Legal Pad

Schmier Argues He's Not Vexatious (But Hey, The Dude Is Tenacious)

Some people are vexatious litigants, and others are just guys who file lots of suits. Kenneth Schmier might be the latter.

In a brief filed with the San Francisco federal court Monday, the Emeryville lawyer tried to fend off a judge’s wrath by citing a 2007 Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that enunciated the factors used to determine whether someone is a vexatious litigant.

“As the Ninth Circuit has instructed,” Aaron Aftergood, Schmier’s Los Angeles-based lawyer, wrote, “'the simple fact that a plaintiff has filed a large number of complaints, standing alone, is not a basis for designating a litigant as “vexatious."’” 

What's a guy gotta do to be vexatious around here?  After the jump ...

L.A. Judge Indicted in Alleged Election Bribery Attempt

Los Angeles County Superior Court is already facing a lost business day next week when many of its courthouses go dark Wednesday to cut costs. Now it’s facing the loss of a judge, at least temporarily.

Judge Harvey Silberman was indicted by a grand jury on June 24 on charges that he tried to bribe Deputy District Attorney Serena Murillo not to run against him in the June 2008 election, according to a copy of the indictment provided by the attorney general’s office.

Also charged in the indictment were political consultants Evelyn Alexander and Alan Steinberg. Silberman’s attorney, Daniel Nixon, told the Los Angeles Times that the judge “is appalled and outraged” by the charges and that he is “absolutely innocent.” The two consultants entered not guilty pleas on Wednesday. Silberman’s arraignment was delayed pending the arrival of an out-of-county judge.

Witness list, after the jump

Santa Clara DA Sorta Kinda Defends Former Prosecutor

It wasn’t quite a non-denial denial, but the Santa Clara County district attorney’s office came pretty close with their Monday statement defending a former prosecutor (now judge) who was criticized last week in a state Supreme Court referee’s report.

Superior Court Judge Joyce Allegro prosecuted Miguel Bacigalupo for a double homicide in 1987, when she was a deputy district attorney, and according to the report withheld crucial evidence from the defense that could have supported Bacigalupo’s claim that he was forced by a drug cartel to commit the murders.

The statement from DA spokesman Nick Muyo said that the offices of the DA and attorney general both “have not determined that any misconduct or error of legal significance occurred in this prosecution.” (Which sounds slightly weaker than saying “have determined that no misconduct or error occurred.”)

“Were that the case,” the statement continues, “those issues would be conceded and steps voluntarily taken to modify these convictions and/or the sentence imposed.”

— Evan Hill

Examiner Says: Censure Judge. Maybe De-Bench Him.

A Sacramento judge who walked out on a heated divorce trial should be publicly censured “at a minimum” and perhaps even removed from office, an examiner has recommended to the Commission on Judicial Performance.

Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Peter McBrien gave “false and misleading testimony while under oath,” won’t admit to “the impropriety of his conduct” and is “likely” to commit “further misconduct,” Examiner Andrew Blum wrote in a July 7 letter (.pdf) to commissioners.

Not surprisingly, McBrien’s attorney sees things differently.

Imagine that … after the jump.

Jury Convicts Immigration Attorneys for Making Stuff Up

A federal jury in Sacramento on Thursday convicted three Northern California attorneys and two interpreters of filing hundreds of fraudulent asylum applications.

Attorneys Jagprit Singh Sekhon, 39, of Westminster; his brother Jagdip Singh Sekhon, 42, of Salida; and Manjit Kaur Rai, 33, of Discovery Bay; as well as interpreters Iosif Caza, 43, of Sacramento; and Luciana Harmath, 29, of Glendale, Ariz., were all convicted of conspiracy to defraud federal immigration agencies, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District announced.

In a press statement, prosecutors said the defendants, working for the Sacramento and San Francisco firm Sekhon & Sekhon, submitted asylum applications, primarily for Indian and Romanian nationals, “containing fictitious stories of persecution that the clients had supposedly suffered in their home countries.”

The paperwork included “harrowing, but fictitious, stories of arbitrary arrest, detention, torture and rape. Some persecution stories were reused in asylum claims for multiple clients,” prosecutors said.

The three attorneys denied fabricating information and said they relied heavily on accounts of events that their clients gave them, according to coverage of the trial in the Sacramento Bee. 

The defendants are scheduled for sentencing on Oct. 16.

— Cheryl Miller
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Mayer Brown's Malpractice Trouble Resembles Greenberg's Heller Problem

While Greenberg joins the ranks of parties Heller’s creditors want to blame for the firm’s bankruptcy, Mayer Brown is getting a little dose of malpractice allegations in Texas over the same stuff.

Mayer Brown has been advising a German aviation company in bankruptcy. The firm allegedly failed to file a regular financing statement with the Texas Secretary of State for a secured loan owned by the company, which now wants $10 million in damages for gross negligence, among other things.

How Mayer Brown's predicament is, and isn't, like Greenberg's, after the jump.

Sonnenschein Partner Sued Over Car Crash

Sonnenschein partner Paul Glad is being sued over a March auto accident in Burlingame that resulted in a mother losing a leg.

The suit alleges Glad was under the influence of Oxycontin when he pulled into the handicapped space of a store, started getting out of his car without putting it in park, and rammed a group of parents and girls selling Girl Scouts cookies, pinning one mother against a wall.

San Mateo County Deputy DA Sean Gallagher said the office expects to decide whether to file criminal charges within the next week.

He declined to comment further or disclose details of the police report, citing DA policy.

The civil suit (.pdf) was filed against Glad on Wednesday by the victims, 49-year-old Holly Rogers, who lost one leg above the knee after both were broken, and her 8-year-old daughter, Caroline Schoustra, whose leg was also broken but is healing.

More after the jump.

Plaintiffs Slapped Over Expert Testimony in Chip Price-Fixing Case

Plaintiffs’ lawyers in a price-fixing case against computer memory manufacturers got dinged on Thursday with sanctions that will restrict their use of expert testimony.

Experts hired by lawyers representing people who bought products containing the memory — static random access memory, or SRAM — will not be able to use or refer to any data they got from outside sources before Jan. 29, when the lawyers filed their motion to certify a class of so-called “indirect purchaser” plaintiffs. The experts will also be barred from submitting any new opinions or analyses, and limited to rebutting their opponents’ theories, ruled federal District Judge Claudia Wilken.

The wages of "hiding the ball," after the jump.

Light Reading: Judge Turned Up Heat on O'Melveny

Legal Pad noted last week that U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Marilyn Morgan had ordered an evidentiary hearing to go over O’Melveny & Myers partner Suzzanne Uhland’s role in the 2006 Intel-VIA settlement in the SonicBlue bankruptcy.

We now have a copy of the hearing transcript, which you can view here.

You can see Judge Morgan was not exactly gentle when she questioned whether there was negligence or misconduct on O’Melveny’s part in the settlement, which benefited VIA over other unsecured creditors.

Celebrities + Lawyers = One Train Wreck After Another

Also starring: Gloria Allred!

It’s an overcast Monday after a rainy weekend, and Legal Pad is starting the week in a definite couch potato mood. However, since there’s probably some dumb HR rule against catching up on Lost episodes via our office computer, the next best thing is surfing the Internet for celebrity gossip. Law-related celebrity gossip, we hasten to assure our editors/corporate overlords. We’re on the clock here, people.

While Lindsay Lohan hasn’t lately been arrested or charged with anything entertaining that we’re aware of, other celebrities have been keeping their lawyers busy.  We’ve got real political celebs (John Edwards), fake reality celebs ("Octomom"), and washed-up TV celebs (David Hasselhoff).

Act now and we'll throw in, at no extra cost, a chunk of the California Assembly. After the jump.