In the immediate aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, BP publicly touted its expert oil clean-up response, but it quietly girded for a legal fight that could soon embroil hundreds of attorneys, span five states and last more than a decade.

BP swiftly signed up experts who otherwise would work for plaintiffs. It shopped for top-notch legal teams. It presented volunteers, fishermen and potential workers with waivers, hoping they would sign away some of their right to sue.

Recently, BP announced it would create a $20 billion victim-assistance fund, which could reduce court challenges.

Robert J. McKee, an attorney with the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., firm of Krupnick Campbell Malone, was surprised by how quickly BP hired scientists and laboratories specializing in the collection and analysis of air, sea, marsh and beach samples - evidence that's crucial to proving damages in pollution cases.

Five days after the April 20 blowout, McKee said, he tried to hire a scientist who's assisted him in an ongoing 16-year environmental lawsuit in Ecuador involving Dupont.

Davontae Sanford was just 14 when he told police he killed four people in a drug den, drawing their bodies like stick figures to show where the victims died — on the floor, a couch, a chair.

Sanford was sentenced to at least 38 years in prison for the 2007 slayings, which police say were planned as a robbery.

But now he insists his confession was a lie. A veteran homicide investigator agrees that the young man's statements were unreliable. And his attorney is seeking help from an unlikely ally: A hit man convicted in no fewer than eight other murders.

"It's our hope that he will testify for us," defense attorney Kim McGinnis said of Vincent Smothers, who has told police he took part in the slayings.

For more than a year, a judge has been hearing testimony on the teen's request to take back his 2008 guilty plea and seek a new trial. Prosecutors stand behind their case against the teenager, but at least two officers who interrogated Smothers say he took responsibility for the same murders.

The Canadian law firm ‘Merchant Law Group’ has launched a high profile class action suit against Facebook over the social network allegedly breaching the privacy of its users.

Tony Merchant Q.C stated Friday that “this claim asserts that Facebook shamelessly breached the privacy of people who trusted it.”

Facebook has had a number of legal problems over its privacy policies in recent times – On February 4, 2009, without proper communication to or agreement by its Users, Facebook revised its Terms of Service, asserting broad, permanent, and retroactive intentions to reveal Users’ information, even as to Users who deleted their Facebook.com accounts. The Company stated it could make public a User’s “name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising.” Having met with numerous objections from Users and after being threatened with action by U.S. federal government regulators, Facebook withdrew the proposed changes.

This latest claim alleges that the tools provided by Facebook to Users of the social network are materially misleading and calculated to result in unauthorized breaches of Users privacy and conversion of their personal information, including but not limited to the breach of Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act., 2000, c. 5. and other breaches of statute and common law.

A federal appeals court ordered a new trial Thursday for the former chief marketing officer of one of the nation's biggest food products distributors, saying errors by a judge make it necessary to dissolve the conviction and the seven-year prison term that followed.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the new trial for Mark Kaiser after concluding that the trial judge erred in his instructions to the jury in November 2006, resulting in a flawed trial.

Kaiser, 55, of Ellicott City, Md., has been free on bail since he was sentenced three years ago to seven years in prison.

A lawyer for Kaiser did not immediately return a telephone message for comment. Prosecutors also did not immediately comment.

Kaiser was convicted of securities fraud, conspiracy and false filing after prosecutors said he and others enhanced their own bonuses by boosting the company's earnings $800 million from 2000 to 2003 by reporting fake rebates from suppliers.

Kaiser worked for U.S. Foodservice Inc., a former subsidiary of supermarket giant Royal Ahold NV. Ahold sold U.S. Foodservice Inc. in 2007 to a group of buyout firms led by KKR & Co. LLP. Defense lawyers argued at trial that Kaiser was kept in the dark about any financial misdeeds that occurred at the company.

Netherlands-based Ahold's U.S. properties include the Stop & Shop and Giant supermarket chains. U.S. Foodservice is one of the largest distributors of food products in the country, providing to restaurants and cafeterias.

The former head of a mortgage lending company accused of scheming to steal more than $500 million from the government's financial bailout fund has pleaded not guilty in the case.

Lee Bentley Farkas entered the not guilty plea Friday in Alexandria, Va., to charges including conspiracy, bank fraud and wire fraud in connection with the alleged plot at Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Corp.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema set a Nov. 1 trial date despite protests from Farkas' lawyer that it will be impossible for the defense to go through the millions of pages of documents in the case by that time.

Farkas still doesn't have a permanent lawyer because his assets have been frozen. However, the government is expected to unfreeze some of them so he can pay for his defense.

The nation's top civil liberties group on Wednesday issued travel alerts for Arizona, saying the state's new law cracking down on illegal immigrants could lead to racial profiling and warrantless arrests.

American Civil Liberties Union affiliates in Arizona, New Mexico and 26 other states put out the warnings in advance of the Fourth of July weekend. The Arizona chapter has received reports that law enforcement officers are already targeting some people even though the law doesn't take effect until July 29, its executive director said.

The alerts are designed to teach people about their rights if police stop and question them.

The Arizona law requires police, while enforcing other laws, to question a person's immigration status if officers have a reasonable suspicion that the person is in the country illegally. It also makes it a state crime for legal immigrants to not carry their immigration documents and bans day laborers and people who seek their services from blocking traffic on streets.

Attorneys defending the law against constitutional challenges filed by the ACLU and others argue that the Legislature amended it to strengthen restrictions against using race as the basis for questioning by police. Five lawsuits are pending in federal court, and the U.S. Justice Department is believed to be preparing a legal challenge.

Ultimate Fighting Championship competitor War Machine has been sentenced to a year in jail for violating probation after he assaulted people at two San Diego bars.

War Machine pleaded guilty Thursday to two felony counts of assault and to violating probation in a previous assault case. He has a professional fight scheduled for July 9 and was ordered to surrender for jail a week later.

Prosecutors say the 28-year-old fighter knocked away some bottles and glasses on a bar, cutting a bartender. He also got into a scuffle and punched a security guard.

His attorney says an acquaintance started one of the fights but War Machine failed to stop it. The fighter legally changed his name from Jon Koppenhaver.