The VLW Blog

Richmond criminal defense lawyer Claire G. Cardwell has been honored by her peers with the 2013 Harry L. Carrico Professionalism Award. The Virginia State Bar Criminal Law Section presented the award Feb. 1 during its annual seminar in Charlottesville. The award recognizes individuals who have contributed to the improvement of the Virginia criminal justice system. [...]

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A proposal to increase the mandatory retirement age for Virginia judges from 70 to 73 has died in a House subcommittee. The House Courts civil laws subcommittee failed to report the bill Monday. The same panel killed similar legislation last year, when the idea had the backing of the Judicial Council of Virginia. Sens. Chap [...]

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When the digital age comes to your local courthouse, you may be asked to pay an extra $2 if you haven’t followed suit. The General Assembly has approved a bill to allow circuit court clerks to charge a $2 fee for paper filing once they have established an electronic filing system. The money would be [...]

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With one exception, all of the bills included in a compromise tort reform package at the Virginia General Assembly have received the blessing of the Senate Courts Committee. In a Monday morning session, the panel approved bills that would limit venue choices, expand opportunities for summary judgment, and allow a judge to scrutinize the basis [...]

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A judge will routinely thank a petit jury for its service. Now, a Norfolk judge has gone on record with his gratitude to a special grand jury at the end of their months-long term. Last March 14, the Norfolk Circuit Court convened a special grand jury to investigate possible criminal activity within the Norfolk Community [...]

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A Roanoke lawyer left divorce clients in the lurch when he quietly closed his law office and disappeared, Virginia State Bar documents reveal. Now, the lawyer has agreed to give up his license to practice. Randall B. Campbell acknowledged Monday in a VSB affidavit he abandoned his law practice and failed to protect his client’s [...]

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The House of Delegates Tuesday gave unanimous approval to a plan for subtle but effective changes in Virginia’s actual innocence process. The actual innocence reform bill had been sent back to the House Courts Committee Jan. 28 after delegates voted against a floor amendment that would have allowed a second petition for actual innocence in [...]

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A former employee of the Bureau of National Affairs may represent a class of plaintiffs who allege they lost out when they sold company stock back to BNA at a lower share price than Bloomberg Inc. paid when it bought BNA for $990 million in September 2011. Plaintiff Judith Knight alleges the BNA board set [...]

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Bankruptcy filings in Virginia dropped for calendar year 2012, with filings in the Eastern District falling by 12.7 percent and new cases down by 10.8 percent in the Western District. These figures were slightly less than the overall decline nationwide of 13 percent, according to data released Feb. 4 by the Administrative Office of the [...]

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The Court of Appeals of Virginia has upheld the embezzlement conviction of former Richmond Social Security lawyer Kyle C. Leftwich. Leftwich was convicted in 2011 of taking $450,000 from the firm of Marks & Harrison by pocketing attorney fees paid to her by the Social Security Administration. Under her employment contract, the fees belonged to [...]

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