The VLW Blog

Federal trial courts in Roanoke have been displaced from the Poff Federal Building because of loose bricks on one side of the 14-story building. The building and all agencies within will be closed Monday and Tuesday due to construction, according to a notice on the courts’ website. Closure is possible on Wednesday, Nov. 21, as [...]

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The Virginia State Bar Legal Ethics Committee has withdrawn two 1990 legal ethics opinions out of concern they might lead lawyers astray in matters involving powers of attorney. The two opinions – LEO 1313 and 1339 – take the view that a law firm hired to prepare a power of attorney is representing the attorney [...]

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What’s your lawsuit about? It should be easier to tell with the new cover sheet published by the Supreme Court of Virginia. Attorneys filing circuit court civil actions are asked to use the new cover sheet form available at the court’s website. The court modified the uniform cover sheet at the behest of the 2012 [...]

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Document custodians must track a mass of digital data, and are bound to overlook – or delete – documents that later are demanded in a lawsuit. But there are sins of omission, and sins of commission. Taking a sledgehammer to a work computer would be the latter. Alan Taylor, a “computer expert by trade,” first [...]

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Former Lancaster County Commonwealth’s Attorney C. Jeffers Schmidt Jr. is accused of destroying a public record last year as he ran unsuccessfully for re-election. Schmidt faces a misdemeanor charge in the case. Court records indicate he was arrested Nov. 6 and the Northern Neck News reports he was arraigned Wednesday in Lancaster County General District [...]

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An employer defending an overtime pay case can’t demand records from the employee’s past employers, unless the employer knows the employee earlier sued for violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. A Norfolk U.S. District Court said a trucking company’s subpoenas to three former employers of truck driver J. David Singletary II were overbroad On [...]

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A Williamsburg custom home builder can go back to court to prove his claim that a competing builder infringed his copyrighted design when he built a Georgian-style home for a couple who had visited a model home in the Ford’s Colony subdivision. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revived a copyright claim filed by [...]

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A Hampton judge who ordered the release of a man he convicted for sexual assault four years ago now finds himself in a showdown with the state attorney general. Hearing evidence that the alleged victim lied in her accusations, and with the agreement of the local prosecutor, Circuit Judge Randolph West last week threw out [...]

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Despite those interstate signs warning “Speed limit enforced by aircraft,” Virginia’s airborne traffic cops have been parked at the hangar for more than a year, according to figures from the State Police. The aircraft enforcement program that launched with much fanfare in 2000 after a fatal crash on I-81 was quietly ended because it cost [...]

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The Harrisonburg-Rockingham County Bar Association has endorsed two attorneys for an expected circuit court vacancy and one for general district court. The circuit court seat now belongs to retiring Judge James Lane. Judge William Heatwole is retiring from the district court bench. The bar endorsed Bruce Albertson and Bill Helsey for the circuit court seat [...]

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