Virginia Lawyers Weekly VA Lawyers Weekly

Virginia’s trial judges are becoming too quick to decide cases on pre-trial motions. That’s the loud and clear message coming from the Virginia Supreme Court, in one case decided earlier this month and another decided in April. Trial judges may ...

IOLTA is mandatory in Virginia as of Oct. 1, following action by the Virginia Supreme Court last week. A sharply divided court voted 4-3 to adopt the controversial Virginia State Bar proposal that will require most practicing attorneys to maintain ...

The number of summer clerks hired by Virginia’s largest law firms is down from 1992, or at least the same. And while positions may be somewhat more difficult to find, law students who land jobs may earn a higher wage ...

A woman whose breast cancer worsened as a result of a delayed diagnosis could not sue a doctor employed by a state health clinic for medical malpractice, the Virginia Supreme Court has ruled. The court, in a 4-3 decision, held ...

Where a lawyer drafted the property settlement agreement between himself and his wife and advised his wife on divorce law, he had a fiduciary “special relationship” with the wife, the Virginia Court of Appeals has ruled in a case of ...

Partisans in the fight over the Virginia State Bar’s mandatory IOLTA proposal last week brought the showdown to Virginia’s court of last resort. VSB President William R. Rakes, urging adoption of the proposal, said that the VSB Council’s 33-23 vote ...

Some commentators liken settlement of law suits to curing the common cold: most law suits will settle even if the sufferers never seek relief from a professional, whether doctor or judge. And many Virginia trial court judges seem to subscribe ...

The likelihood that a criminal defense attorney in Northern Virginia will be called upon to defend a client who does not speak English is growing. The number of non-English-speaking defendants is on the rise, particularly in jurisdictions such as Fairfax ...

A circuit judge has provided what is apparently the first judicial definition of “sound mind” for cases involving a suicide. Under a Supreme Court case decided last year, Wackwitz v. Roy, (VLW 092-6-078), if a person of “sound mind” commits ...

As the Virginia Supreme Court prepares to hear argument on the mandatory IOLTA proposal later this week, lawyers responding to a Virginia Lawyers Weekly fax poll overwhelmingly reject the idea. Eighty-three percent of the 930 respondents oppose the IOLTA proposal ...