Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi escaped conviction in a major corruption trial on Friday after a court invoked a statute of limitations that meant time had run out to sentence him for bribery. Berlusconi welcomed the verdict, which brought down the curtain on a trial that lasted almost five years, saying he had always expected […]

1990 Terri Schiavo suffers brain damage during cardiac arrest, a result of a potassium imbalance that may have been caused by her suspected bulimia. She emerges from her coma but does not regain consciousness. A Florida court appoints her husband Michael guardian.•1992 Michael sues Terri’s doctor and in November wins $750,000 for her and $300,000

Greed and sexual desire drove Martin Frankel to mastermind one of the largest insurance frauds in U.S. history, a federal judge heard on Friday as she sentenced him to nearly 17 years in prison. Once the target of a worldwide manhunt, the Connecticut financier pleaded guilty in May 2002 to racketeering, conspiracy, wire fraud and

Brooklyn judge who grabbed a Legal Aid lawyer in his courtroom while yelling at him about his handling of a traffic case has been publicly censured by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, which rejected a recommendation to remove him from the bench. The judge, Richard N. Allman, who has served in Brooklyn Criminal Court

Linklaters, SJ Berwin, Macfarlanes and Diageo’s legal team were among the big winners at the 2005 Legal Week Awards. Linklaters was named International Firm of the Year with Legal Week’s editorial team citing a year of international expansion, impressive financial performance and slick management. SJ Berwin narrowly beat the highly-rated Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) to

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales acknowledged for the first time that FBI agents used provisions of the Patriot Act during their investigation last year of a Portland attorney who was wrongly jailed for two weeks on suspicion of involvement in the Madrid train bombings. The Patriot Act allows for covert searches of homes, without conventional search

Liquidators to Independent Insurance yesterday said they would sue the collapsed company’s former auditors for a sum thought to be in the region of £300m. Price WaterhouseCoopers liquidators Mark Batten and Dan Schwarzmann said they had served particulars of claim against KPMG and that the claim was based on alleged negligent audit work carried out

Many executives dream of dominating their industries the way BAR/BRI does the business of helping law school graduates prepare for bar examinations. Every law student knows BAR/BRI. Hundreds of thousands of them have taken its courses to pass the bar, an essential step in most states before a law school graduate can practice law. Some

The biggest defection from a UK law firm will be announced today with a 45-strong legal team moving from Denton Wilde Sapte. Eleven partners, 18 lawyers, four trainees and 12 support staff from DWS’s media and intellectual property team have switched to DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Carey, the firm that completed a large transatlantic merger

After deliberating for several months over a fitting punishment for lawyer Gary Neinstein, a disciplinary panel of the Law Society of Upper Canada decided the 62-year-old man must be stripped of his right to practise law for sexually harassing two women in the mid-1990s. Mr. Neinstein, a well-known lawyer in the personal injury field, filed