The Lovells law firm plans to close its Chicago office by the end of October, sending 22 lawyers and 25 other employees scrambling to find work.

The London firm is set to merge with Washington-based Hogan & Hartson on May 1, creating one of the world's largest law firms with $1.8 billion in revenue and 2,500 lawyers in 40 offices. But the new firm, to be called Hogan Lovells, will not have a presence in Chicago.
Lovells said it decided to exit the city after 15 years because the performance of the Chicago office has declined in recent years.

In a statement Tuesday, David Harris, Lovells managing partner, said: "[The reinsurance market] is an area which has seen changes in work patterns and the office has been affected by a number of significant conflict situations. Despite the best efforts of partners in Chicago and elsewhere, this has had an impact on the office's overall performance in recent years and the position is not expected to change."

Conflicts and deteriorating performance had contributed to departures from the Chicago office in recent months. The office used to have more than 30 lawyers.

Yet, legal observers in Chicago said they thought the merger with Hogan would save the office. The decision to shut down was made independent of the merger, Harris said.

But the just-enacted health care overhaul law contains a provision that changed the federal False Claims Act in a way that would appear to allow new, similar lawsuits to go forward.

The court voted 7-2 to hold that a technical, though important aspect, of the federal whistleblower law applies to local governments. One section of the law prohibits whistleblower lawsuits when public disclosure of the alleged fraud occurs through a court hearing, a news report or congressional or administrative audit.

In an opinion by Justice John Paul Stevens, the court ruled that the language on administrative audits refers to a report prepared by any government, not just a federal government document. The question had divided federal appeals courts.

Justice Sotomayor dissented, saying her colleagues "misread the statutory text" to limit whistleblower claims. Justice Stephen Breyer joined the dissenting opinion.

But, in any event, the health care legislation signed by President Barack Obama last week changed the false claims law so that it now refers specifically to federal reports. Stevens noted the change in a footnote to his opinion, but said it did not affect pending lawsuits.

Secured creditors are owed about $300 million by owners of The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News. They want to use that "IOU" to make a so-called "credit bid" for the company.

The auction is scheduled for April 27. A local group that includes current investor Bruce Toll, the housing company founder, and chemical company heir David Haas has made an opening $67 million bid.

A federal appeals panel issued a 2-1 decision this month that lets Philadelphia Newspapers deny creditors the right to bid with the money owed them. The lenders this week asked the full 13-judge court to hear their appeal, charging that the ruling upends decades of precedent and will disrupt the credit industry.

"The panel decision in this case represents a startling break with decades of established bankruptcy practice and a repudiation of basic principles of bankruptcy law," the creditors wrote in the 122-page motion filed Monday.

A South Korean woman who worked as an escrow agent at a Seattle law firm for 16 months has been charged with 114 counts of theft after authorities said she embezzled more than $825,000 from her employer.

Heather "Veronica" Pak, 41, was arrested by Seattle police last week and has since been charged with the felonies. She is being held at the King County Jail in lieu of $300,000 bail.

According to police, Pak embezzled funds designated for the Shim Law Firm via checks, credit cards and real-estate transactions.

As the law firm's escrow agent, Pak had signing authority on the firm's trust accounts at Pacific International Bank and Bank of America, court papers said. She was authorized to write business checks and had access to a company credit card, which authorities say she used for personal spending, charging documents said.

Pak also collected insurance money for the firm's personal-injury clients. In one case, she allegedly forged the signature of a client so she could intercept a $7,500 payment, court charging papers said.

Pak wrote a series of checks that conveyed $20,000 to her sister, $161,799 to her brother, $98,500 to herself and $78,891 to a man who turned what he received back over to Pak, court charging papers said.

Torn is scheduled to appear in Litchfield Superior Court on Tuesday morning.

State police say the 79-year-old actor was so intoxicated on the night of Jan. 29 that he broke into a bank with a loaded gun thinking it was his home in Salisbury in northwestern Connecticut.

Torn went into an alcohol rehabilitation program after his arrest.

Torn had received probation last year as part of a Connecticut DUI case and also had alcohol-related arrests in New York in the past.

Robert Pritchard Sr., of Fairchance, got 63 votes for a district judge post in southwestern Pennsylvania in the May 2009 primary. He got zero votes in two of 19 precincts. The incumbent got 2,900 votes and another challenger got 957.

Pritchard says people could have voted illegally because the county allegedly hasn't properly purged 25,000 dead or unregistered voters from its rolls. County attorneys say that had nothing to do with Pritchard's lopsided loss.

Two state appeals courts previously rejected his appeal.

On Friday, Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ordered Snyder to pay $16,510 to Fred Phelps. Phelps is the leader of the Westboro Baptist Church, which conducted protests at Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder's funeral in 2006.

The two-page decision supplied by attorneys for Albert Snyder of York, Pa., offered no details on how the court came to its decision.

Attorneys also said Snyder is struggling to come up with fees associated with filing a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court.

The decision adds "insult to injury," said Sean Summers, one of Snyder's lawyers.

The high court agreed to consider whether the protesters' message is protected by the First Amendment or limited by the competing privacy and religious rights of the mourners.