In the brief submitted to the high court late Monday, attorneys from the University of Texas School of Law argued that the 30-year sentence violates Christopher Pittman's Eighth Amendment protection from cruel and unusual punishment.

Such a lengthy sentence is "unconstitutionally disproportionate as applied to a 12-year-old child," according a copy of the petition provided by Juvenile Justice Foundation. It said Pittman "is the nation's only inmate serving such a harsh sentence for an offense committed at such a young age."

Zoloft is the most widely prescribed antidepressant in the United States, with 32.7 million prescriptions written in 2003. In 2004, the Food and Drug Administration ordered Zoloft and other antidepressants to carry "black box" warnings - the government's strongest warning short of a ban - about an increased risk of suicidal behavior in children.

A law firm took the blame Monday for two Open Meetings Act violations during a Campton Hills Electoral Board hearing that dashed one man's bid for office.

Attorney Bill Braithwaite of Arnstein & Lehr LLC said board members should not have been advised to deliberate in private at the Dec. 10 hearing. An attorney for the firm, Donna McDonald, also failed to make sure the closed-doors deliberations were recorded, he said.

"It was not a good night," Braithwaite said. "We are fully responsible."

In an effort to set the record straight, the board plans to reconvene at 6 tonight at Campton Community Center, 5N082 Old LaFox Road, for the sole purpose of deliberating in public.

Last week's hearing centered on objections to election filings of village president candidate Robert Young and village clerk contender Carolyn Higgins. It resulted in Young being kicked off the Feb. 5 ballot.

At the hearing, the board deliberated privately in a back room, upon the advice of McDonald, then returned to public session to vote.

It wasn't until resident Robert Skidmore Jr. filed a complaint Dec. 11 with the Illinois attorney general that officials acknowledged state statute prohibits electoral boards from meeting in private. Municipalities also are required to keep verbatim records of closed-doors discussions.

Skidmore also alleged that Village President Patsy Smith, who agreed to not participate in the hearing because she is running for office, went into the closed session. But Smith and other officials said that didn't happen.

Founded in 1893, Arnstein & Lehr LLC has offices in Chicago and Hoffman Estates. The firm specializes in five areas of law, including local government, according to its Web site.

Park Il Woo pleaded guilty in federal court on Friday to lying about his role as a South Korean agent, the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan said. Park, who also goes by the name Steve Park, was never charged with espionage.

Prosecutors have said that Park made 50 trips to China and the Korean peninsula over the last several years and had appeared to be engaged in espionage type activities for at least five years.

Park is a South Korean citizen living in the United States. U.S. law requires anyone acting as an agent of a foreign government to register with the attorney general and disclose the nature of the activity.

An FBI agent said in court papers that Park had not registered, though he had admitted meeting with South Korean intelligence officers and agreeing to be paid to travel to North Korea to gather information for South Korea.

According to court papers, Park met with the FBI once in 2005 and twice this year, each time lying about his contacts with or knowledge of certain South Korean officials.

Park's lawyer has said her client is a law-abiding resident, and this case was an instance in which "what appears to be quite bad turns out to be much less."

Former American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. loan officers want a bankruptcy judge to let them alert thousands of other ex-employees that they may be entitled to collect from the failed company for allegedly overworking and underpaying them.

Court papers filed late Friday ask the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., to lift the shield that protects companies in Chapter 11 from lawsuits so American Home workers can be informed of their right to participate in a potential class-action lawsuit.

Those who left their jobs before American Home went under in August "may remain unaware that their employer engaged in illegal pay practices," say lawyers who filed the class action in California before American Home sought Chapter 11 protection.

Due to the bankruptcy filing, lawyers for American Home's suing loan officers need court approval to send out notices about the lawsuit, which was filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. They also need bankruptcy court approval to seek certification of class-action status for the case.

Officials of the liquidating Melville, N.Y.-based company weren't available to comment Monday.

Time could be running out for those entitled to join in the lawsuit, as a Jan. 11, 2008, claims-filing deadline looms in American Home's Chapter 11 case, according to the employee lawyers.

Plans are to file a proof of claim in the bankruptcy case on behalf of employees involved in the class action, which began in June. But if employees don't know about the class action and don't sign up, they won't be included in the bankruptcy claim.

The California class action alleges violations of federal labor law and state wage and hour laws for California, New York, Illinois, Wisconsin, Colorado, New Jersey and Washington.

Long hours without overtime were an occupational hazard for loan officers in the heyday of home lending, if the lawsuits filed against mortgage companies are any indication.

New Century Financial Corp. of Irvine, Calif., and Atlanta's HomeBanc Mortgage Co., both of which filed bankruptcy this year, also have been accused in court of violating overtime pay laws.

"What they do is hire a bunch of people and tell them you must work 60, 70, 80 hours a week and they think because these people are paid on commission basis that they are exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act," said Marshall A. Adams, whose Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.-based firm Adams, Cassidy and Piccolo is handling the HomeBanc litigation.

Texas law firm Hughes & Luce LLP will merge with international law firm Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis LLP.

Partners at both firms today voted to merge the two firms, creating a law firm of more than 1,500 lawyers in 23 offices located throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia. Dallas-based Hughes and Luce has 150 lawyers across its offices in Austin, Dallas and Fort Worth.

The merger will be effective Jan. 1, 2008.

"Partners of both firms believe that K&L Gates will serve Texas businesses as a legal bridge to the globalized economy of the 21st century, just as it has in other parts of the United States, Europe and Asia," says Peter Kalis, K&L Gates' chairman and global managing partner and Edward Coultas, Hughes & Luce's managing partner.

The combined full-service firm will be called Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis LLP and will have offices in Anchorage, Austin, Beijing, Berlin, Boston, Dallas, Fort Worth, Harrisburg, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, Miami, Newark, New York, Orange County, Palo Alto, Pittsburgh, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, Spokane/Coeur d'Alene, Taipei and Washington, D.C.

Patterson could face as many as 25 years in prison when he is sentenced in April, prosecutors said.

Two other men — Kevin James, 31, and Levar Haley Washington, 28 — pleaded guilty in the case last week. A fourth, Hammad Riaz Samana, has been declared mentally unfit to stand trial and is undergoing psychiatric care at a federal prison.

All except Samana, a citizen of Pakistan, are American-born Muslim converts. The men were indicted in 2005 for what authorities said was a plot to attack American military facilities, Israeli government offices and synagogues in the Los Angeles area.

Prosecutors said the plot was orchestrated by Washington, Patterson and Samana at the behest of James, an inmate at California State Prison in Sacramento and founder of the radical Muslim group Jamiyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh.

Patterson has cooperated with authorities, according his attorney, Winston Kevin McKesson.

"He volunteered to work for the government after finding out James lied," McKesson said. "James misled them in what the Quran says."

The plotters were within weeks of being able to carry out an attack before they were discovered about two months before the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur, officials said. Police uncovered the plot in July 2005 while investigating a string of gas station robberies that authorities say were committed to finance the attacks.