Built of cherry wood and designed from blueprints of courtrooms in the Matheson and West Jordan courthouses - the new $250,000 courtroom is not in any courthouse, but at the personal-injury law firm of Siegfried & Jensen.

"Jurors expect to see cases presented the way it is on television," said law partner Mitchell Jensen. "Instead of describing an accident, it is replayed for them."

At least one 3rd District Court judge is trying the technology. A LCD projector, screen and switchbox donated by LawMedia Center, which is building Siegfried & Jensen's system, were recently installed in Judge Paul Maughan's courtroom.

Maughan believes the equipment will allow for speedier and more efficient trials, while generating less paperwork, state courts spokeswoman Nancy Volmer said.

Prosecutors used the system earlier this month to display crime scene photos and other information during closing arguments in Floyd Eugene Maestas' capital murder trial.

"Nothing in Utah approaches this right now," said James McConkie, of Parker and McConkie, who recently partnered with Siegfried & Jensen. "It allows us to make a more powerful presentation in court."

"We can do a complete dry run of a trial," added law partner Ned Siegfried.

While jurors deliberate their verdict, attorneys can electronically eavesdrop to learn how they reached their decision. In an alcove at the rear of the mock courtroom, the firm has built what amounts to a small television production studio.

The equipment can be used to remotely depose a witness in another state, allow others to watch video depositions from elsewhere and to video-conference with other attorneys.

Lawyer Bradley Parker said the high-tech video depositions are more effective than paper depositions. The equipment can be used to incorporate video, photos, documents and diagrams into the deposition record.

"You can blow it up, highlight it and draw on it, just like they do during the Super Bowl," he said.

Another example: "If we catch a witness in a lie and sweat starts to form on his forehead, we can zoom in for a close-up," Parker said.

McConkie said the video equipment helped quickly settle the case of a woman who claimed her back was injured. The woman was being deposed when she was shown covert video of herself lifting a heavy set of barbells at a garage sale.

The television production equipment was also used in the case of a 5-year-old boy crippled at birth because of a lack of oxygen.

"We put together a settlement CD showing the baby walking and eating and running, sitting, putting on a shirt, and [the caregivers] settled before litigation began," McConkie said. "They could see what kind of client it was and how it would affect the jury," McConkie said.

Jensen said video helps humanize dead and injured clients. "It's hard to tell a story that's so personal without showing them," Jensen said. "It makes it personal. It's no longer a statement about an injury, it's a personal injury."

In its formal response, Yahoo said its board had concluded Microsoft's unsolicited offer "substantially undervalues" the Sunnyvale-based company.

Yahoo indicated it could be lured to the negotiating table if Microsoft ups the ante, without mentioning the price it has in mind.

"The board of directors is continually evaluating all of its strategic options in the context of the rapidly evolving industry environment and we remain committed to pursuing initiatives that maximize value for all stockholders," Yahoo said in a statement.

Investors appeared confident that Microsoft wants Yahoo badly enough to raise the stakes. Yahoo shares rose 25 cents to $29.45 in Monday's morning trading while Microsoft shares fell 48 cents to $28.08.

Yahoo's stock price had dropped by more than 40 percent in the three months leading to Microsoft's bid, valued at $31 per share when it was announced Feb. 1. The offer was 62 percent above Yahoo's market value at the time.

Many analysts believe Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft will eventually raise its bid to $35 to $40 per share, sweetening the pot by $5 billion to $12 billion in an effort to negotiate an amicable sale.

Microsoft was prepared to pay at least $40 per share for Yahoo a year ago, according to a person familiar with the talks between the two companies a year ago. Yahoo wasn't interested then because it was confident in its own strategy, said the person, who didn't want to be identified because Microsoft's 2007 offer was never publicly disclosed.

But a higher bid now could hurt Microsoft's own stock price, which has been slipping amid concerns that a Yahoo takeover could be more trouble than its worth. Microsoft's market value has plunged by more than $40 billion, or 14 percent, since the bid was made public.

Microsoft representatives didn't immediately respond to requests for comment Monday morning.

There’s nothing the Law Blog enjoys more than a big news story told through the prism of the lawyers. (Is there a better way?) So nothing could’ve pleased us more than today’s curtain-raiser in the Legal Times on the behind-the-scenes wrangling of the antitrust and deal lawyers squaring off in Microsoft’s $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo. The latest, according to the WSJ: Yahoo has formally rejected Microsoft’s bid, saying it “substantially undervalues” Yahoo. But Yahoo is leaving the door open for further negotiations.

The Antitrust Argument, David vs. Goliath or Goliath vs. Goliath?

Charles “Rick” Rule may sound like the name of a WWF wrestler, but he’s actually Cadwalader’s D.C.-based chairman and Microsoft’s go-to antitrust counsel. Rule will likely need all his best moves as he fights a two-front antitrust battle.

First, he might have to convince the American Antitrust Institute, among others, that a Microsoft-Yahoo combination, despite its daunting size, is necessary in order to create a viable competitor to Google. Second, Rule will likley have to square off against Google lawyer-in-chief David Drummond, who’s trying to shoot down Microsoft’s economies-of-scale pitch. Working with Drummond are Cleary Gottlieb’s David Gelfand and Wilson Sonsini’s Susan Creighton, the two D.C.-based lawyers who last year helped Google usher its Doubleclick deal through the FTC.

Is a Poison Pill in the Offing?

Simpson Thacher’s New York-based team of Charles “Casey” Cogut, Kathryn King Sudol and Alan Klein might have helped Microsoft launch a bid for Yahoo that, suggests Legal Times, is just high enough so that shareholders can’t afford to say no. That leaves the Yahoo board –represented by Skadden’s Palo Alto-based Kenton King — with one option if it doesn’t want to sell: make Yahoo as unattractive as possible. That, according to the LT, means either a white knight or a poison pill. The pill, also known as a shareholder rights plan, was reportedly put in place by the Yahoo board in 2001. Under the provision, once another company buys 15% of Yahoo’s shares, other shareholders would be able to purchase stock at half-price, which would make the deal more expensive.

The British defense group since June has been the subject of a criminal investigation in the United States of possible anti-corruption law violations related to its activities in Saudi Arabia.

Britain's Serious Fraud Office announced in 2006 that it was halting an investigation into claims that BAE Systems set up a slush fund for some members of the Saudi royal family during the giant 1980s Al-Yamamah deal. Press reports said BAE paid two billion dollars in bribes to the prince with staggered payments, a furnished Airbus A340 and a honeymoon for his daughter.

BAE has not denied the payments and in September US shareholders saying they had been injured filed suit against BAE executives and Prince Bandar.

Plaintiffs, after learning Bandar might sell some of his US properties, asked authorities to ensure that profits from any such sales were not allowed to leave the country.

In a decision announced Tuesday Judge Rosemary Collyer, who is handling the case in a Washington federal court, granted their request. The prince can sell his properties as he likes but the product of any sale would remain in a US account in his name, she ordered.