discriminatory treatment based on ethnicity.

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USS Cole bombing suspect to face military tribunal at Guantanamo

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USS Cole bombing suspect to face military tribunal at Guantanamo
Dan Taglioli at 12:56 PM ET

[JURIST] The US Department of Defense (DOD) [official website] Wednesday officially referred charges against a high-profile Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detainee who allegedly planned the 2000 attack on the USS Cole [JURIST news archive] that left 17 sailors dead and 37 others injured. Saudi-born former millionaire Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri [JURIST news archive] will stand trial before a military tribunal [DOD press release] at Guantanamo on nine terrorism, conspiracy and murder charges [charge sheet, PDF]. Specifically al-Nashiri will be charged with orchestrating the attack on the Cole, during which two suicide bombers rammed an explosives-laden boat into the guided missile destroyer, blowing a vast hole into its side. The charges also allege that al-Nashiri was in charge of planning and preparation for an attempted attack in the same year on USS The Sullivans as it refueled in the Port of Aden, and for an attack on the French civilian oil tanker MV Limburg in the same port in 2002, which resulted in the death of one crewmember and the release of approximately 90,000 barrels of oil into the gulf. A "referral of charges" by the DOD Military Commissions unit is the mechanism that officially begins the process that leads to the appointment of a military officer as trial judge, who is then required to conduct an arraignment within 30 days of the referral. al-Nashiri's case has been referred for trial as a capital case, meaning he could face the death penalty if convicted. In June the European Parliament (EP) [official website] urged the US not to seek the death penalty [JURIST report] in the case.

Complicating his prosecution is the controversial history of al-Nashiri's detention. Former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) [official website] agents confirmed [Spiegel report] in 2010 the existence of a secret CIA black site [JURIST news archive] in Poland, where al-Nashiri was allegedly waterboarded and subjected to mock executions. According to one agent, al-Nashiri was stripped naked and hooded before a gun and a drill were held close to his head. The allegations led the Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI) [advocacy website] to launch an abuse investigation [JURIST report] in September 2010. Section 948r of the Military Commissions Act of 2009 [text, PDF] prohibits the use in military courts of evidence obtained through "torture or cruel, degrading or inhuman treatment," a provision that could implicate potential limitations on the prosecutors' ability to use certain evidence if it can be established that al-Nashiri was subjected to such treatment in Poland or at Gitmo. Former Polish prime minister Leszek Miller denied any knowledge of such a facility [JURIST report]. Most recently, Polish prosecutors, who began investigating the potential existence of the Polish CIA prison in 2008, asked US officials [JURIST reports] to question al-Nashiri and fellow detainee Abu Zubaydah about the existence of the facility, saying their testimony was essential to establishing its existence. Relatedly, in 2007 a federal judge ruled that Sudan was liable [JURIST report] in a civil suit for government actions that "induced" the USS Cole bombing.

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Federal appeals court stays release of Proposition 8 trial videos

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Federal appeals court stays release of Proposition 8 trial videos
Dan Taglioli at 10:28 AM ET

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] on Monday extended a hold [order, PDF] on the release of the video recordings of last year's trial on the constitutionality of California's same-sex marriage ban. In response to an emergency motion by proponents of the ban, the court granted a stay of US District Court Chief Judge James Ware's September 19th ruling [JURIST report; order] that granted the unsealing of the Proposition 8 trial video recordings. The proponents do not contest Judge Vaughn Walker's original order placing the video recordings in the official trial record, only the unsealing of that record. As such, Ware rested his ruling solely on the common law right to inspect and copy public records and documents, which includes the trial record, of which the video recordings are an official part. The proponents claim that under US Supreme Court precedent, Local Rule 77-3 would have altogether prevented Walker from originally creating the recordings, but for his unequivocal representation at the time that they would not be publicly broadcast outside the courthouse. The proponents further claim that the Rule would have barred the placement of the video recordings in the official record but for Walker's sealing order. Common law rules are displaced by statute and other positive legislative and administrative enactments, and therefore, the proponents argue, now that the recordings exist and the trial record is sealed, Rule 77-3 abrogates the common law rationale for unsealing that portion of the trial record. Alternatively, the proponents claim that the official record of the trial proceedings is constituted in whole by court reporter's transcript, not the video recordings, and so the common law right of access cited by Judge Ware in his unsealing order does not apply.

At its beginning, Walker ordered the trial recorded exclusively for use in his chambers, permissible under Rule 77-3. The US Supreme Court had prevented the broadcast of the trial [JURIST report] after Judge Walker attempted to put the trial in a pilot program that would have broadcasted the proceedings to other courthouses. The order continued a temporary stay ordered by the Supreme Court the same day the trial began [JURIST reports]. Supporters of Proposition 8 had objected to the controversial decision to broadcast the trial proceedings, claiming it would result in witness intimidation. The YouTube broadcast of the case, Perry v. Schwarzenegger [case materials], was to be allowed under the experimental program approved by the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] that allows cameras in civil, non-jury cases. Proposition 8 was approved [JURIST report] by California voters in November 2008.

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Both sides appeal to Supreme Court on health care law

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Both sides appeal to Supreme Court on health care law
Erin Bock at 7:42 AM ET

[JURIST] Both the US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] and a group of 26 states filed petitions with the US Supreme Court [official website] Wednesday seeking a ruling on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) [HR 3590 text; JURIST backgrounder]. The petitions for certiorari filed by the DOJ and states [petitions, PDF] seek review of a decision handed down by the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit [official website] last month. The Eleventh Circuit found the PPACA individual health care mandate unconstitutional [JURIST report] but upheld the remainder of the law without the mandate. The states asked the court to affirm the Eleventh Circuit's decision regarding the individual mandate requirement. The states also sought review of the PPACA as a whole, arguing that the act must fail because the individual mandate was "the centerpiece" of the entire piece of legislation. The DOJ asked the court to reverse the Eleventh Circuit's decision, arguing that it was "fundamentally flawed" and that Congress has "broad deference" to enact laws regarding economic and tax policies. In a statement [text], the DOJ expressed confidence that the Court would find the law constitutional and compared the PPACA lawsuits to other historical legislative challenges:

Throughout history, there have been similar challenges to other landmark legislation such as the Social Security Act, the Civil Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act, and all of those challenges failed. We believe the challenges to [PPACA]—like the one in the Eleventh Circuit—will also ultimately fail and that the Supreme Court will uphold the law.

Additionally, the Obama Administration filed a brief [text, PDF] in opposition to a petition for certiorari filed [JURIST report] in Thomas More Law Center v. Obama in July, which sought review of a decision by the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit [official website] that found the individual mandate provision constitutional [JURIST report]. The administration asked the court to either delay review of that decision or to consolidate the two cases.

Lawsuits involving the constitutionality of the PPACA have led to split decisions in federal courts across the country. Earlier this month, a judge for the US District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania [official website] found the individual mandate provision unconstitutional [JURIST report]. Also this month, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit [official website] dismissed two lawsuits [JURIST report] challenging the constitutionality of the PPACA. In Virginia v. Sebelius, the court held that Virginia lacked standing to sue and vacated the judgment of the district court [JURIST report], remanding the case with instructions to dismiss the suit for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. In Liberty University v. Geithner, the court ruled that the suit was filed prematurely, also vacating the lower court ruling [JURIST report], which had declared the act constitutional. Last month, the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit [official website] dismissed a lawsuit [JURIST report] brought by a physician organization for lack of standing.

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