Law Blog rounds up the morning's news.

Sahara group: In a ruling late last week, India’s Supreme Court ordered two Sahara Group real-estate units to repay more than $3 billion with interest to investors who purchased debentures between 2008 and 2011. The ruling upheld an earlier order by the Securities and Exchange Board of India, the market regulator, that found the units had broken a slew of financial rules. The company denied wrongdoing. WSJ

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Amazon.com Inc. has hired Nuala O’Connor in a newly created position overseeing privacy -- making Amazon one of the last of the Internet giants to appoint a top privacy counsel.



Amazon had a privacy dust-up last year when it launched the Kindle Fire tablet with a Web browser called Silk that routed Web surfers through Amazon’s servers. In October, Rep. Ed Markey (D., Mass.) expressed concern that the browser would “enable Amazon to collect and utilize an extraordinary amount of information about its users’ Internet surfing and buying habits.”

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Mark Owen, the ex-SEAL who participated in the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden and wrote a book about it, responded Friday to a Pentagon letter accusing him of violating a non-disclosure agreement.

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The Obama campaign scored a victory in Ohio Friday when a federal district judge blocked a measure in the swing state that restricted early voting.

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A memoir by a former Navy SEAL who participated in the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden in May 2011 has gotten the attention of the Pentagon, which issued a formal warning threatening legal action for an alleged violation of non-disclosure agreements, the Los Angeles Times reported.

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Law Blog rounds up the morning's news.

No arbitration: A federal judge struck down a Delaware procedure that allows judges of one of the country’s most powerful corporate tribunals to decide some cases in secret. WSJ

‘Conversion’ therapy banned: California’s state legislature on Thursday passed the nation’s first law banning professional psychological therapy aimed at turning gay and lesbian youth straight. The legislation will next go to Gov. Jerry Brown for review. WSJ

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A former CIO at law firm Mayer Brown LLP was arrested Thursday for allegedly defrauding the firm of at least $850,000 through a fake billing scheme.

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Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday that the Justice Department has closed an investigation into the deaths of two detainees who were allegedly interrogated abroad by the CIA. No charges will be brought.

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Survey of midlevel associates at the country's biggest law firms found them happier with their jobs than they have been in years, the American Lawyer reported.

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California residents can keep their passwords to themselves, in school and in the workplace, thanks to a bill passed by the state Assembly on Wednesday.



As Law Blog reported here, last week California passed a social privacy bill prohibiting colleges and universities from requesting access from students and applicants. Taken together, the laws make California the first state to issue protections for both schools and the workplace.

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Law Blog rounds up he morning's news.

Statute of limitations: New York state has one of the country’s strictest statute of limitations for sexual abuse claims, despite lobbying by advocates who say the law can stymie victims who come forward too late. Now some attorneys believe that legal framework may be shifting after a federal judge this week allowed a lawsuit detailing decades-old sexual abuse to go forward against one of Brooklyn’s elite prep schools. WSJ

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Failed law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP has asked a judge to greenlight a $70 million “clawback” settlement with former partners that, if approved, would represent the first major recovery for creditors in the largest U.S. law firm failure to date.

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On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit cast doubt on the 23-year-old conviction and death row sentence of a California man, holding that a judge unconstitutionally prohibited from showing that the prosecution used juror strikes during his trial in a racially discriminatory manner.

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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit upheld an assault conviction handed down by a federal jury that was never sworn.



In August 2010, a federal jury in New Mexico convicted Gilbert Turrietta of assaulting a deputy U.S. marshal. (He bit a deputy U.S. marshal, who was executing a warrant for Mr. Turrietta’s arrest.) The trial lasted seven hours.

After the jury returned the verdict, Mr. Turrietta’s lawyer played his card. The judge had forgotten to swear in the jury, an oversight the lawyer, Charles E. Knoblauch, kept to himself for strategic reasons. Mr. Knoblauch asked the court to set aside the verdict, arguing that the absence of the oath deprived Mr. Turrietta of his Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury.

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Law firm Holland & Knight LLP has agreed to pay $25 million to settle a malpractice lawsuit over its representation of hedge funds run by Arthur G. Nadel, a disbarred lawyer who was dubbed the "mini Madoff" for running a $168 million fraud between 2002 and 2009.

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Global law firm DLA Piper is expanding their Paris footprint through a merger with a French boutique, 26-lawyer Frieh Bouhenic, that will become effective in October.

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Law Blog rounds up the morning's news.

Smartphone wars: The technology industry is buzzing that Microsoft Corp. MSFT -0.11% could emerge a winner after Apple Inc AAPL +0.04%.’s big patent suit victory. But there’s a catch: Consumers must be convinced they want what Microsoft is selling. WSJ

Silenced: A Russian court sentenced opposition activist Lena Osipova to eight years in prison on drug charges on Tuesday, the Kremlin’s latest shrug at international criticism of its crackdown on political dissent. WSJ

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You can falsely claim military decorations, but don't try to wear them on your chest. The first is likely to be considered protected speech; the second, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, is a crime.



In June, the Supreme Court held in U.S. v. Alvarez that lying about being a war hero was protected speech. In doing so, the court struck down a portion of the Stolen Valor Act. The Ninth Circuit was asked to consider whether wearing a medal that a veteran obtained under false pretenses was also protected by the First Amendment.

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The Securities and Exchange Commission's enforcement chief is out to dispel the "myth" of the revolving door.

The study in question found that agency lawyers who wheeled into jobs as securities lawyers at private law firms actually produced tougher enforcement results while in the government. In other words, the firms recruited the SEC attorneys who collected scalps.

The study, by researchers at Emory University, Rutgers, the University of Washington and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, found no evidence that law firms with heaps of SEC alums on staff were able to get their clients better outcomes than those with few or none.

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Philadelphia-based law firm Pepper Hamilton LLP is merging with Freeh Sporkin & Sullivan LLP, the boutique firm founded by former FBI Director Louis Freeh, and will also acquire the investigative consulting group Freeh Group International Solutions LLC.

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