Virginia Lawyers Weekly VA Lawyers Weekly

Dear Editor: The dissent in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts predicted that the Court’s narrow 5-4 decision would have catastrophic consequences. The majority, of course, brushed off this criticism. So where do we stand, five months after Melendez-Diaz and three months after ...

Dear Editor: I am often not too effective at saying what I mean to say but I know that, my wife’s been telling me that for more than 42 years. The article published in the Sept. 21 edition of VLW ...

Dear Editor: I am disappointed that the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association objects to a proposed “payee notification” statute (“Payee-notice plans need more work, VTLA says,” Sept. 21). No rational consumer would think that having an insurance company mail them a ...

Dear Editor: I’m writing to those of you who offer free initial consultations to prospective clients in order to determine whether you can help them. I want to persuade you to stop. It certainly is not my intention to ask ...

I read with great consternation the remarks made in the General Assembly by Robert Lamb and House Majority Leader Morgan Griffith in opposition to Sen. Henry Marsh’s bill regarding our Commonwealth’s participation in the bicentennial celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s birth ...

Dear Editor: Your lead article in your Feb. 26 issue caught my eye (“General contractor, sub have different rules on perfection of mechanic’s liens”). I am pleased to see that Judge Sharrett got the interpretation of the 2003 amendment to ...

Dear Editor: The Virginia Supreme Court recently issued an opinion in the case of Janvier v. Arminio in which a serious anomaly in the statutory law of Virginia was highlighted and brought to the attention of the General Assembly. In ...

CPF officers explain fund’s purpose Dear Editor: As the chair and vice-chair of the Virginia State Bar’s Clients’ Protection Fund, we write in response to the letter submitted by fellow VSB attorney H. Watkins Ellerson in the April 17 edition ...

Dear Editor: Watkins Ellerson’s recent letter (VLW, 4/17/06, “Lawyer objects to mandatory liability coverage”) reinforces how difficult it is (even for lawyers) to understand the distinction among various risks faced by lawyers and those who engage a lawyer’s services. Members ...

Lawyer objects to mandatory liability coverage Dear Editor: Once again the issue of mandatory liability insurance for lawyers has raised its ugly head from the (un)dead like Dracula. Nowhere in Alan Cooper’s article of March 27 (“VSB: Mandatory insurance mulled”) ...