Friday, September 25, 2009 at 2:08PM Attorney Rob Wood joins Mark Wahlstrom on this weeks Speaking of Settlement to discuss the release of new regulations and clarification on Section 104 and Section 130 damages. If you are a trial lawyer, settlement professional or tax professional you will want to know what this revision to IRC Section 104 is all about.
Monday, September 14, 2009 at 2:13PM 
(NY Times) This fall, law students are competing for half as many openings at big firms as they were last year in what is shaping up to be the most wrenching job search season in over 50 years.
For students now, the promise of the big law firm career — and its paychecks — is slipping through their fingers, forcing them to look at lesser firms in smaller markets as well as opportunities in government or with public interest groups, law school faculty and students say.
The frenzy has even pushed the nation’s top firms, a tradition-bound coterie, into discussing how to reform the recruitment process with an earnestness that would have been unthinkable just years ago.
Read the article in the New York Times
Washington and Lee Law School Dean Rod Smolla discusses the current job market and the school's revolutionary 3L curriculum with LBN host Scott Drake.
Monday, August 17, 2009 at 2:36PM In a stunning turn of events on what could be one of the largest Qui Tam cases in US history, the First 
Circuit Federal Appeals Court released it's opinion today reinstating a part of the whistleblower claim against Ortho Biotech, the Johnson & Johnson subsidiary, regarding the alleged kick back scheme for it's drug Procrit.
This case was spearheaded by Attorney Jan Schlichtmann on behalf of the relators Duxbury and MacClellan and when the trial court dismissed the claim, the appeal was filed and argued in mid 2008 and today's decision affirmed part of the decision but cleared the way for the Duxbury claim on kick backs and rebating tied to the off label marketing and use of Procrit in oncology clinics and hospitals.
In this exclusive interview, Duxbury and McClellan's attorney Jan Schlichtmann discusses the courts ruling, shares his thoughts on the elements that were affirmed as well as the next steps in this long dormant but now front page Whistle Blower case regarding Procrit and the marketing of it's off label use. As long time readers of this page will recall this was also featured in a Wall Street Journal profile on the case at about the time of the original trial in 2007 and while many had given the case up for dead, the Appeals Court has done a comprehensive analysis of what the bar is to filing a Whistle Blower claim and brought in a real stunner on what could be a massive potential claim against Ortho Biotech.
Monday, August 17, 2009 at 2:30PM Four organizations representing Jewish and Iranian Americans have filed an amicus 
brief before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit arguing that a federal judge who dismissed a juror during deliberations for having described Iranians as "stubborn," "rude" and thieves of others' ideas should also have granted a new trial for the plaintiff, who was born in Iran.
The case involves the long-running copyright dispute between MGA Entertainment Inc., manufacturer of the Bratz doll, and Barbie doll maker Mattel Inc. In July 2008, a federal jury found that MGA had violated Mattel's copyright and was deliberating about damages when one juror, referred to in court documents as "Juror No. 8," declared that her husband believes Iranians to be "stubborn, rude, and who have stolen other person's ideas."
MGA's chief executive, Isaac Larian, is Iranian-American. (Source: Law.com)
Scott Drake interviews Simon Frankel, a partner in the San Francisco office of Washington's Covington & Burling, who represents all four amicus organizations.
Thursday, August 6, 2009 at 5:31PM 
Rob Wood's recent article in the Los Angeles Daily Journal explains why qualified settlement funds can be an invaluable time saver. "Whatever you choose to call it, a qualified settlement fund, called a QSF or a Section 468Btrust, is a flexible dispute-resolution mechanism whose time has come. QSFs are enabled by Section 468B of the Internal Revenue Code, which was enacted in 1986, but they really didn’t exist until 1993, when the IRS published regulations detailing their operation.They’ve really taken off only in the last few years. In essence, a QSF allows for a tax-free way station. It is a simple trust that serves as a stopping point after one or more defendants pay money to settle a case but before the plaintiffs receive it."
Scott Drake interviews the host of the Tax Law Channel and partner at Wood & Porter in San Francisco, Robert Wood.