The VLW Blog

It’s been nearly 200 years since an American court convicted anyone of piracy – that’s the seagoing, ship-raiding piracy, not the music-downloading kind.
Last year, a Norfolk federal court convicted a group of Somali nationals of piracy, and on May 23, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that conviction, in a decision that [...]

[Read more →]

Three lawyers in Virginia have been tapped as Fellows of the American College of Trial Lawyers.
According to Charlottesville lawyer Thomas E. Albro, Virginia state chair, the college recently inducted these individuals:

Claire Cardwell, Richmond

William E. Glover, Fredericksburg

John E. Lichtenstein, Roanoke

Albro noted that an invitation to be a Fellow is extended only to trial lawyers who have [...]

[Read more →]

NORFOLK — Virginia Supreme Court Chief Justice Cynthia D. Kinser shone a light on court staff in her 2012 State of the Judiciary address delivered May 15 in Norfolk.
The chief justice opened Virginia’s annual Judicial Conference with a summation of achievements and milestones during the past year.
Virginia’s 4,500 judicial branch employees handle over [...]

[Read more →]

Pounds added up in a good way in the 2012 Legal Food Frenzy competition, which concluded with yesterday’s announcement by Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli of this year’s winners of the annual contest. The latest Food Frenzy raised 1.4 million pounds of food for Virginia food banks.
Contestants are judged by weight and the prizes include awards [...]

[Read more →]

Deborah Love, Director of the Richmond Academy of Medicine and Access Now Inc., has been selected as Virginia Lawyers Media’s Influential Woman of the Year for 2012.
Selected by a vote of the 44-member 2012 class of Influential Women of Virginia, Love’s signal achievement in recent years has been helping to develop Access Now Inc., a [...]

[Read more →]

Lawyers who represent consumers notched a win last week in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a case says they don’t have to hustle to court as fast as they thought.
Homeowners facing foreclosure on refis have had some modest success with claims under the Truth in Lending Act. But there’s a three-year window [...]

[Read more →]

A prosecutor may have to make an earlier disclosure of exculpatory evidence under Virginia ethics rules than is required under the Brady standard, under a new draft legal ethics opinion.
The Virginia State Bar is seeking comment on draft LEO 1862, which covers a controversial topic for criminal defense lawyers: What is a “timely disclosure” [...]

[Read more →]

A juror’s use of Wikipedia to research an element of a criminal offense violated a defendant’s right to a fair trial on illegal “cockfighting” charges, and the defendant should be retried, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said on April 20.
Defendant Scott Lawson and others were charged with violating a federal animal fighting statute, [...]

[Read more →]

A Virginia father can seek damages from adoption lawyers and a Utah couple who adopted his child without his permission, a divided Supreme Court of Virginia said on April 20. A tort claim for “tortious interference with parental rights” is part of Virginia common law, the court said.
According to the father’s complaint, the mother misled [...]

[Read more →]

Former lawyer Troy Titus, convicted in Norfolk federal court of mail and wire fraud, has lost his appeal in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Today the appellate court released a 31-page unpublished opinion that described Titus’s involvement in “an operation that bore the hallmarks of a Ponzi scheme,” and rejected his appellate claims [...]

[Read more →]