* Top candidates turn to trial lawyers for support. [Washington Post]

* More recusal requests expected in WV Supreme Court. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Former NFL player's wife files malpractice suit over surgery. [ESPN]

* Suffrage suffers in Mexico. [MSNBC]

* How to count primary delegates (and an explanation of the "superdelegates"). [New York Times; New York Times]

* "It's just not realistic" to present major new initiatives, but the SOTU will still be on every channel tonight. White House speechwriters are not on strike. [CNN]

* Super-litigator Tom Barr of Cravath, RIP. [New York Times (death notice); WSJ Law Blog]

Good things about Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft: profits per partner of $2.9 million, third behind Wachtell and Cravath. Visits from Cameron Diaz.

Bad things about Cadwalader: bed bugs. And $70 million malpractice lawsuits.

The indefatigable Anthony Lin has this report, in the New York Law Journal:

As the global slowdown in the market for mortgage-backed securities threatens a core practice area of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, the New York law firm is also wrestling with a $70 million legal malpractice suit brought by a major issuer of such securities....

Nomura Asset Capital Corp., a U.S. division of Japan's largest securities firm, filed suit against Cadwalader last October in Manhattan Supreme Court over documents the law firm drafted for a 1997 securitization transaction in which Nomura pooled 156 commercial mortgages worth around $1.8 billion.

We'll spare you the details of the suit, since they're boring and kinda hard to follow. CWT is represented by Cravath, and they're moving to dismiss.

More discussion -- including talk about associate layoffs, triggered by the generally grim climate for mortgage-backed securities work -- after the jump.

* Lawyer opinions solicited: Is this an effective ad for malpractice insurance? [Copyranter]

* Another ugly day for the stock market. [Volokh Conspiracy]

* On that subject: Is the vast family fortune of Rachel Kovner, ATL's official It girl, in jeopardy -- as recently rumored by our sibling site? Not exactly. But if Bruce Kovner's legendary fund is up only 3 percent year-to-date, things could certainly be better. [DealBreaker]

* What? The iPhone is not God's greatest gift to man? Bite your tongue! [Althouse]

* Ignoring a handslap will get you a benchslap. See page 15, footnote 7. [U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (PDF)]

This can't help the whole equity partner situation at Mayer Brown.

A court-appointed examiner in the Refco bankruptcy case has there are grounds to sue Mayer Brown for malpractice in the case. Ernst & Young and Weil might be on the hook too, but these are "close calls" according to the examiner (with the obvious implication that with Mayer Brown it is not a close call). This from a Reuters article on the report from the examiner, Joshua Hochberg:

Hochberg filed his report with the U.S. bankruptcy court in Manhattan. His recommendations could provide grounds for lawsuits by Refco creditors, many of whom received only a fraction of the amounts they claimed they were owed.

Hochberg is a partner at McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP in Washington, D.C. specializing in white-collar crime. He used to head the fraud unit of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Mayer Brown has not commented.

Earlier:
Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw-ling: Getting Too Far in Front of the Story?
Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw-ling: A Bit of Backstory

* Lawyer was grand jury leak in BALCO case. [MSNBC]

* Justice Kennedy: Pay the judges! [Law.com]

* Notre Dame's Coach Weis testifies in gastric bypass malpractice case. Tom Brady may testify. [CBS Sportsline]

* Judge allows burial of Anna Nicole Smith. [MSNBC]

* Should you marry a lawyer? [WSJ Law Blog]

This case summary, from CourtBriefs, was emailed to us with the following subject line: "Why I saw this and thought of ATL, I have no idea."

Regardless of your views on abortion -- and we'll just say, for the record, that we are not unsympathetic to the pro-life cause -- this lawsuit should strike you as a bit dubious:

This is like suing a bear for failure to warn that he might attack. A bear is as a bear does; and so is Planned Parenthood.*

Here's our favorite part of the Doe v. Planned Parenthood summary:

As a result of the counseling, assertions and representations of the Planned Parenthood personnel and various Defendants, [Doe] underwent an abortion that day. Her unborn infant, Michael Doe, died as a result of the abortion procedure.

That tends to happen when you get AN ABORTION, dear.

(In all seriousness, even pro-lifers -- or pro-choicers who, like Bill Clinton, believe abortion should be "safe, legal and rare" -- should not support a lawsuit like this. Awarding money damages to women for undergoing abortions seems like unwise public policy.)

Doe v. Planned Parenthood [Court Briefs (subscription)]

* We're setting aside all the other problems, including jurisdictional ones, with suing a bear.

* Pity the petty, Tommy Bahama-wearing victims of the defectively long and narrow armrests of Metro-North commuter trains. [New York Times]

* Dr. Daniel goes to prison after lubing up the Beverly Hills ladies… in a bad way. [Los Angeles Times]

* Small firms are great and all, but can they afford the luxury of a Holiday Extravaganza in the cafeteria? [Build a Solo Practice, LLC]

* A crime against the Christmas spirit? No, just a mom charging her kid with petty larceny. [The Smoking Gun via CrimLaw]

* Remember that ninth-grade health ed presentation on the dangers of smoking, with the gross photos of cancerous lungs? That is when the statute of limitations should start running. (The SOL in trans-fat cases, because it’s only a matter of days now, should run the day you realize you can’t see your penis anymore.) [Point of Law]

The past few days have been full of law-related news about celebrities. E.g., Lindsay Lohan, Wesley Snipes, and Madonna. And no menagerie of stars would be complete without the King of Pop himself: Michael Jackson.

Things are getting majorly "meta" for Michael. He's retained new lawyers to sue his former lawyers, against whom he makes some pretty wacky interesting allegations:

Michael Jackson is accusing his former attorneys of conspiring to put him into involuntary bankruptcy. In papers filed on Aug. 29 in Tarzana, Calif., but unseen until now, Jackson accuses former attorneys Ayscough & Marar of “approaching other lawyers” who represented Jackson “in an effort to get such lawyers to join [with them] in forcing Jackson into involuntary bankruptcy …”

We tend to doubt Jackson's precarious financial condition is the fault of his lawyers. Unless they happen to be prepubescent boys demanding millions in hush money.

Jacko: Former Lawyers in Conspiracy [Fox News]