Welcome to your Friday morning round-up of stories in today’s edition of The Legal Intelligencer. All of the links below will take you directly to today’s stories, or you can head straight over to The Legal’s homepage. (Some stories may require registration or a paid subscription.)
The top story this morning is the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association asking the First Judicial District to rethink recent changes made to its handling of mass tort cases. As reporter Amaris Elliott-Engel writes, the association sent a six-page, single-spaced letter this week to court leaders asking for rescission of some of the new court protocols, including the deferral of punitive damages in all mass tort claims.
Below the fold on Page 1, reporter Gina Passarella writes that the Republican National Committee’s attempt to vacate a 30-year-old consent decree with the Democratic National Committee didn’t hold muster with the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The RNC had agreed not to police voter fraud without a court’s permission, but argued that subsequent modifications since the decree was agreed upon in 1982 made it more prohibitive against the party’s ballot protection efforts.
In more Regional News on Page 3, Amaris Elliott-Engel writes about Mayor Michael A. Nutter’s proposal to keep counsel fees for indigent defendants not represented by the Defender Association of Philadelphia in the court’s budget for 2012-13, despite requests from the First Judicial District to remove them.
As always, our People in the News section is on Page 2, and the top stories from our sister publications across the country make up the Page 4 National News section.
In an Environmental Law column on Page 5, Kenneth J. Warren writes about difficulties in establishing criteria in efforts to control nutrient pollution.
In an Intellectual Property column on Page 7, Siegfried J.W. Ruppert and Guy W. Chambers write that the path for generic competition is wide open in the biotechnology industry.
If you have questions or comments about any of today's stories, or our coverage as a whole, we invite you to e-mail any of the reporters directly. We hope you'll enjoy today's Legal.
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