The VLW Blog

With the commonwealth’s 13 electoral votes up for grabs this year, Virginia voters don’t have to watch the campaign from afar, as in years past.  Barack Obama turned the Roanoke Civic Center into a tent revival today for about 6,500 of the faithful, with John McCain set to rally his supporters in the D.C. suburbs [...]

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While the candidates work for votes in Virginia, caravans of vendors follow the candidates, selling a vast array of campaign paraphernalia.  Dozens of vendors outside the Barack Obama rally in Roanoke today offered everything from stickers and buttons to “Obama playing cards” and wall hangings. 
The vendors got a close inspection by local police, who made [...]

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The Virginia State Bar Council resoundingly rejected today a proposal for mandatory legal malpractice insurance by a 60-11 vote.
Almost 92 percent of 17,393 state lawyers who represent clients drawn from the public already have such insurance, and only one lawyer without insurance reported this year that he had an unsatisfied malpractice judgment against him.
As a [...]

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The Executive Committee of the Virginia State Bar voted unanimously this afternoon, with President Manual A. Capsalis abstaining, to recommend rejection of a proposal for mandatory legal malpractice insurance in the state. 
Several members at first expressed reluctance to take a vote on the issue ahead of tomorrow’s meeting of the VSB Council, when a vote [...]

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The Virginia Board of Bar Examiners has posted the results for the July 2008 Bar Exam this afternoon.
Of the candidates who sat for the exam this past summer in Roanoke, 1163  (or 79.9 percent) received a passing score. About 100 of those applicants still have outstanding requirements for admission to the Virginia State Bar.
Bar passers will [...]

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The U.Va. law school class of 1990 has been under a microscope, of sorts.  Now we get the lab report.
A newly-released study of job and life satisfaction for the law class showed that both career satisfaction and life satisfaction were high, with 81% of the respondents satisfied with their decision to become a lawyer, and [...]

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Talk about wearing your heart on your sleeve.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Pamela Meade Sargent made it perfectly clear where her sentiments lie in her report and recommendation issued yesterday in the Ison Rock Ridge logging case:
“To a child of Appalachia, to see the mountains laid waste, whether by clear-cutting or strip mining, is to witness a [...]

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The Virginia Bar Association Foundation plans to recruit volunteer lawyers around Virginia in a program to make sure middle school students understand the importance of the rule of law in American society.
VBA President Mike Pace (left) described the program last week to members of the Lynchburg Bar Association.  Lawyers would work with teachers to present [...]

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A federal wrongful termination case noted in today’s Virginia Lawyers Weekly has been settled on undisclosed terms.
The case of Spicer v. Universal Forest Products, Eastern Division, Inc. (VLW 008-3-430) featured a stinging opinion from Magistrate Judge Michael F. Urbanski that blasted the defendant for sending a corporate designee to a Rule 30(b)(6) deposition without information [...]

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Feeling the urge to get out of the office?  Want to expand your legal knowledge base?  We have just the ticket.
If you’re near Lexington on Tuesday, take in the annual Supreme Court Preview at the Washington and Lee law school.  Highlights will include Prof. Brian Murchison addressing fleeting expletives and Prof. Adam Scales discussing FDA [...]

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