The VLW Blog

The Virginian-Pilot is reporting that Norfolk Circuit Judge Alfred M. Tripp has been barred from court.
The paper’s source did not state the reasons for the action. The judge’s docket was transferred to another judge Friday and a substitute judge was scheduled to sit today.
The source spoke anonymously due to the secret nature of [...]

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A new suit in Norfolk federal court involves … pancakes.
Actually, it involves two companies that run pancake houses, one in the Outer Banks of North Carolina and the other in Williamsburg (where pancake houses are as common as tourists), and their names.
The Virginian-Pilot reports that the company that runs restaurants called “Stack’em High [...]

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The Norfolk jail has changed its lawyer visitation policy … again.
Now, lawyers can visit their clients behind bars in the cell blocks, so long as they sign a waiver form acknowledging the jail’s safety policies, reports The Virginian-Pilot.
The sheriff changed the policy last year to require lawyer-client meetings in visitation rooms after female [...]

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A Norfolk bar owner tried to justify his sans-permit construction of a second-story bar on the Ocean View Fishing Pier by calling it his “office.”
After the pier was destroyed by Hurricane Isabel in 2003, the owner promptly began reconstruction. Along the way, he apparently decided better meant bigger, and added to his commercial pier, [...]

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The law firm of Willcox & Savage was one of the first tenants to move into the Bank of America Building when it opened in downtown Norfolk in 1967. But The Virginian-Pilot reports that that the firm’s Norfolk office will be changing addresses in 2010. The firm will move to the Wachovia Center, a [...]

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Norfolk Circuit Clerk George Schaefer is overseeing an ambitious project: He wants to make his office paperless. Right now, his staff scans every civil filing that comes in the door. They’ve scanned almost all the land records – which, in an old jurisdiction such as Norfolk, date back to the 1700s. The Virginian-Pilot reports that [...]

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Accident report cases were a big deal about eight or 10 years ago, as plaintiffs’ lawyers duked it out with insurance companies over access to accident reports or statements taken by adjusters after an incident. Cases came in frequently and from all over the state. The results went both ways, so everyone could stay tuned [...]

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