Virginia Lawyers Weekly VA Lawyers Weekly

Alfred M. Tripp, the Norfolk circuit judge who has not been on the bench since October, has resigned, according to his lawyer. The reason? Tripp’s lawyer, Carl Eason, isn’t talking, citing client confidentiality. The Virginian-Pilot quotes one source as saying ...

Handed down a year ago, the decision in Ford Motor Co. v. Benitez was one of the top legal news stories in 2007. In Benitez, the Supreme Court of Virginia upheld a $2,000 sanction against a defense attorney who, after ...

Tagged with: Bar Associations Civil Remedial Fees General District Court Law Firms Sanctions Supreme Court of Virginia

One of last year’s fiercest lobbying battles in the General Assembly has been one-sided so far this time around. Domestic relations attorneys, with the support of the Virginia Bar Association and the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association, are determined to get ...

Tagged with: Domestic Relations General Assembly

This is a case from Maryland. But in light of the recent de-benching of a Southwest Virginia judge by the Supreme Court on a complaint brought by the Judicial Inquiry and Review Commission, one can’t help but wonder what would ...

Tagged with: Judicial Inquiry and Review Commission

The Virginia Judicial Council has recommended raising the mandatory retirement age for judges from 70 to 75. That’s fine with the Senate Courts of Justice Committee, which reported SB 19 on a 10-4 vote last week and referred it to ...

Tagged with: General Assembly

We were a little off last week in describing the status of essentially identical bills in the House and Senate that would make it faster to terminate parental rights and get children adopted and out of foster care. We correctly ...

Tagged with: General Assembly

A tourism PR director who says he was fired for sending e-mails to various state officials cannot sue those officials for his termination, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said yesterday in ruling on the director’s civil rights suit. ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Civil Rights Employment

A Roanoke general district judge has given 30 days in jail to a guy accused of ordering, then not paying for, a bowl of chili at the Texas Tavern. The Texas Tavern is the only 24-hour restaurant in downtown Roanoke. ...

Tagged with: Criminal

Faster termination of parental rights is seen as a way to get children out of foster care and adopted more quickly. The proposal in House Bill 750 and Senate Bill 394 is for terminations to be appealed directly from juvenile ...

Tagged with: General Assembly

Virginians don’t trust our court system as much as they trust medical professionals. But they still trust the courts more than “the media.” These are some of the findings of a telephone survey of 1,100 randomly selected Virginia residents released ...

Tagged with: Circuit Court Clerks Supreme Court of Virginia