Edward Lazarus

Edward Lazarus is a former Supreme Court clerk and Federal Communications Commission Chief of Staff. In the legal field, Edward Lazarus is known both as a lawyer and for his 1998 book "Closed Chambers," which details his time acting as a Supreme Court clerk for Justice Harry Blackmun during the October Term which began in October 1988 and concluded in July 1989.

"Closed Chambers" was controversial in the legal field for several reasons and has been attacked by a number of members of the legal system. Foremost in the charges leveled at Edward Lazarus by his critics is his violation of confidentiality. Anyone who acts as a law clerk in the Supreme Court is obligated to follow a code of conduct whose rules are explained before service begins. These rules prohibit any law clerk from sharing any confidential information they learn during their service, or from profiting from it. By writing a book in which he shared what he had learned during internal deliberations and publishing it for commercial purchase. critics argued Edward Lazarus had violated the terms of the code of conduct.

In his defense, Edward Lazarus argued that the terms of the Code of Conduct were routinely violated by other law clerks who routinely spoke, on the condition of anonymity, with members of the press. Edward Lazarus also claimed that he had repeatedly discussed the book prior to its publication with Justice Blackmun. However, public statements made by associates of Justice Blackmun stated he was unaware of the publication of the book until it entered the marketplace.

Another part of the Code of Conduct that critics charged Edward Lazarus with violating concerned a clause forbidding clerks from offering any interpretation or explanation of actions taken and rulings issued by the Supreme Court. Because the narrative of "Closed Chambers" explained the rulings made during his term of service, critics argued Edward Lazarus was in violation of this part of the Code.

 Another issue concerning "Closed Chambers" involves the quotation and use of documents. According to the Code of Conduct, no nonpublic documents can be removed from their housing within the building of the Supreme Court at any time. Critics charged that his extensive quotation from these documents demonstrated another violation of the rules of the Supreme Court by Edward Lazarus.

 Among his other public actions, Edward Lazarus served at the FCC from 2009 to the end of January 2012. Following the end of his government service, Edward Lazarus resumed legal practice by rejoining the international law firm of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. Edward Lazarus had been a senior counsel at that firm's Los Angeles offices from 2000 to 2009 prior to joining the FCC. Prior to that time, he was an assistant district attorney in California. His specialty as a private lawyer concerns issues involving appellate litigation. His areas of practice include intellectual property law, matters concerning Federal Indian law, bankruptcy cases.

Alan Brownstein

Alan Brownstein is a legal scholar who is a faculty member of the University of California at Davis. His focus is on issues of constitutional law, with a particular concentration on issues regarding the Free Exercise and Establishment clauses of the First Amendment. Alan Brownstein is particularly concerned with issues of balancing religious and secular concerns.

In a number of papers, Alan Brownstein has advanced the case that the Free Exercise clause of the First Amendment is not as well understood, enforced or interpreted as the Establishment clause. Alan Brownstein has argued that America's history as a country more inclined to religious expression than most has led the courts to often privilege the free expression rights of religious groups rather than those of secular groups. Attendantly, Alan Brownstein argues that standards for ruling on the full implications the Free Exercise clause have not yet properly established the courts.

In a 2010 essay published in the "Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy," Alan Brownstein outlines some of his arguments for why this might be the case. Noting that the courts are more likely to grant freedom of expression to religious organizations rather than secular organizations, Alan Brownstein argues that it is necessary for courts to take an unusual amount of subjective and contextual judgment into consideration when ruling on such issues.

As part of his larger argument, Alan Brownstein has argued that conservative groups which take firm positions on issues such as gay marriage undermine the full use of the Free Exercise expression. Alan Brownstein has argued that if religious organizations are routinely granted the right to express their opinions and act freely, they should be prepared to grant the same freedom of expression to organizations and individuals whose interests are diametrically opposed to theirs.

Lee A. Johnson

Lee A. Johnson is an American judge. After graduating from law school in 1980, he entered private practice. He served as the city attorney of Caldwell, Kansas from 1987 to 1997. In 2001, Lee A. Johnson was appointed to the Kansas Court Appeals system. From 2001 to 2007, Lee A. Johnson served in this capacity until appointed to the state Supreme Court in 2007.

 One notable case Lee A. Johnson has ruled upon recently concerned placing caps on settlement payments related to medical malpractice. The case was filed by a woman who, during surgery to remove her right ovary, instead had her left ovary removed. The woman filed suit and was awarded $759,679.74 in damages. Of this sum, $575,000 was concerned with pain and suffering and related side effects of the surgery rather than pure economic loss. State law stipulates that this type of non-economic compensation should be limited to $250,000. Therefore, the amount of the settlement was modified by the judge.

The plaintiff then filed an appeal challenging the constitutionality of this restriction and the settlement adjustment made by the judge. The doctor also filed an appeal, alleging that the plaintiff had failed to conclusively demonstrate evidence of malpractice and that expert witness testimony had been improperly restricted.

The court heard this case in October 2012. Lee A. Johnson contributed to the majority opinion issued by five members of the Supreme Court. In their opinion, the court noted that placing caps on malpractice compensation is a controversial issue which the state Supreme Court has previously issued conflicting rulings about. The majority opinion went on to state that this restriction did not violate the right to trial by jury, the right to the due course of law and the right to equal legal protection. The majority opinion also stated that this legislation did not constitute  violation of the separation of powers between state and federal governments.

While Lee A. Johnson concurred in part with the majority opinion, he filed a partial dissent alongside fellow justice Carol A. Beier. In their dissent, they noted that they believed the plaintiff's right to trial by jury and due process of law had been violated and did not issue a judgment as to whether the plaintiff's right to equal protection had been violated. However, Lee A. Johnson concurred by the majority concerning the separation of powers.

Lee A. Johnson also concurred with the majority in restoring $100,000 to the plaintiff awarded to cover future medical expenses, which had been granted by a jury but removed by a post-trial judge. The majority opinion concurred that the jury had had sufficient evidence to justify such an award. In total the plaintiff was awarded that amount, $250,000 for noneconomic damages, and roughly $84,000 in medical expenses already incurred. All arguments presented by the doctor concerning her lack of malpractice were rejected.

Amy Klobuchar

Amy Klobuchar is an American attorney currently serving as a Senator for the state of Minnesota. Prior to her assuming this public office in 2007, Amy Klobuchar practiced both private and public law. In 1998, she became the first female county attorney to be elected in Hennepin County. Amy Klobuchar maintained this position from 1999 to 2007, when she assumed the office of Senator.

During her period as Hennepin County Attorney, Amy Klobuchar emphasized the prosecution of repeat offenders and violent criminals as a matter of particular importance to her office. As part of her efforts, Amy Klobuchar was instrumental in the creation of a community prosecution initiative. The first such program was established in Manhattan in 1985. The purpose of such a program is to establish stronger ties between citizens of the area in question and the prosecutors managing it.

Under the supervision of Amy Klobuchar, the community prosecution initiative established in Hennepin County consisted of three different divisions. One, located in the Third Police Precinct, provided a full-time prosecutor tasked with coordinating law enforcement with local police officials and consulting regularly with a community council on the needs and concerns of the area.

The second division of the community prosecution initiative established by Amy Klobuchar is located in the Fourth Police Precinct and is staffed by two full-time prosecutors concerned with juvenile crime. Another prosecutor in this office is concerned with adult crimes. Community initiatives allow community members to participate in the sentencing and rehabilitation process. The third division of the community prosecution initiative established by Amy Klobuchar is located in the city of Bloomington. Here, one full-time attorney is concerned with handling all juvenile crime cases which occur in the area.

In addition to her active work in prosecuting criminal offenses, Amy Klobuchar was a strong advocate for criminalizing driving while intoxicated as a felony level offense in the state of Minnesota. The appropriate litigation was passed, in large part thanks to her efforts.

Following her arrival to the Senate, Amy Klobuchar has been involved in a great deal of high-profile legislation. One bill which Amy Klobuchar co-authored along with two other Senators is known as the "Commercial Felony Streaming Act." This legislation, which is pending and has not yet been introduced to the Senate, concerns streaming copyrighted material on a computer from an unauthorized provider. Currently, this is only a misdemeanor offense.

However, under the terms of the legislation co-authored by Amy Klobuchar, would criminalize such activities at a felony level. In order to be charged with a felony violation, the defendant in question would have to have streamed material whose value was in excess of $2,500 or for which the licensing fees are in excess of $5,000. Furthermore, to be prosecuted the defendant in question would have to made use of this kind of illegal streaming video at least 10 times within the period of 180 days.

Bruce Bennett was an Arkansas politician best known for serving as the state Attorney General from 1957 to 1960, and then again from 1963 to 1966. During his first term as Attorney General, Bruce Bennett was associated with the passage of a series of bills he authored in 1958 with the specific purpose of making it impossible for the civil rights organization the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to operate in the state. Among other things, the bills authored by Bruce Bennett specifically forbid the NAACP from maintaining attorneys in the state and compelled the organization to give the state a complete list of its members. Similar laws passed by the state of Alabama were later deemed unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court in the 1958 case of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People V. Alabama, effectively nullifying his legislative work.

After an unsuccessful run for state governor in 1960, Bruce Bennett returned to the office of the Attorney General in 1963. During this time, he was involved in the creation of the Arkansas Loan and Thrift company. The company was founded by businessman Ernest A. Bartlett Jr., who had come into possession of a building and loan charter whose terms outdated current state laws governing the regulation of savings and loans businesses. The draft for this company's charter was completed in the office of Bruce Bennett, who became a shareholder in the business.

Following the foundation of the company, advertising was successful in soliciting investments from churches and private citizens. The company promised a higher rate of return than could be legally granted by savings and loans institutions, investing the funds into unsafe products while earning roughly $4 million. During this time, the company attracted the attention of the state Savings and Loan Commission. To determine whether the company could be regulated and investigated, the state's savings and loan regulator, Clint Jones, sent Bruce Bennett a series of letter inquiring whether the company could be regulated as a savings and loan association, bank, or insurance company. Bruce Bennett replied in the negative to every query without disclosing his role in the company.

The Arkansas Loan and Thrift company declared bankruptcy in 1967, prompting a renewed investigation, this time from the Federal Savings and Loan Commission. Subsequent legal investigation revealed the role of Bruce Bennett in protecting the company from investigation and regulation. In 1969, he was indicted on charges including securities violations, postal fraud, and wire fraud. However, in the subsequent handling of the case, the presiding federal judge, who was a friend of Bruce Bennett's,  severed the case against him from that of other defendants being charged. Due to his throat cancer, Bruce Bennett was able to receive a number of continuances delaying the start of his trial. Bruce Bennett died in 1979 without ever having been prosecuted for his role in the Arkansas Loan and Thrift Company.

Jan Schlichtmann

Best known for his work on a lawsuit which served as the basis for a best-selling non-fiction book, attorney Jan Schlichtmann is a currently operating attorney best known for his work on the case Anderson v. Cryovac. Though he lost the case, the publicity attendant to the work resulted in more stringent Environmental Protection Agency regulations.

The case was instigated in the early 1980s, when Jan Schlichtmann met with representatives of the town of Woburn, Massachusetts. In 1979, the state's Department of Environmental Quality tested the town's water wells and determined that two out of eight had been contaminated by trichlorethylene, a chemical which had caused cancer in animals in laboratory tests. Trichlorethylene was found to be present in levels five times higher than safe, and the wells were immediately closed. A 1982 investigation by the Environmental Protection Agency traced the contamination to dumping performed at factory grounds used by two companies, the chemical plant of W.R. Grace and the John J. Riley Tannery

Following the closing of the wells, six children who all lived on the same block of Waltham were diagnosed with leukemia. Jan Schlichtmann and his partners agreed to represent the eight families in question in a lawsuit against the two companies. In part due to the arguments presented by lead defense counselor Jerome Facher, the presiding judge agreed to have the trial take place in two parts.

In the first part of the trial, Jan Schlichtmann and his partners were required to demonstrate that W.R. Grace and the John J. Riley Tannery were responsible for the contamination of the wells in question. After 79 days of trial, the jury returned a verdict of guilty regarding W.R. Grace but not for the John J. Riley Tannery. At this point, the trial continued to its second part, in which Jan Schlichtmann was required to demonstrate that the contamination was the direct cause of the development of leukemia.

At this point, Jan Schlichtmann and his partners had incurred a great deal of debt, in part because of the expenses necessitated to commission studies proving a link between trichlorethylene and leukemia development. Unable to proceed with the case fiscally, Jan Schlichtmann and his partners negotiated a $8 million settlement with W.R. Grace.

After the close of the trial, an in-house report produced by the Tannery emerged proving that the company knew that it had dumped waste chemicals in an illegal fashion, leading to contamination. Jan Schlichtmann therefore appealed the ruling regarding the tannery on the grounds that their attorney had knowingly suppressed this evidence. The case was eventually appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals, which agreed with Jan Schlichtmann and ordered the original presiding judge to reconsider the case.

Ultimately, the presiding judge agreed with the claim of withholding evidence. However, in his opinion the judge ruled that Jan Schlichtmann had launched a frivolous lawsuit when filing without this evidence and ruled against him.

John Burris

John Burris is a prominent California-based attorney associated with his work in many cases involving police brutality and discrimination against African-Americans. One of his earliest prominent cases involved the defense of rapper Tupac Shakur, who was arrested by police on jaywalking charges. Shakur alleged that the arresting officers in Oakland had beat him and filed a 1991 lawsuit seeking $10 million damages. John Burris successfully obtained a $42,000 settlement.

In 1992, John Burris became involved in the case of Rodney King, whose beating by Los Angeles Police Department officers in 1991 caused riots. King had initially hired Steven Lerman after his beating, but dispensed with his services in October 1992 in favor of retaining Milton Grimes. Grimes had John Burris and fellow attorney Federico Sayre assist him in preparation of the case. Grimes, John Burris and Sayre were dismissed in August of 1994.

In 1996, Rodney King filed suit against John Burris, Lerman and Sayre. The suit alleged that John Burris and other attorneys had fraudulently charged him for work done on the suit, thereby lessening the size of settlement through fraud. His lawsuit was rejected in appeals court, which concluded that the one year statute of limitations had elapsed by the time King took this legal action.

In 1998, John Burris acted as defense attorney for professional basketball player Latrell Sprewell, who had been charged with reckless driving for forcing another driver off the road before hitting another car, injuring two people. Though he could have been sentenced to six months in prison, a plea bargain was arranged of three months of home detention in addition to two years of probation and a small fine.

From 2000 to 2003, John Burris was a leading counselor representing 119 plaintiffs in a federal district lawsuit filed against the city of Oakland. The

combined civil rights lawsuits concerned four Oakland police officers who were alleged to have committed a number of offenses, including beating prisoners, unlawful detentions, and planting evidence. In 2003, the city of Oakland agreed to a settlement totaling $10.9 million to be divided among the 119 plaintiffs.

In 2009, John Burris acted as leading co-counsel representing the relatives of Oscar Grant, who was shot to death by Bay Area police on New Year's Day. In the incident, Grant had been restrained and was lying on the ground, waiting to be handcuffed, when he was allegedly shot once in the back by officer Johannes Mehserle. As a result, the Bay Area Rapid Transit authority agreed to pay a settlement totaling roughly $5.1 million, including interest accrued.

In addition to his high-profile successes, John Burris has occasionally been the subject of legal action. In 1996, his license to practice in California was suspended for 30 days due to misleading solicitations he had sent to those who had survived natural disasters. John Burris disclaimed responsibility, saying it was done by employees without his knowledge.

George Tiller

George Tiller was a Kansas doctor nationally known as one of three Americans physicians at the time offering abortions after the 21st week of pregnancy. He was shot and killed in 2009 by an anti-abortion activist.

Under Kansas state law at the time, anyone who wished to receive an abortion was required to receive an opinion from two separate physicians who could not be financially affiliated. In 2003, George Tiller faced charges that 19 patients had received second opinions from Dr. Ann Kristin Neuhaus in appointments scheduled through his office.

 In court, George Tiller said that this scheduling arrangement had been established on the basis of his attorney. Each charge carried a potential sentence of up to a year. However, the only witness presented by the prosecution was Dr. Neuhaus, weakening their case. George Tiller was acquitted of all the charges against him, pending an administrative review of his license by the state Board of Healing Arts.

 In May 2009, George Tiller was killed by Scott Roeder, who shot him in the head. Roeder had previously been arrested and convicted when he was discovered transporting explosives in his car in 1996. Initially unidentified as the shooter, Roeder escaped from the scene of the crime but was found and arrested within three hours. He was arraigned on June 2, 2009. At this time, Roeder declined to enter a plea regarding the murder of George Tiller and requested that he be assigned a public defender. A preliminary hearing concerning charges of first-degree murder and aggravated assault was held on July 28.

 In January of 2010, Roeder's arguments successfully argued that he could be charged with "voluntary manslaughter," in which a fatality is committed by someone who honestly believes it to be justifiable. The actual trial began on January 22. During the course of argument, Roeder's lawyers attempted to call two judicial officials who had attempted to convict George Tiller on other charges at earlier dates to testify about his abortion activities. However, the court ruled that this testimony regarding legal abortions was irrelevant and likely to prejudice jurors and disallowed it.

 Scott Roeder took the stand as a witness in the trial of the murder of George Tiller on January 28. During the course of his testimony, Roeder defended himself by saying homicide was justifiable to save the lives of unborn children. However, his attempts to provide graphic descriptions of the abortion process practiced by George Tiller were successfully objected to by the prosecution. At the conclusion of his testimony, the judge reversed the earlier standing and prohibited the jury from convicting Scott Roeder on charges of voluntary manslaughter.

 The day following Roeder's testimony, the jury found him guilty of the murder of George Tiller as well as the two aggravated assault charges. His sentencing occurred on April 1. At this time he was given a sentence of 50 years of incarceration without the possibility of parole.

Michael C. Dorf

Michael C. Dorf is a legal scholar specializing in issues of constitutional law. His work has frequently been cited by courts when rendering verdicts. One of the most prominent cases he was involved in recently was the 2010 Supreme Court case of Christian Legal Society v. Martinez.

The case involved a dispute between the Christian Legal Society and Hastings College of Law, a division of the University of California. Hastings College of Law has an official non-discrimination policy which forbids denying admission to any student on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation. The school took the position that any student organization which wished to receive official recognition from the school, which would include funding and support, was similarly prohibited from such discriminatory practices in admitting members.

Hastings accordingly denied official recognition to the Christian Legal Society, which denied admission to homosexuals. The case made its way to the Supreme Court, where the Christian Legal Society argued that its right to freedom of speech and free practice of religion was being violated. Michael C. Dorf was the primary author of an amicus curiae brief filed by the Association of American Law Schools on behalf of Hastings.

In this brief, Michael C. Dorf argued that Hastings was not violating the constitutional rights of the Christian Legal Society by enforcing an "all-comers" rule requiring that any student group seeking official recognition offer admission to any students who wished to join. The brief further argued that the school had the right to use this rule in deciding how to allocate funding. The Supreme Court agreed with the reasoning made by Michael C. Dorf and ruled 5 to 4 in favor of Hastings.