Somerset County Business Partnership, in conjunction with the township-based Norris, McLaughlin & Marcus law firm, will present a seminar, "An Overview of Issues in Designing and Building Green,'' at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 20. The morning-long forum will take place at the offices of Norris, McLaughlin & aMarcus, 721 Route 202/206.

The seminar will provide an overview of the emerging and evolving field of green building, addressing such issues as how and why to build green, available incentives, lending opportunities and legal issues in design and construction.

Noted experts in the field of green building, real estate finance and insurance will participate, including Assemblyman Upendra J. Chivukula, deputy speaker of the State Assembly; Edward Hogan, Chris Stevenson, Jesse Nash, Charles Miller, Melinda Fellner Bramwit and Frank Araps of Norris McLaughlin & Marcus; Michael Kerwin, LEED-certified president/CEO of Somerset County Business Partnership; William Amann, LEED-certified chairman of the state chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council, William Lashbrook of PNC Real Estate Finance, and Raymond Pavese of Pavese-McCormick Insurance Agency.

Registration and networking will begin at 8:30 a.m. A question-and-answer session will follow the presentations at 11:30 a.m. The program will end at noon.

The seminar is free of charge but registration is requested by contacting Cassie Coldreck at 908-722-0755 or ccoldreck@nmmlaw.com.

The Milwaukee and Madison law firm of Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek SC said Wednesday that it has hired Paul Eberle to become the chief executive of the firm.

Eberle becomes one of the first nonlawyers to serve as chief executive of a major law firm, Whyte Hirschboeck said.

Eberle will work through the end of October alongside Mark Miller, the firm’s current CEO, who announced his departure earlier this year after eight years of leading Whyte Hirschboeck. Eberle will begin his new position on Nov. 1.

Bruce Arnold, a managing director at Whte Hirschboeck’s Milwaukee office, said the hiring of Eberle will allow attorneys to focus on providing legal services, enabling the firm to better serve clients around the state. The law firm has more than 150 attorneys and paralegals practicing more than 40 areas of law.

Eberle is a founder and past president of hardware, software, services and leasing firm, Capital Data Inc. in Milwaukee and has served as a managing member at Capital Properties of Wisconsin, a private equity firm involved in real estate investment and management. He also is a founding shareholder of Green Bay-based Lasernet Inc., a print, mail and electronic data services company.

San Francisco officials say cigarette maker Philip Morris has dropped its lawsuit challenging the city's prohibition on tobacco sales at pharmacies.

The announcement Thursday by the city attorney's office follows a federal appeals court ruling denying the company's request for an injunction that would have kept the city from enforcing the year-old law.

City officials say the ban makes sense when tobacco products are unhealthy and drugstores are supposed to promote health.

The city still is defending the law in a separate lawsuit brought by the Walgreens drugstore chain. A Superior Court judge dismissed that case, which is now on appeal.

Attorneys for former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman and ex-HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy said Wednesday they see a positive sign in the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to hear the appeal of former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling.

Like Skilling, some of the charges against Siegelman and Scrushy involved charges that make it a crime to deprive the public of "the intangible right to honest services."

Critics have complained that the 28-word "honest services" law is vague and sometimes used by prosecutors when they are unable to prove another crime was committed.

Siegelman attorney Sam Heldman said the Supreme Court's decision to hear three different cases involving "honest services" charges is a sign that the law is "broad and confusing."

"It shows that some members of the court are concerned prosecutors are overreaching in this whole area of the law," Heldman said.

U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney declined to comment.

Siegelman and Scrushy are waiting to hear if the U.S. Supreme Court will review appeals of their convictions in a government corruption case. They were convicted of bribery, "honest services" mail fraud and other charges in 2006. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this year threw out two charges against Siegelman, but rejected most of his appeal and denied Scrushy's.

The two have also asked U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller in Montgomery to grant them a new trial, citing misconduct by prosecutors, inappropriate communications between jurors and other issues.

Siegelman was accused of appointing Scrushy to an influential hospital regulatory board in exchange for Scrushy arranging $500,000 in contributions to Siegelman's campaign for a statewide lottery. The appeals to the Supreme Court focus heavily on whether prosecutors proved that Siegelman and Scrushy had a "quid pro quo" agreement where they would each receive something of value.

A cadre of murderers and rapists, several of whom victimized young girls, will be set free from North Carolina prisons this month after state courts agreed that a decades-old law defined life sentences as only 80 years long.

Dozens more inmates could be released in the coming months unless the state can figure out a legal recourse to keep them behind bars, officials said Thursday. Gov. Beverly Perdue called them "dangerous criminals" who have repeatedly been denied parole.

"I'm appalled that the state of North Carolina is being forced to release prisoners who have committed the most heinous of crimes, without any review of their cases," Perdue said in a statement.

One of the 20 inmates set for release, Bobby Bowden, had argued that a law adopted in 1974 clearly defined life sentences as just 80 years. The 60-year-old convicted murderer believed that the statute, combined with good conduct credits, means his life sentence is now complete.

The Court of Appeals sided with Bowden last year. North Carolina's Supreme Court rejected an appeal from the state earlier this month after a lawyer from the attorney general's office had argued that the 80-year figure was ambiguous and likely meant to determine when somebody would be eligible for parole.

Washington's secretary of state can release the names and addresses of people who signed petitions calling for a public vote on the state's expanded benefits for domestic partners, a federal appeals court said Thursday.

A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a previous decision by U.S. District Judge Ben Settle in Tacoma to block release of the petitions.

Settle held that releasing the names could chill the First Amendment rights of petition signers.

Stephen Pidgeon, an attorney for the petition sponsors, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Despite the appeals court ruling, the names weren't immediately released.

Janelle Guthrie, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Rob McKenna, said her office must now ask a Thurston County judge to lift a temporary restraining order issued Wednesday forbidding the release of the petitions until the 9th Circuit could rule.

Newly released court documents say the newsman accused of blackmailing David Letterman about his sexual affairs told the TV host's attorney that his client's world was about to collapse around him.

The documents say CBS News producer Robert "Joe" Halderman allegedly told Letterman's attorney that he needed to "make a large chunk of money."

Halderman has pleaded not guilty to trying to extort $2 million from the comedian. Documents in the case were released Thursday in Norwalk Superior Court.

Letterman is not named specifically in the documents, but they refer to Jackoway's "Client No. 1" as a public figure who faced the threat of "a ruined reputation" and damage to his career and family life.