TL Member Skippy Weinstein Advances Novel Legal Theory in Texting Case

RESTON, VA, May 29 (TLC News) — Morristown, N.J., trial lawyer Skippy Weinstein, inducted in 2003 into The Ten Leaders of Civil Trial Law of Northern New Jersey, this month drew headlines for advancing the novel position that a person texting a driver faced liability when the driver crashed and injured others.

A New Jersey judge Friday dismissed the claim against the texter, but not before Weinstein gained some acclaim for his novel legal reasoning, and for highlighting the dangers of receiving and sending cell-phone texts while driving.

Weinstein, representing a Morris County couple who sustained devastating injuries in a 2009 car collision with a young driver, issued a statement Friday: “Even though the case … has been dismissed, they are comforted by the thought that by bringing the case, it has accomplished the goal of making people think before they text, whether while driving or to someone who is driving. Perhaps it may prevent another tragic accident from occurring.”

According to MSNBC, Morris County Superior Court Judge David Rand said the sender of the text, Shannon Colonna, had no way to know when the driver, Kyle Best, would read the text, and therefore had no responsibility for a horrific 2009 accident in which Best was found at fault.  Weinstein’s clients, David and Linda Kubert, who were on a motorcyle struck by Best, suffered devastating injuries in the crash; David Kubert had his left leg amputated.

The claim against the driver, Kyle Best, is pending.

It’s probably a good thing Weinstein’s novel “aiding and abetting” claim never got to a jury, if the 49 reader comments are any indication. Most of the reader comments on MSNBC.com concluded that the judge exercised “common sense” by dismissing the claim against the texter.

A sampling: “A judge with common sense advocating personal responsibility? Wow. I would like to suggest the Supreme Court for him.” Bernadette Royce, New York, NY.

“Nice to see common sense win out once in a while. If this case had gone on, the door would be open to all kinds of lawsuits for any kind of ‘distractions’.” – Mark DiGiacomo, Dryden, NY.

 

http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/25/11882085-judge-rules-text-message-sender-not-liable-in-distracted-driving-crash-case?lite

http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/22/11797573-could-you-be-sued-for-texting-with-a-driver-experts-say-maybe?lite

http://www.handelonthelaw.com/home/news_details.aspx?News=9004

Personal Injury Lawyer Wins Major Virginia Tech Verdict

BLACKSBURG, VA, Mar. 15 (TLC News) – A jury ruled in favor of two families who lost loved-ones in the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, awarding $4 million to each. Trial lawyer Robert Hall of Reston, VA, and in 2005 named a member of the Ten Leaders of Personal Injury Law of Northern Virginia, was lead counsel to the plaintiffs.

The families of the victims, Erin Peterson and Julia Pryde, had declined to settle with the university, as did most of the other victims’ families.

The jury determined that Virginia Tech was negligent after concluding that the university should have notified the student body following the discovery of two students who had been shot to death in a dormitory room on the morning of April 16, 2007. The larger shooting event — in which a mentally ill man shot and killed 30 more people — took place in another campus building a short time later.

The jury determined the families each deserved $4 million, but the award is likely to be reduced. State law requires such awards be capped at $100,000. The state attorney general’s office said it will appeal.

Dr. Keith Jarrett Named Independent Advisor to Newbridge Media LLC

RESTON, VA, Feb. 21 (TLC News) — Dr. Keith Jarrett has been named an independent advisor to Newbridge Media, parent company of The Ten Leaders Cooperative.

Dr. Jarrett is a media executive, longtime private-equity investor and nationally recognized instructor on entrepreneurship. From 1986 to 2001, he was a founding member and a former unit chief executive of Thomson Financial, the global financial information and technology solutions firm that later acquired Reuters Group Holdings.

Prior to launching his career as a leader and manager of media firms, Dr. Jarrett served as a Captain in the U.S. Army and graduated with honors from the United States Military Academy at West Point. He earned an M.B.A. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, and later a Ph.D. in Financial Economics from Harvard Business School. He also worked as a research associate at Harvard Business School and as a Professor at Simmons College Graduate Management Program.

Today he teaches Financial Entrepreneurship at the Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative at the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Ten Leaders Cooperative Marks Tenth Year

RESTON, VA/FORT LEE, NJ (TLC News) — The Ten Leaders Cooperative, the nation’s original promotional cooperative for experienced professionals, celebrates its tenth anniversary next month, Director Stephen E. Clark announced.

“We knew back in 2002 we’d created an important platform for our members,” said Clark this week, “but the evolution of the marketplace — principally the growth of online search — really defined our role and spurred our growth.”

Clark, a former newspaper publisher and Wall Street financial writer, founded The Cooperative in February 2002. He added that “our members are the reason we’ve been successful.”

The first group, The Ten Leaders of Matrimonial & Divorce Law of Northern New Jersey, was researched in the Spring and Summer 2002 and announced in The New York Times in September of that year. Since then hundreds of groups in the law, medicine and finance have been researched and developed, and more than 800 of the cooperative’s 5,000 inducted members have chosen active membership.

Active membership, proceeds of which sustain and grow the cooperative, involves the development of Ten Leaders materials, including a Ten Leaders profile, which are distributed in print and online for as long the professional practices and remains in good standing in his or her profession.  Ten Leaders profiles are widely regarded as by far the highest quality personal online presentation of an experienced professional today.

Ongoing cooperative advertising campaigns of members and groups of members regularly appear in major metro publications, such as New York Magazine, Washingtonian and Philadelphia Magazine. Online campaigns on Facebook, Google AdWords and major news sites are regularly undertaken for active members as well.

The Ten Leaders Cooperative has profiled experienced professionals throughout the US, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Pittsburgh, New York, Boston, Washington and Atlanta.  Their profiles can be found at TenLeaders.org, TenLeaders.com and related sites, including such domains as LeadingDivorceAttorneys.com and LeadersInPlasticSurgery.com.

The Ten Leaders Cooperative has been recognized as one of the most authoritative and cost-effective marketing solutions for qualifying professionals since the dawn of the digital age.

The Ten Leaders Cooperative is a unit of Newbridge Media LLC, which separately operates Digital Press International, an independent news service whose feature articles are distributed online. Both units are based at the American Press Institute Building, Reston, VA.

For more information about the Cooperative contact Kristin Kahl, 703-391-6833.

 

Health Care Attorney Keith Roberts Joins Brach Eichler

ROSELAND, NJ, Dec. 5 (TLC) — Attorney Keith J. Roberts, since 2006 a member of the Ten Leaders of Health Care Law of New Jersey, has joined the law firm of Brach Eichler L.L.C., based in Roseland.

Roberts, 43, is a longtime health care lawyer with deep roots to the New Jersey health care community, particularly independent practices and physicians.  He joins Brach Eichler  as a member of its health care practice, focusing on insurance litigation and arbitration matters.

Roberts built an early reputation as a successful litigator in Personal Injury Protection car-accident claims against insurance companies. According to his Ten Leaders profile, Roberts “brought a rare zeal to a field that many attorneys regarded as unimportant. In fact, in the late 1990s Roberts’ cases alone represented nearly 5% of all of New Jersey’s 20,000 so-called “PIP Arb” cases – an eye-popping share for a single attorney. That record earned the respect of many of the region’s physicians, whose payments had been held up by denials of insurance claims.”

Brach Eichler has nearly 60 lawyers, many focusing on commercial litigation and health-care matters.

“Early Stage Research” Another Warning for Magazine Industry

RESTON, VA Oct. 14 (TLC News) — Magazines in recent years have seen circulation and advertising declines, and, though not nearly as severe as newspapers, a slow, tough transition to the digital age.

Now an utterly innocent online video, beginning to go viral, may have one of those defining impacts on perceptions:

http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/life/one-year-old-tries-to-work-magazine-like-an-ipad-2583883/

Magazine advertising still has its place, largely because digital advertising – with the notable exception of search – still doesn’t generate the consumer responsiveness that print advertising did for decades.

Ten Leaders Cooperative Hires Kim Eisler as National Editor

RESTON, VA., Sept. 1 (TLC) — Kim Eisler — author, veteran journalist and respected observer of the American legal establishment — has been hired as national editor for The Ten Leaders Cooperative, TLC Director Stephen Clark announced today.

Eisler is the author of four books on the law and law firms, including “Shark Tank” and, most recently,  “Masters of The Game”, published by St. Martin’s Press in 2009.  “Masters of The Game” focuses on the personalities, power and influence of Williams & Connelly, one of Washington’s best known law firms.  For many years he wrote profiles and narratives on the legal community for The Washingtonian magazine.

“Kim and his remarkable skills and experience are an excellent fit for The Ten Leaders Cooperative,” said Clark. “He’s a talented writer and insightful observer of smart and accomplished people. We look forward to distributing and promoting his profiles of our members in the years ahead.”

For additional information related to this announcement, contact Kristin Kahl of The Ten Leaders Cooperative, American Press Institute Building, Reston, Va.

 

 

Bill Johnson, Clay Greene Polled Most Experienced among Marin County, Calif., Divorce Lawyers

SAN FRANCISCO – April 1, 2011 (TLC News) – Veteran Bay Area divorce lawyers Bill Johnson and C. Clay Greene were cited as “most experienced” among divorce lawyers of Marin County by 20 Bay Area lawyers polled in 2010.
Johnson, based in Sausalito, and Greene, of San Rafael, each have more than 30 years of experience handling divorce matters.  They received 15 and 13 references, respectively, when The Ten Leaders Cooperative asked 20 Bay Area divorce and trial lawyers, all based outside Marin, who are the “most experienced” divorce lawyers Marin County. The poll was taken over a three-month period in late 2010.
Johnson is a founding partner of Johnson & Miskel in Sausalito.
Johnson was inducted into Ten Leaders in 2008. His Ten Leaders profile, developed the following year, can be found here:
http://www.tenleaders.com/law/matrimonial-divorce-law/california/north-bay-marin-sonoma-napa/william-johnson/1477/

Greene is a partner of Greene Jordan Taubman & Taubman. His Ten Leaders profile can be found here:
http://www.tenleaders.com/law/matrimonial-divorce-law/california/north-bay-marin-sonoma-napa/clay-greene/1473/

Also receiving votes were Madeleine B. Simborg of Corte Madera and John McCall of San Rafael; according to their offices both are serving as “private judges” handling arbitrations and mediations.

Four TL Members Named Judges in NY, NJ

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 24, 2011 — (TLC News) — Three divorce lawyers and one employment lawyer who are original members of Ten Leaders have been appointed judges in state jurisdictions since 2005, according to Ten Leaders Project Manager Kristin Kahl.

All four — Employment lawyer Kathleen Tomlinson of Long Island,  Linda Christopher of Rockland County, NY, Margaret Goodzeit of Warren County, N.J., and Eric Spevak of Camden County, N.J. — were inducted into Ten Leaders groups in New York and New Jersey in 2003.

The Hon. Linda Christopher was named to The Rockland County Family Court bench in 2004. In 2006 she began serving as an acting member of the New York State Supreme Court.

http://www.judgelindachristopher.com/index.html

Maggie Goodzeit, a member of the Ten Leaders of Matrimonial & Divorce Law of Central New Jersey, was a partner at Greenbaum Rowe Smith & Davis in Iselin, N.J., prior to being tapped as a Somerset County Family Court Judge in 2007.

http://www.greenbaumlaw.com/Newsletter/Article.asp?articleCode=873M39C21I25

Finally, Eric Spevak of Haddonfield, N.J., was named an administrative law judge in 2009 by the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

http://lwd.dol.state.nj.us/labor/wc/content/offices.html

All three are now listed as Alumni of Ten Leaders. The judicial appointments “certainly reflect the competence and integrity of the professionals inducted into Ten Leaders every year,” said Kahl, who is responsible for providing Ten Leaders profiles and related materials to the cooperative’s active members.

(TLC News — March 23, 2011)

Tiki Barber Found His Divorce Lawyer on TenLeaders.com

NEW YORK, N.Y. , March 10, 2011 (TLC News) — Longtime New York Giant star Tiki Barber told his divorce lawyer that he found her on TenLeaders.com, the lawyer reported to TLC this week.

The New York City lawyer, who due to confidentiality constraints could not be identified, is representing the former running back in Barber’s “nasty split” from his wife of 11 years, Ginny Cha.

http://www.bvonmoney.com/2010/06/24/tiki-barbers-divorce-battle-gets-uglier-wife-accused-of-nasty/

What’s more, this week Barber, retired for four years and who will be 36 next month, filed papers with the league to make a comeback in the NFL. The Giants said they plan to release Barber after any settlement in the current talks with owners and players.