The National Law Journal's L.A. Legal Pad

Country's youngest lawyer in LA

While you must be at least 18 years old to practice law in California, no one expects anyone to do that.

That is, unless they began law school at age 15. That's the story of Kathleen Holtz of Whittier, who graduated from UCLA's law school this year and started last month at Century City firm, TroyGould.

While the average age to pass the bar is 30, the 18 year old told the Los Angeles Times she thinks she aced it.

If she passed, Holtz would be the youngest lawyer in the country, the State Bar of California and American Bar Association told the Times.

Smith reappointed to Bankruptcy Court

Judge Erithe A. Smith has been appointed to a second 14-year term on the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California, by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the Metropolitan News-Enterprise reports.

Smith, 50, was first appointed to the court in 1994 and served in the Los Angeles Division. She currently serves in the court’s Santa Ana Division. For the last three years she has also heard appeals of bankruptcy decisions on the Ninth Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Panel

Lazar pleads guilty to three counts

Seymour Lazar, the first person to be charged in the government's criminal case against Milberg Weiss, agreed to plead guilty on Thursday morning to three charges, The NLJ reports.

Lazar, a name plaintiff in the firm's class action lawsuits from 1976 to 2004, is the latest person to plead guilty in the case, which alleges that Milberg Weiss and seven of its lawyers conspired to obtain $250 million in attorney fees by paying kickbacks to lead plaintiffs.

In court papers filed yesterday, Lazar agreed to plead guilty to one count of filing false tax returns and one count of obstruction of justice. He also admitted he made false statements in court and agreed to forfeit about $1.5 million in alleged kickbacks.

Lazar faces a maximum sentence of 18 years in federal prison. --Amanda Bronstad

O'Melveny replaces its own lawyers in bias case

O'Melveny & Myers has replaced its own lawyers in a racial discrimination case against the firm after a federal judge ruled that its arbitration agreement was found to be invalid and "unconscionable,” The NLJ reports today.

The firm replaced its lawyer Matthew Eastus, of counsel to its Los Angeles office, with Nancy L. Abell, chairwoman of the employment law department at Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker, and an associate, Cameron W. Fox, both in the Los Angeles office.

"The addition of outside counsel does not reflect any dissatisfaction with the excellent lawyers who have been handling the case to date," Martin Checov, general counsel to the firm told the paper.

Transactional lawyer joins Dreier's Asia Pacific practice

Peter J. Rho has joined Dreier Stein & Kahan’s Los Angeles transactional department as an associate in its Asia Pacific Practice. Rho specializes in mergers and acquisitions, private equity investments, commercial transactions, business launches and turnarounds.

Before joining Dreier, Rho managed his own firm. Prior to that, he served as director of the global transactional team and senior foreign legal consultant for Sojong Partner, a law firm in Seoul, South Korea, where he provided counsel on a variety of transactions from a $63 million buy-lease back of real property to the issuance of $600 million in collateralized bonds and the sale of a Korean bank’s investment trust management subsidiary. In the United States, he has served as an Assistant Deputy District Attorney in Los Angeles, where he worked in the Bureau of Family Support Operations.

He is a member of the California State Bar and is admitted to practice before the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. Last week Rho was appointed as Overseas Hallyu Legal Advisor to administer support to companies of the Korean culture industry for the Korea Foundation for International Cultural Exchange and the International Association of Korean Lawyers. The Korean Foundation of International Cultural Exchange operates under Korea's Ministry of Culture and Tourism. He serves as general counsel for The Manna Foundation for Humanity, a global charitable organization, and is a past Guest Lecturer in Mergers and Acquisitions and Foreign Investment Law at Sogang National University of Korea.

Court interpreters end six-week strike with pay schedule unchanged

Los Angeles County Court interpreters returned to work yesterday after a six week strike that failed to win them the pay increase they sought.

After a state Senate hearing on Monday, court interpreters voted to end the strike as Sen. Gloria Romeria (D-Los   Angeles) promising to take their case to the state legislature.

The strike came when talks broke down with the county as the California Federation of Interpreters union asked for workers pay to increase, like other court employees (excluding judges), after a certain number of years on the job.

Instead, veteran court interpreters are receive the same pay as new interpreters – about $73,000 (1/3 of what they could earn elsewhere according to the union).  This would give them a 5% raise over seven years. They’d been promised a 4% raise and two 3% raises over the following two years.

The city said it was strapped for funds, arguing the extra funds for interpreters are there as a cushion in case there is a need for more interpreters to be hired.

And so hundreds of interpreters in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, about 90% of the union, went on strike on Sept 5.

Union leadership spoke positively that the strike drew public and legislative attention to the salary of court interpreters, who are 70% female and 85% foreign born.

Los Angeles County Superior Court spokesman Allan Parachini said the county was delighted the strike was over.

But while they could not manage with the number of interpreters during the strike, the county realized they could cut their current staff level, Parachini told the Los Angeles Times. A fact, Parachini said, they learned over the process of the strike as they were forced to be resourceful.

Farmers Market can sue Santa Monica for 2003 crash

The California Court of Appeal said lawsuits can go forward against Santa Monica for the 2003 Farmers Market Crash that killed 10 and injured 63 people.

Overturning the Los Angeles County Superior Court ruling that granted the city immunity, the court allows the lawsuits, claiming negligence and reckless conduct by the city and the market's organizers, to proceed. About 40 victims have filed lawsuits.

Law gives drivers 15 years to life for killing under the influence

Drivers can be charged with murder if they kill someone while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, according to a law signed by Gov. Schwarzenegger last week.

The Ambriz Act, named for a former Orange councilman, will require drivers to sign a document acknowledging the change of law next year, that prosecutors can use in future fatal car accidents.

Attorney represents frozen human embryo

An Maryland attorney representing a frozen human embryo trial tried, failingly, to argue that stem-cell research enslaves embryos and causes harm to its "parents," in federal appeals court in Pasadena.

But the attorney, R. Martin Palmer Jr., didn't seem to know what he was appealing at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Instead of challenging the 2006 ruling by the district court in L.A. that lawsuit should have been filed in San Francisco, he gave a rambling sermon on that included biblical references and compared the struggle of frozen embryos to that of slaves before the Civil War - and left the judges rolling their eyes, according to KNBC.

The judges tried to remind him.

The suit was originally filed in 2005 at the U.S. courthouse in Riverside taking on the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine in San Francisco.

Bad decisions at Milberg Weiss

Describing Milberg Weiss leaders as “by turns indecisive, myopic, stubborn and simply unlucky in making big-picture business and legal decisions,” The Recorder takes a look at the firm’s response to the government’s suit that it paid name plaintiffs kickbacks in class action suits.

The article compares the New York’s firm’s response to that of San Diego’s Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins, which was protected from charges by former Milberg Weiss partner William Lerach’s plea deal. A former partner lays the blame for the New York firm's situation squarely at Melvyn Weiss' feet.

In a separate article, the paper analyzes how Milberg Weiss' situation has been complicated by the fact that those making the decisions were people whose own interests in the criminal probe sometimes didn't align with the firm's.