Maryland Lawyer Blog

Bloomberg reports that AstraZeneca “buried” unfavorable studies on its antipsychotic drug Seroquel, according to an internal e-mail unsealed as part of litigation over the medicine.
Specifically, Seroquel’s manufacturer is accused of doing what has been alleged of drug companies thousands of times over the course of human history: failing to publicize results of at least three Seroquel clinical trials and cherry picking the data that it did publish about the risks associated with Seroquel.

Apparently, Seroquel’s manufacturer saw the whole thing coming: John Tumas, an AstraZeneca publications manager, wrote in an email that AstraZeneca had “buried trials 15, 31, 56.” Tumas showed in the email that he realized burying Seroquel data was not without risk:

The larger issue is how we face the outside world when they begin to criticize us for suppressing data.

Of course, this was hardly a one man conspiracy. Seroquel had engaged in a “great smoke-and-mirrors job” in dealing with U.S. and Canadian investigators on the trial’s results, according to an email from Richard Lawrence, an AstraZeneca official, in February 1997:

Adopting the approach Don has outlined should minimize (and dare I venture to suggest) could put a positive spin (in terms of safety) on this cursed study.

Continue reading " Seroquel Safety Studies: More Information Uncovered " »

The Maryland Daily Record reports that bar applications in Maryland are down 10% for the February bar exam. Lawyer hates don't get too excited: the decrease is attributed to the high pass rate from the July, 2008 exam.

• Maryland Bar Examiners Website
• Last July's Results
• July 2009 Bar Results Imminent

I'm linking to this post just for the hysterical title: Padding Hours: If I Did It.

This is another over billing article (I found both on Overlawyered), that I found particularly interesting. I cannot tell you how often I experience #5 on this, particularly with bigger firms.

I'll tell you, from a lifestyle standpoint, one of the best things about being a personal injury lawyer is not having to bill people by the hour.

The Baltimore Jewish Times published an interview with retired Baltimore County Judge Dana Levitz, a well respected judge who sat 23 years on the bench. Judge Levitz very candidly states that it "really nuts for a judge to work a day after age 60 from a financial standpoint."

Judge Levitz intends to handle private mediations which has been a remarkably lucrative career - based on their hourly rates and, just as importanly, low overhead - for many retired Maryland judges.

The Wisconsin Court of Appeals found that a judge’s condescending ramblings about a black criminal defendant’s “baby mama” could lead to a reasonable perception that the sentence was based on his race. Specifically, the judge said:

THE COURT: What do you do all day?

THE DEFENDANT: I just stay at home with my daughter and that's it.

THE COURT: Where is her mother?

THE DEFENDANT: At work.

THE COURT: So the mother works and you sit at home, right?

THE DEFENDANT: Yeah.

THE COURT: And watch the child?

THE DEFENDANT: I got all types of things goin'. My personal family.

THE COURT: Where does the baby's mama work?

THE DEFENDANT: Metro Market.

THE COURT: Did she finish school?

THE DEFENDANT: Yes.

THE COURT: Is she going to college, too?

THE DEFENDANT: Yes.

THE COURT: Where do you guys find these women, really, seriously. I'd say about every fourth man who comes in here unemployed, no education, is with a woman who is working full-time, going to school. Where do you find these women? Is there a club?

THE DEFENDANT: No.

Continue reading " Abusive Judges " »

Two article of interest to Maryland lawyers in the Maryland Daily Record today:

Baltimore's large law firms are freezing starting associate salaries. No real surprise but an interesting article. Times have changed so much for lawyers even in the past year. In 2009, none of this is lost on the Internet. This is a website dedicated to tracking big law firm layoffs.

There is a follow-up story to the Maryland Court of Appeals decision in favor of an adoptive lesbian mother, denying visitation rights to her former partner who allegedly acted as the a parent to the child (mixed evidence on this). I reported on this custody battle some time ago. The article is about the Baltimore County Judge Michael Finifter's application of the court's opinion in denying the woman's partner visitation rights, essentially because while the biological mother may have wrongfully poisoned the child against the partner, the child is poisoned such that it is in the child's best interest for the partner not to have visitation rights. Here is the quote from one of the lawyers:

The decision was 30 pages long. Twenty-nine pages of it, 28, was the judge showing his, I guess, dislike for Janice, but at the end of the day, the analysis regarding Maya’s best interest prevailed.

Now here is the crazy part. The quote is from Janice's lawyer. This is a trial court opinion. So the only way the general public or friends, family and co-workers following the case are going to know what is in the opinion is to go to the Baltimore County courthouse in Towson. Thankfully, Janice's lawyer was kind enough to summarize for everyone exactly what kind of a person and parent the judge thinks she is. So thanks for that.

Continue reading " Maryland Legal News Today " »

Larry Fletcher-Hill from Gordon, Feinblatt, Rothman, Hoffberger & Hollander, LLC was named by Governor Martin O'Malley to the Baltimore City Circuit Court bench. Soon to be Judge Fletcher Hill was formerly the chief of litigation for the Maryland Attorney General's Office.

Becoming the AG's chief of litigation is like becoming a made man (made person just does not sound the same). Here are some prior Maryland AG chiefs of litigation in recent years: Maryland Insurance Commissioner Ralph S. Tyler III, U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Diana Gribbon Motz, and Baltimore City Circuit Judge Evelyn Omega Cannon.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had surgery today for pancreatic cancer at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Justice Ginsburg will remain in the hospital for seven to 10 days, according to her surgeon, Dr. Murray Brennan.

Justice Ginsburg has been such a tremendous judge on the Court. Pancreatic cancer is very tough to beat but people do it every single day. Justice Ginsburg has been down this road before, beating back colon cancer shortly after joining the Supreme Court. Also, and while I'm not expert, it appears she caught it early: a CAT scan revealed a tumor measuring about 1 centimeter in her pancreas.

She is in my thoughts and prayers along with millions of other Americans.
_____

CNN reported on February 7, 2009 that Justice Ginsburg is expected back to work later this month.

The Maryland Daily Record reports a federal judge has dismissed claims against Anne Arundel County and Anne Arundel County's current and former police chief in a lawsuit in federal court in Baltimore involving the claims of three women who complain that a former Anne Arundel County police officer instructed them to expose their breasts after traffic stops. The defendant former police officer is still in the case.

The police officer was fired which is a decent clue that the claims have a foundation. But I'm wondering exactly what the damages are in the lawsuit. Did any of these woman actually follow the instructions? Or where they just incredibly offended? Obviously, the women did the right thing in reporting the police officer and Anne Arundel County did the right thing in firing the police officer. Bad story with the best possible ending. I just don't see why there has to be a lawsuit tacked on to the end of the story unless there is something compelling that happened beyond some nutcase telling the plaintiff to take off her shirt and the plaintiff saying "no way."

Judge Benson Legg found no basis for claims against either the county, Police Chief James Teare or former chief Thomas Shanahan. The ruling does not apply to state litigation.

Former police officer Joseph Mosmiller remains the sole defendant in the federal case. He was convicted of misconduct and fired in 2007 after the allegations surfaced.

According to the ABA Journal, there is no recession in the land of employment law. In 2007, the median employment discrimination verdict rose 70 percent to $252,000 from 2006. Employers won only 38 percent of discrimination cases in 2007, prevailing most often in race discrimination cases (43 percent) and losing most frequently in sex discrimination cases (30 percent).

Of course, it is worth nothing that this does not include the number of cases in which summary judgment is granted for the defendant which changes the numbers good bit.