Amtrak

Even though Railware's claims survived Amtrak’s motion to dismiss, there is still a long way to go before Railware can claim ultimate victory.

* Litigation formerly known has the wrongful death case involving Prince has been resolved. [Marin Independent Journal]

* A Syracuse man has been freed from jail eight months after he gave a false confession to the police. [Syracuse.com]

* A New York jurist is in hot water after calling a lawyer’s clients “pig-headed Greeks.” [New York Post]

* An NAACP attorney is accusing Amtrak of wrongdoing after a conductor forced her to relinquish her seat on an Amtrak train. [The Root]

* U.S. Marshalls have transported Michael Avenatti to New York by private jet ahead of his upcoming criminal trial. At least he’s travelling in style. [Los Angeles Times]

I'm gonna be on Chris Christie's side in his Amtrak flap.

* The legal battle that pits Jenner & Block and the Motion Picture Association of America on one side and Google on the other just got uglier. In response to Google’s subpoena of documents related to Jenner & Block and the MPAA’s lobbying efforts, Jenner & Block partner, David Handzo, called out Google tactics saying, “The court should not allow Google’s abuse of the litigation process.” [National Law Journal]

* The repercussions of the Sony data hack just keep on coming. A federal judge ruled that Sony employees that had personal information leaked to the world had standing to sue even if they couldn’t prove that criminals used their information. [The Recorder]

* Former Utah AG Mark Shurtleff now faces lesser charges of bribery and accepting improper gifts (though he could still face up to 30 years in jail if convicted), including allegations that accepting a partnership at Troutman Sanders impaired his judgement as a civil servant. [The American Lawyer]

* How far would you go to save your sinking law firm? The saga of failed firm, Butler & Hosch, got stranger amid allegations that CEO Robert Hosch created fake invoices to the tune of $7 million to secure a loan for the firm. [Daily Business Review]

* Litigation surrounding the May 12th Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia continues forward along with criticism that federal law limits the recovery for all victims combined to $200 million. [Legal Intelligencer]

* Andrew and Alecia Schmuhl, the husband-and-wife lawyer duo accused of treating a law firm managing partner and his wife to a “torture session,” had a hearing this week where it was revealed that Andrew allegedly slit the managing partner’s throat. [Washington Post]

* ‘We’re asking you to choose life. Yes, even for the Boston Marathon bomber.” Jurors began deliberating in the death penalty phase of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s trial late yesterday afternoon. It’s worth noting that the last time someone was executed in Massachusetts was 70 years ago. [Boston Globe]

* “Explaining these persistent gender disparities in income … has proven to be much more difficult than simply identifying them.” Per a study conducted by Harvard Law, the wage gap for women in the law has been growing since 1975. [Big Law Business / Bloomberg]

* The deadly Amtrak derailment hit too close to home for attorneys in the Northeast who travel frequently on the Acela line. In fact, some of our best tips have come from Acela trips. Our thoughts are with those who were affected by the crash. [National Law Journal]

* A sexy little spat: Dov Charney, the ex-CEO of American Apparel, filed a $20M defamation suit against the company, claiming that despite what employees were told, he never agreed that he’d stay away from American Apparel for good. [Los Angeles Times]

This Biglaw attorney hates summer associates -- and is happy to announce it in a public place.

Here at Above the Law, we’re trying to help you. We write about lawyers who do embarrassing things so that you can learn from their examples. Heck, you should get ethics CLE credit for reading this site. One of our most widely-used lessons — now part of new employee training at a Wall Street firm, […]

Time for a brief follow-up to our earlier post about Biglaw partner Robert Robbins, head of the corporate practice of Pillsbury Winthrop, and how he spoke — a little too loudly, on a crowded Acela train — about the firm’s planned layoffs. You may have already seen it in the comments, but in case it […]

Law firm partners need to watch more Gossip Girl. If they did, they’d learn the perils of talking about private matters in public places. In the age of BlackBerrys, texting, and cameraphones, it’s ridiculously easy for tipsters to leak details of overheard conversations and not-so-secret rendezvous to their favorite online gossip girl (or boy — […]