The VLW Blog

The new year will bring a new management structure for Atlanta-based Troutman Sanders. Stepping aside as managing partner is longtime leader Bob Webb, who remains as Chairman. Stephen Lewis will take the reins as managing partner, heading a team of other managers including Richmond’s Mark Shiembob as head of the partner compensation committee. Bob Seabolt [...]

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Chief Justice Leroy Rountree Hassell Sr. had little in the way of specifics for the Virginia Judicial Council today on how the judicial system will respond to a freeze on filling judicial vacancies until July 1, 2012. He noted that the judiciary’s 2010-12 budget is based on a reduction of 50 judges by then from [...]

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Jack Rives, the recently retired Air Force judge advocate general, was named yesterday as the next executive director of the American Bar Association. Rives retired as the Air Force’s top legal officer of March 1 and will assume the ABA position on Law Day. He replaces Henry White Jr., who resigned last fall as part [...]

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While courts ponder the entanglements of church and state in both the Episcopal property dispute (now before the Supreme Court of Virginia) and a tax-supported church-apartment building in Arlington County (expected be considered by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals), in Colonial Heights, city leaders are exploring the idea of putting their courts into [...]

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Senior U.S. District Judge Richard L. Willliams tried to do right by the defendant. Facing a firearm charge, defendant James Eugene Venable appeared in Richmond federal court to ask the judge to give him a new public defender, someone different from the one appointed a few weeks earlier. Venable claimed that “months have gone by” [...]

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The Supreme Court of Virginia will hear the appeal of a woman who contends that a judge in Richmond erred in holding that the continuous treatment rule did not toll the statute of limitations in a medical malpractice case. The case is Alyssa Chalifoux v. Radiology Associates of Richmond Inc., Record No. 100052. The Supreme [...]

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U.S. Magistrate Judge Mike Urbanski has picked up another endorsement in his bid to move up the judicial ladder at the federal courthouse. Urbanski Monday was recommended by the Salem/Roanoke County Bar Association for a seat on the U.S. District Court bench. The position will become available when Judge Norman Moon takes senior status in [...]

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The Richmond-based personal injury law firm of Allen, Allen, Allen & Allen will celebrate its 100th anniversary by awarding 100 ‘Hometown Heroes.’ The firm is now seeking nominations for people who made a difference in their communities and in the lives of others. Honorees will be revealed during the June 16 Richmond Flying Squirrels home [...]

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A Henrico County judge has approved a $1.75-million settlement in the controversial case involving the death of a teenage girl during a visit with a friend. The money comes from the homeowners’ insurance carrier for parents of the victim’s friend. The parents were hosting a sleepover visit when they allowed the two girls to ride [...]

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The Supreme Court of Virginia split 4-3 today on the issue of just what constitutes a cemetery. In a case from Rockingham County, the lower court and the Supreme Court majority held that a site can’t be a cemetery without the burial of a dead body. The circumstances in Shilling v. Baker suggest that’s much [...]

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