Virginia Lawyers Weekly VA Lawyers Weekly

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 ...

In Virginia Lawyers Weekly’s recent fax poll on mandatory IOLTA, 83 percent of the respondents opposed the measure. And while many lawyers listed ideological reasons for their opposition, many lawyers in small firms offered practical reasons they felt IOLTA would ...

According to a recent Virginia Lawyers Weekly fax poll, 17 percent of respondents support mandatory IOLTA. Most support the proposal on the grounds that legal aid programs need funding desperately, and that mandatory IOLTA is a painless way for the ...

A Fairfax circuit judge has overturned a $434,185 products liability verdict won by a builder against a manufacturer for faulty plywood used in building Northern Virginia townhouses. The rationale: Because the plywood was incorporated into the townhouses, the Uniform Commercial ...

In an effort to shut the door on a successful technical defense that lawyers had been using to defeat drunken driving charges, some prosecutors have been asking the state forensics lab to attest to blood test certificates after they have ...